Spring-1893:

The somberness of the past winter begins to melt away as the flowers begin to bloom, but all is not well in the nation. In the last days of his presidency, Benjamin Harrison, sat back as the Reading Railroad, went into receivership. That collapse was soon magnified by the failure of hundreds of banks and businesses dependent upon the Reading and other railroads. The stock market reacted with a dramatic plunge. Fearing further collapse, European investors pulled their funds from the United States, but depression soon gripped the other side of the Atlantic as well. An ongoing agricultural depression in the West and South deepened, spreading the misery to those regions as well. The Mid-Western United States, largely reliant on customers and suppliers in their region largely remained unaffected outside of some of the cities along contact points with other regions most notably Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.

The league meets to discuss financial situations, and despite no team currently suffering any serious issues, some worry that this season or next could be their last. Regardless of this, the league agrees to move forward with the season with a few minor changes to the structure of the league;

• Division realignment; New York, Boston, and Philadelphia join the East while Cincinnati joins the West
• Small extension to 52 + 2 exhibition games


• 20 Saturday, 20 Sunday, 10 Friday, and 4 Thursday games
• 8 games against each of your division's teams, 4 home & 4 away (40 games)
• 2 games against each of the other divisions's teams, 1 home & 1 away (12 games)
• 2 exhibition games against regional minor or negro teams


• Extension of end of season to play-off structure;


• 3 game series between the top 2 in each division
• 3 game series between division series winners


• Hard salary cap established, set at $45,000

James O'Cahill also informs the league that his team has decided to adopt the Admirals as their name & identity.

League as of 1893:

West Division:

1. Chicago Braves: owned by William Hulbert, plays at Memorial Field (capacity of 3,000)
2. St Louis Malt-Men: owned by the Busch Family, plays at Busch Field (capacity of 2,000)
3. Fort Wayne Generals: owned by Linus Gerzburg, plays at Gerzburg Field (capacity of 1,300)
4. Indianapolis Grays: owned by the Kingan brothers, plays at Kingan Field (capacity of 2,000)
5. Milwaukee Brewers: owned by Rolf Stoiber, plays at Athletic Park (capacity of 2,150)
6. Cincinnati Red Stockings: owned by James Kenton, plays at League Park (capacity of 4,000)

East Division:

1. New York Giants: owned by John B. Day, plays at Manhattan Field (capacity of 10,000)
2. Cleveland Spiders: owned by Francis "Frank" Robinson, plays at Riverside Field (capacity of 5,000)
3. Boston Admirals: owned by James O'Cahill, plays at the Congress Street Grounds (capacity of 8,000)
4. Detroit Brown Stockings: owned by Frederick K. Stearns, plays at Recreation Park (capacity of 2,500)
5. Pittsburgh Burghers: owned be Ned Hanlon, plays at Exposition Park (capacity of 1,500)
6. Philadelphia Athletics: owned by William A. Sharsig, plays at the Jefferson Street Grounds (capacity of 9,500)


Uncertainty is in the air leading up to the season as the nation struggles to survive in this economic turmoil. The league fears it will lose teams, and potentially worse.


Stay tuned for the 1893 season.....

Last edited by HooiserAltHistorian (12/27/2019 10:58 pm)

Glad to see another installment. Is Pittsburgh hampered by their tiny park in generating more income?

Winter-1893/4 => Spring-1894:

Following a tumultuous fall for the league in terms of owner disagreements, things begin to settle down as talks with the Appalachian League finalize in the early days of the new year. The league agrees to admit the teams from Baltimore and Washington, with the intention to expand to Louisville and Charlotte once a stable owner is found, as both cities had experienced 4 different clubs in the 4 seasons of the Appalachian League. The new teams to be admitted in the 1894-Season are;

1. Washington Senators: a team with a nickname that has been carried by multiple clubs, but with their new ownership under J. Earl Wagner, they look to be a stable and competitive club. They will play their games at Boundary Field which is on the city's limits, giving the club room to expand the field from it current capacity of 3,500.

2. Baltimore Orioles: another causality of the American Association folding 5 years prior, this club had been reduced to the barely professional App. League. Owned by the brilliant financier Harry Von der Horst , the team, much like the Senators, is ready to compete in a new league with the opportunity to bring success to the city. The will play their games at Union Park in heart of Baltimore whose capacity of 5,000 will suit the city very well.

With expansion set and ready the league owners all meet to discuss the format of the season and changes to the league structure:

- The name of the league will officially change to the National Professional Baseball League (NPBL), to reflect its ever growing region of play
- The league's schedule will increase to 81 games
- Elimination of required 2 exhibition games, but pre-season exhibitions are still encouraged
- Elimination of specific day requirements
- 60 games against division teams, 5 home & 5 away for each team
- 21 games against other divisions' teams, 3 home & 3 away for each team
- Series of games are encouraged in 2 or 3 game pairs to avoid excessive travel
- Post-season will stay at top 2 teams in each division playing a 3 game series to determine division winner
- Final series between division winners will remain as 3 games as well=12px- Detroit moves to western division as Baltimore & Washington join the eastern division=12px- League fee for teams increased to $3,250 to cover purchase of league's first headquarters building in Cleveland and to expand advertising efforts

League as of 1894 Season:

Western Division:

1. Chicago Braves: owned by William Hulbert, plays at Memorial Field (capacity of 3,000)
2. St Louis Malt-Men: owned by the Busch Family, plays at Busch Field (capacity of 2,000)
3. Fort Wayne Generals: owned by Linus Gerzburg, plays at Gerzburg Field (capacity of 1,300)
4. Indianapolis Indians: owned by Eli Lilly, plays at the newly renamed and expanded Lilly Park (capacity of 3,000)
5. Milwaukee Brewers: owned by Rolf Stoiber, plays at Athletic Park (capacity of 2,150)
6. Cincinnati Red Stockings: owned by James Kenton, plays at League Park (capacity of 4,000)
7. Detroit Brown Stockings: owned by Frederick K. Stearns, plays at Recreation Park (capacity of 2,500)

Eastern Division:

1. New York Giants: owned by John B. Day, plays at Manhattan Field (capacity of 10,000)
2. Cleveland Spiders: owned by Francis "Frank" Robinson, plays at Riverside Field (capacity of 5,000)
3. Boston Admirals: owned by James O'Cahill, plays at the Congress Street Grounds (capacity of 8,000)
4. Pittsburgh Pirates: owned by Denny McKnight, plays at the temporarily expanded Exposition Park (capacity of 2,750) as new ballpark is being built with intentions of opening mid-1894
5. Philadelphia Athletics: owned by William A. Sharsig, plays at the Jefferson Street Grounds (capacity of 9,500)
6. Washington Senators: owned by J. Earl Wagner, plays at Boundary Field (capacity of 3,500)
7. Baltimore Orioles: owned by Harry Von der Horst, plays at Union Park (capacity of 5,000)

Last edited by HooiserAltHistorian (1/27/2020 10:18 pm)

Fall-1894:

Following what a consensus of league owners called the most successful season the league has ever had, it came as a shock when J. Earl Wagner informed the league that he was folding the Washington Senators after just one season in the league. What he had failed to tell the league prior to joining it was his large amount of debt he'd accumulated in the years before joining while the team had no league to play in. They had essentially been operating off of large loans on the speculation of joining a professional league. Wagner then defaulted on his loans at the end of the season, and the bank seized his remaining assets causing the club to dissolve. The effects in the following weeks caused many of the owners to accuse one another of potentially hiding finances from one another in attempts to fraud the league. All of this came to a head when James Kenton (Red Stockings) accused John B. Day (Giants) of paying players under the table to avoid the salary cap. Linus Gerzberg had been suspicious of these dealings when the Giants had submitted their payroll to the league and it had been nearly $10,000 less then what it likely should have been.

In all this chaos, the league settled on a new system of accountability for the following season and beyond;

- All transactions regarding any franchise & league will be published bi-weekly to the entirety to league
- Any team caught paying players above the salary cap will be penalized $3,000 per player over the cap
- Any new team will have to submit substantial case of financial stability before joining the league

Later in the fall, Linus makes the decision to purchase the Fort Wayne Kekiongas from Charles Bonnaire and promises that they have a permanent home in Gerzberg Field. While not officially classified as professional or semi-professional, Linus makes it clear to the current team and to the lose association of negro teams in the region that he intends for his team to be the best. Linus received a letter from James Kenton informing him that he will not tolerate Linus's actions, and will formally leave the league to join the Southern Association which Kenton claims, "Holds the values of baseball closer than Linus does". Linus replies him in a letter with the one simple sentence, "James, I wish you luck in your experiment in the south".

Many in the north had heard of southern baseball, but no one was speaking of it like it was an actual professional league. They only had 4 teams that had lasted more than a season, and it looked like more of sustainability test than anything else to the team owners in the north. In its 3 seasons they'd managed to only keep these teams afloat;

- Atlanta Crackers
- Birmingham Bluebirds
- New Orleans Pelicans
- Memphis Egyptians

Perhaps now with the additional of the Cincinnati Red Stockings, the league would be more highly regarded, but most in the NPBL just hoped that this league would fail which would bring down Kenton as well.

Around the nation, economic recovery continues as several potential strikes have been averted to avoid another Homestead. The most shocking of all was the agreement between Pullman and the its workers that resulted in an increase in pay. Many around the area thought this would erupt into rioting, but all was calm when Pullman finally re-evaluated its importance to the still rebuilding Chicago.

Family life for Linus takes a turn for the worse when Amelia comes down with the flu in late October, pulling Linus away from everything for weeks while she recovered. During this time, both his son Frederick and his daughter Theresa also begin attending a private Catholic school on the north side of Fort Wayne, which shields then from witnessing their mother's sickness. Martha, his youngest child, is still too young to understand, and never knows a thing about all of it. The Hoosier Delivery Service is luckily staffed by the best workers Linus could find, and continues to operate with no problems while he is away from the company.

Mid-November Linus also receives a letter from the owner of Logansport Midways of the Mid-America League about a business partnership between the two leagues. Linus goes to Logansport the following week and is intrigued by the pitch he hears. He heads back home and prepares the same pitch to give to the owners of the NPBL in the coming weeks.

Winter-1894/5:

In the last remaining weeks of year, Linus meets with each owner in the league regarding the pitch about the Mid-America League. Affiliate semi-pro teams for player development; aka each team would have a regional team to assist in finding players from the area to join the professional teams. The pitch included several ideas for the obligations between the teams, and while nothing was set in stone all the owners seemed intrigued by the idea. Linus was the most enthused due to his friendship with the Midway's owner.

Following these meetings, Amelia Gerzberg also began to show signs of recovery from the strain of the flue she contracted, allowing Linus to fully return to his duties at his business. Things had been running fairly smoothly since the delivery service had begun operations, but Linus had hit a brick wall trying to expand the business further due to limitations on the versatility of transport vehicles at the time. His leverage as a board member for the Wabash Railroad hadn't given him the access to new markets that he had hoped for when agreeing to take the position. Frustrated with the situation, Linus settles in for the Christmas season to celebrate with his family.

After the new year, the league meets in Cleveland to discuss what to do for the 1895 season. Having lost two teams, the decision to reduce the amount of scheduled games or quickly find fill in teams in the short-term. Luckily for the league, both the Busch family of the St Louis Malt-Men and Rolf Stoiber of the Milwaukee Brewers had been in talks with clubs in the cities close to them. After several weeks of meetings and negotiations it was decided that two teams would join the league on a "probationary" clause that would allow the league to terminate their membership at the end of the season if financial and attendance expectations were not met. The two teams that would join the league would be;

1. Kansas City Blues: a club that had initially been a member of the American Association but after the league folded, been relegated to the semi-pro Mid-America League playing mostly small industrial cities and barely making any profit. The team was recently bought by the stockyard king, Wilfrid Portier whose ambitions had been fulfilled thanks to the invitation from the NPBL. The team will play its games at Exposition Park, capacity of 3,500, located in the heart of the black community sharing the field with the negro team the Kansas City Monarchs.
2. Minneapolis Lions: The semi-pro Millers were initially approached to join the league, but due to the club's financial instability, the league chose to persuade several local industrialists to form a team. After its creation, Oluf Lind bought out the other industrialists to claim sole ownership of the team. Oluf was a native of city, but born of Danish immigrants who had started their own sawmill. He chose to name the team after the a symbol of Denmark to help draw in interest of the large amount of Danish immigrants in the city, even going so far as to adopt the colors of the crest of Denmark (yellow and blue) for the team uniforms. The team will play its games at Athletic Park, capacity of 2,500, located just slightly northwest of the city's center.

With the league back up to 14 teams, the league ended its winter meetings and would again meet in the spring to discuss the realignment of the league.

1895 Populations of League Cities:

1. New York City (5 boroughs) => 2,495,000 + surrounding region ≈ 2,795,000
2. Philadelphia => 1,186,000 + surrounding region ≈ 1,265,000
3. Chicago => 868,000 + surrounding region ≈ 1,024,000
4. St Louis => 585,000 + surrounding region ≈ 645,000
5. Boston => 538,000 + surrounding region ≈ 725,000
6. Baltimore => 496,000 + surrounding region ≈ 615,000
7. Cleveland => 329,000 + surrounding region ≈ 473,000
8. Pittsburgh => 315,000 + surrounding region ≈ 391,000
9. Detroit => 273,000 + surrounding region ≈ 317,000
10. Milwaukee => 270,000 + surrounding region ≈ 308,000
11. Minneapolis => 195,000 + surrounding region ≈ 213,000
12. Indianapolis => 163,000 + surrounding region ≈ 188,000
13. Kansas City => 157,000 + surrounding region ≈ 174,000
14. Fort Wayne => 58,000 + surrounding region ≈ 89,000

Stay tuned for Spring-1895 & the 1895 Preseason.....

RaysUp wrote:

Just found and caught up on this, I’m so hooked I was sad to see it’s last post was from 2020….

I've tried to start it back up several times; but my creative juice on it seems to have dried up. Recently I've been interested in it again though; so we'll see where that takes me.

It was kind of a bummer when I ran out of motivation on it because I had started working on some logos & uniforms.

Last edited by HooiserAltHistorian (10/28/2022 5:43 am)