Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Mordecai Brown

Page 137

Sinclair, ice magnate Phil Ball, and George S. Ward of the Ward Baking Company.

As a major circuit, the Federal League consisted of eight teams each season. Four of the teams were placed in cities with existing major league baseball teams; Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Brooklyn. The other four teams were placed in areas without a current major league club; Baltimore, Buffalo, Indianapolis and Kansas City. In the first year, 1914, some of the teams had official nicknames and some did not, but either way, sportswriters were inclined to invent their own nicknames; "ChiFeds," "BrookFeds," etc. By the second season, most of the teams had "official" nicknames, although many writers still called many of the teams "Feds."

In order for the Federal League to succeed, it needed Big League players. Walter Johnson signed a three-year contract with the Chicago team, but the Senators' Clark Griffith went personally to Johnson's home in Kansas and made a successful counter-offer. AL and NL players that jumped to the Federal League included Bill McKechnie, Claude Hendrix, Jack Quinn, Russell Ford, Tom Seaton, Doc Crandall, Al Bridwell, and Hal Chase. The Federal League also recruited Big League names to manage and play for the new teams. Joe Tinker managed the Chicago team, Mordecai