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| Date
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Wednesday, September 7, 1887
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| Text
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[a letter from “a prominent base ball official of one of the minor leagues” to Manager Hart of Milwaukee] I write this letter to you to suggest the advisability of an organization of the minor base ball leagues for self-protection. Under the present order or things the minor leagues are compelled to put up with whatever unfair legislation the two older organizations choose to make, and it will always be so until we organize and demand fair treatment. I believe that if a convention of minor leagues was called and an organization formed a great many of the present abuses that we are now comp0elled to submit to could be corrected. The best of our local players have been tampered with over and over this season direct by the managers of the two older associations, and when we complained to President Young, of the National League, his answer was that he knew it was not right, but there was no remedy for it. This sort of thing made these players thus tampered with play indifferent ball, with a view to getting their release, and has caused us a great deal of annoyance all through the season. Another serious imposition we have to submit to is in our not being allowed to reserve players like the National League and American Association. The minor league club goes to the expense of developing a good player and then, being unable to reserve him at the close of the season, must stand idly by and see him gobbled up, without any compensation, by the two preferred leagues, and probably with a view to selling him back again in the spring to the same league from which he was taken. The better thinking people of the National League and American Association know this is not right, and would not defend themselves very hard if we made a good fight against them. I write this letter to you for the reason that you are better known to the base ball world, and because I believe that you would be the proper person to start the move. My idea is that a convention should be called in time to allow us to have a representative at the next joint meeting of the League and American Association.
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| Source
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Sporting Life
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| Tags
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| Warning
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| Comment
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| Query
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| Submitted by
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Richard Hershberger
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| Origin
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Initial Hershberger Clippings
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