SPALDING'S BASE BALL GUIDE for 1895 is the twentieth annual edition of the work issued under the auspices of the National League. It is also the fifteenth annual edition published under the editorship of Mr. Henry Chadwick, he having first entered upon his editorial duties on the GUIDE in 1881. Moreover, it is the fourth annual edition issued under the government of the existing major League, which League was the result of the reconstruction measures adopted during the winter of 1891-92; and this latest issue of SPALDING'S LEAGUE GUIDE in several respects, if not in all, surpasses all of its predecessors. New features are presented in its pages this year which are of special interest; the most noteworthy being the new record of every game played in the League championship series—-won, lost or drawn—-from April 19 to September 30, 1894, inclusive; the names of the opposing pitchers in each game; being a record never before published in any base ball manual, this alone making the GUIDE of 1895 a model book of reference for the whole base ball fraternity. Added to this are not only the full statistics of the League season of 1894, but also special articles on the latest scientific points of play developed in the professional arena; together with editorial comments on the leading events of the past season—-now regarded as one of the interesting features of the book—-and the scores of the model games of 1894, etc. A new chapter is "The Reference Guide," devoted to statistics valuable as references. In addition to which is the new code of rules which went into effect in April, 1895, and the editorial explanatory appendix, revised by President Young of the League; the whole making the GUIDE the model base ball manual of the period, the book being of special value, alike to the amateur class of the base ball fraternity, as to the class of professional exemplars of the game.
AMERICAN SPORTS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 241 BROADWAY, NEW YORK CITY.
* * * * *
WASHINGTON, D. C, March, 1895.
By authority vested in me, I do hereby certify that Messrs. A. G. Spalding & Bros, have been granted the exclusive right to publish the "OFFICIAL LEAGUE BOOK" for 1895.
N. E. YOUNG,
Secretary of the National League and American Association of Professional
Base Ball Clubs.
[Illustration A.G. Mills; N.E. Young; Wahulbert—The Three Presidents]
[Illustration: Baltimore Base Ball Club. Champions of 1894.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: New York Base Ball Club, '94.]
INTRODUCTION.
The decade of the nineties in League history bids fair to surpass, in exciting events, that of every preceding series of years known in the annals of professional base ball. The decade in question began with the players' revolt in 1890 and was followed up by the secession of the old American Association, a fatal movement, which ended in the death of that organization in the winter of 1891-92; the reorganization of the National League resulting in the absorption of the best half of the old Association clubs and the beginning of the experiment of governing the whole professional fraternity by one major League instead of by a dual government as before; this one powerful League being itself controlled by the laws of the "National Agreement." The cost of the amalgamation of the four American Association clubs with the National League, together with the financial losses incurred by the revolutionary period of 1890 and 1891—losses, by the way, which the players did not participate in, the clubs alone being the sufferers—left a heavy burden of debt to handicap the reconstructed National League in its efforts to recover the public confidence in professional ball playing lost by the malcontents of 1890 and 1891. But, nevertheless, the seasons of 1892 and 1893 saw the heavy indebtedness removed from the League's shoulders; and in 1894 the flourishing financial times of 1888 and 1889 were, in a measure, renewed, and for the first time since the Brotherhood revolt of 1890, the professional base ball business in 1894 became a paying investment.
It will scarcely be believed that, in the face of the financial losses incurred during the revolutionary period of 1890 and 1891, that the closing part of the season of 1894 saw another attempt made to renew the troubles of 1891, by an effort made to resuscitate the defunct American Association under the banner of "Death to the League's reserve rule," together with that of a joint attempt made to revive the old Brotherhood plan of rival League clubs in the larger base ball cities of the Union. This revolutionary effort, made by one of the promoters of the revolt of 1890, aided by two dismissed managers and a disgruntled star player itching for notoriety at any cost, led the magnates of the National League to adopt repressive measures calculated to put an end to any future revolutionary efforts of the kind, by severely punishing any League club manager or player who should prove recreant in fealty to the laws of the National Agreement, or who should join in any attempt to organize any base ball association opposed to the reserve rule, which rule over ten years' experience had proved to be the fundamental law and corner-stone of the professional base ball business. Without such a repressive law it was evident that the League would be subject to periodical attempts on the part of unscrupulous managers or players to war upon the reserve rule for blackmail purposes. The necessity for some such law was made evident by the recent efforts made to organize a new American Association on the basis of not only warring upon the reserve rule but of trespassing on the territorial rights of existing League clubs.