Nov 23, 2020
We celebrate the Society for
American Baseball Research's fiftieth anniversary with a look back
at one of the most pivotal events in major league baseball history
- and featured in the group's newly-released commemorative
anthology "SABR: 50 at 50".
Longtime Society contributor
Bob Bailey ("Four Teams Out: The National League Reduction of
1900") revisits his 1990 Baseball Research Journal article
describing how a fledgling 12-team, 1890s-era National League pro
baseball monopoly found itself on the brink of implosion - as
financial imbalance, competitive disparity, self-dealing common
ownership, and a pronounced national economic Depression
collectively threatened the circuit's very survival by decade's
end.
As a result, the NL eliminated
four franchises for the 1900 season - all former refugees from the
previous American Association:
- Ned Hanlon's "small ball"-centric (original) Baltimore Orioles (AA: 1882-92; NL: 1893-99);
- The Cy Young-led Cleveland Spiders (AA: 1887-88; NL: 1889-99);
- The woeful original Washington Senators (AA: 1891 as the "Statesmen"; NL: 1892-99); AND
- Louisville's first and only major league baseball team - the Colonels (née Eclipse)
By 1901, Baltimore, Cleveland
and Washington each had new franchises in Ban Johnson's
NL-challenging American League - with Louisville never returning to
major league play.