The Inter-State Association, another minor league, had its organization in 1882. Its clubs were from Brooklyn, Gamden, Harrisburg, Pottsville, Reading, Trenton and Wilmington. Brooklyn won the championship.
The early years following the opening of the decade of the 80's witnessed a continuation of the struggle of the National League to maintain control of the game and preserve its integrity. Despite the fact that the League management had displayed an iron will as regards the eradication of old abuses; notwithstanding that, for the first time in the history of Base Ball, discipline had been strictly administered to refractory and dishonest players and to defaulting clubs; although protests against desirable innovations introduced by the League had failed to produce any effect in the way of causing their withdrawal, the backbone of opposition was not yet broken. There was slumbering discord among certain players. There was jealousy on the part of ambitious would-be magnates. There was the ever-present hostility of the gamblers, and there was open criticism of League methods by the class that is always "against the government."
In 1882 an organization was formed whose avowed purpose it was to rival the National League. This was the American Base Ball Association, and its leading spirits were H. D. McKnight, of Pittsburg, and Chris. Von der Ahe, of St. Louis. Mr. Von der Ahe was proprietor of a pleasure resort in the suburbs of his city, and he came to be interested in Base Ball from the fact that games constituted one among other attractions to his place.
