Page:America's National Game (1911).djvu/319

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AMERICA'S NATIONAL GAME
289

with these cities represented: Baltimore, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Louisville, New York, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Washington.

I was President of the Chicago Club at the time of the Brotherhood War, and also Chairman of the "War Committee " of the National League. I naturally had a good deal to do with affairs, and was quite conversant with the inside workings of the scrap machine. Under these circumstances, and knowing that I might be charged with being a prejudiced historian, I have decided to introduce here a story of the causes that led up to the Brotherhood defection of 1890, from an account written by the late Henry Chadwick, the original manuscript of which I found in the library received from his wife after his demise in 1908, as follows:

"The chapter of League history covering the revolt of the League players, which was inaugurated in New York in 1889, is one which not only began a new era in professional club management, but it also exhibits some of the peculiar characteristics of the majority of the fraternity in a very striking light. The fact, too, that the secession movement had its origin in the New York Club's team of players, which club had petted its players for years, only emphasized the fact of the ingratitude for favors done which marks the average professional ball player.

"The revolt of the League players unquestionably grew out of the ambitious efforts of a small minority to obtain the upper hand of the National League in the control and management of its players. Added to this was the desire for self-aggrandizement which influenced a trio of the most intelligent of the players, headed by one man who was the master mind of the whole revolution scheme in connection with the Brotherhood, to its culmination in the organization of the Players' League; and it was the former organization which the leader of the revolt used as a lever to lift them into the position of professional club magnates.

"The methods adopted by the originator of the revolutionary scheme were of a nature well calculated to mislead the majority of the players. It would not have done to openly seduce the leaders of the League from their club allegiance; so it was deemed necessary