Cincinnati retired from the league in 1881, Detroit being admitted. Chicago again won the championship. This year marked the advent of modern professional baseball in New York City. The Eastern Association was formed April 11, with the Metropolitan, New Yorks, Athletics, of Philadelphia; Quick Steps, Atlantics, of Brooklyn, and Nationals, of Washington. The American Association, a formidable rival of the National League, was organized at a meeting held in Cincinnati on November 2, and started the following season with the Athletics, of Philadelphia, and Baltimore in the East; Alleghany, of Pittsburgh; Cincinnati, Eclipse, of Louisville, and St. Louis in the West.
There were no changes in the make-up of the National League in 1882, but in 1883 Troy and Worcester dropped out, and New York and Philadelphia were admitted. With the advent of the National League in New York, the Metropolitans joined the American Association. Brooklyn signalized its first year in the Interstate League by winning the championship of the organization.
The season of 1884 proved a memorable one in the history of the National game, inasmuch as the Union Association was organized in opposition to the National Agreement. The league's rival placed clubs in Altoona, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington in the East; and Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis in the West. Only five of the original clubs finished the season. Altoona disbanded, and was replaced by Kansas City. Later Milwaukee and St. Paul helped finish the schedule.
The season, which had opened so bright, was one of the most disastrous, financially, in the game's history. Club after club and league after league suspended. Players became panic-stricken at the outlook, and for a time the popularity of the game was threatened. It weathered the storm, however, and then followed a period of unexampled prosperity that lasted until the outbreak of the Brotherhood trouble, which resulted in the war of 1890, the hardest fight the National League ever had.
The War of League and Brotherhood.
The reserve clause in contracts was the direct cause of that struggle. A majority of the players who had been reserved by the clubs of the National League for the season of 1890 held meetings during the winter and with a number of capitalists formed the Players' League, with clubs paralleling the National circuit.
Then followed a bitter and relentless war, in which the National League was not the only sufferer, but several American Association and minor league clubs as well. The National, to strengthen itself, admitted Brooklyn and Cincinnati to replace Washington and Indianapolis. The majority of the latter team was transferred to New York, among them being Amos Rusie, the wonderful pitcher.
The fight was carried on at a tremendous financial sacrifice, but that winter the differences between the National and Players' Leagues was satisfactorily adjusted by the consolidation of a number of clubs. In the distribution of players, however, the claims of the American Association were ignored and that organization continued the war another year, invading the National League territory at Boston and Cincinnati. The latter club disbanded in midseason, Milwaukee taking its place.
The differences were finally adjusted on December 17, when the Athletics, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, and Milwaukee clubs resigned from the American Association, and the four remaining teams were admitted to the National League, which became a twelve-club body, with a circuit consisting of Boston, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Washington, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, Louisville, and Baltimore. This arrangement continued in effect until 1899, when Baltimore, Cleveland, Washington, and Louisville were dropped. Baltimore was consolidated with Brooklyn, while Cleveland was transferred to St. Louis.
The players of the other clubs were either released or distributed throughout the circuit. The Western League, under the able management of Ban Johnson, at a meeting held in Chicago in 1899, changed its name to the American League. It entered Chicago that spring with a team under the management of Charles Comiskey, thus inserting the wedge that enabled it to become a major league in the fullest sense of the term.