Whales, Terriers, and Terrapins: The Federal League 1914-15: SABR Digital Library, #74

By Society for American Baseball Research, Steve West and Bill Nowlin

The Federal League formed in 1913 as an "outlaw league" in six cities across the Midwest. In 1914 it added two teams and declared itself a major league. The league's owners "stole" players from the two existing major leagues and put teams in some of the same cities. Both the American and National Leagues struck back. After the 1915 season, with several Federal League teams struggling financially, the two more-established leagues bought out several teams. This caused the collapse of the Federal League.

 

The impact of the Federal League on baseball is still felt today. The league filed one of the first antitrust lawsuits against Organized Baseball. The case ended up in the court of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who looms large in baseball history. Although that case was settled, a later lawsuit went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court decided that baseball is entertainment and thus not subject to antitrust law. This decision has had a wide-ranging effect on the business of baseball. For a physical reminder of the Federal League, one can still see the ballpark built for the Chicago Whales, now known as Wrigley Field.

This book contains biographies of a number of the key players and executives, and game accounts of some of the most interesting games during the league's brief existence. 

 

The book represents the collaborative work of many members. The enthusiasm for this book on the Federal League was so great that 54 SABR members quickly signed up to make the book a reality. 

 

This volume contains biographies on the following Federal League players, executives, and umpires: James A. Gilmore, Phil Ball, Robert B. Ward, Charles Weeghman, Jimmy Esmond, George Kaiserling, Al Kaiser, Harry Moran, Max Flack, George McConnell, Mike Prendergast, Joe Tinker, Art Wilson, Dutch Zwilling, Vern Duncan, Benny Meyer, George Suggs, Harry Swacina, Jimmy Walsh, Charlie Hanford, Gene Krapp, Baldy Louden, Al Schulz, Happy Finneran, Dan Marion, Al Shaw, Tex Wisterzil, Ted Easterly, Grover Gilmore, Pete Henning, George "Chief" Johnson, Duke Kenworthy, George Perring, Frank Allen, Elmer Knetzer, Ed Lennox, Tex McDonald, Rebel Oakes, Al Wickland, Dave Davenport, Del Drake, Ward Miller, Doc Watson, Ed Willett, and Kenesaw M. Landis. 

 

Plus over 50 game accounts of amazing contests that should not be forgotten. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Society for American Baseball Research
• Release date: Apr 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781970159202

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Whales, Terriers, and Terrapins: The Federal League 1914-15

Copyright © 2020 Society for American Baseball Research, Inc.

All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

All photographs not otherwise given a courtesy credit are in the public domain.

Paperback ISBN 978-1-970159-21-9

Ebook ISBN 978-1-970159-20-2)

Book design: Rachael Sullivan

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Contents

Introduction

Biographies

Selected Executives

James A. Gilmore by Dan Levitt

Phil Ball by Steve Steinberg

Robert B. Ward by Joel Rippel

Charles Weeghman by Dan Levitt

Players/Managers

Indianapolis Hoosiers / Newark Peppers

Jimmy Esmond by Anne Keene

George Kaiserling by Harry Schoger

Al Kaiser by Bob Barrier

Harry Moran by Harry Schoger

Chicago Chi-Feds/Chicago Whales

Max Flack by Joel Rippel

George McConnell by Mark S. Sternman

Mike Prendergast by Chris Rainey

Joe Tinker by Bob Webster

Art Wilson by Bob LeMoine

Dutch Zwilling by Maury Bouchard

Baltimore Terrapins

Vern Duncan by Brian Wood

Benny Meyer by Mike Huber

George Suggs by Chad Moody

Harry Swacina by Kevin Larkin

Jimmy Walsh by Phil Williams

Buffalo Blues

Charlie Hanford by Joel Rippel

Gene Krapp by Chris Rainey

Baldy Louden by Matthew Clever

Al Schulz by Steve West

Brooklyn Tip-Tops

Happy Finneran by Thomas Brown

Dan Marion by Cindy Thomson

Al Shaw by Adam Foldes

Tex Wisterzil by Chris Rainey

Kansas City Packers

Ted Easterly by Adam Klinker

Grover Gilmore by Joanne Hulbert

Pete Henning by Rich Bogovich

George Chief Johnson by Steve Schmitt

Duke Kenworthy by Bill Nowlin

George Perring by Rich Bogovich

Pittsburgh Rebels

Frank Allen by C. Paul Rogers III

Elmer Knetzer by Bob Wiggins

Ed Lennox by Matt Albertson

Tex McDonald by Skip Nipper

Rebel Oakes by Phil Williams

Al Wickland by Kevin Larkin

St. Louis Terriers

Dave Davenport by Gregory H. Wolf.

Del Drake by Tom Drake

Ward Miller by Bill Johnson

Doc Watson by Gregory H. Wolf

Ed Willett by Paul Hofmann

Judge

Kenesaw M. Landis by Dan Busby

Umpires

Umpires in the Federal League by Bill Nowlin

Selected Games

Indianapolis Hoosiers

Irate Brooklyn Catcher Hurls In-Play Ball Out of the Park, Cements Indianapolis Win by

June 20, 1914: Indianapolis Hoosiers 6, Brooklyn Tip-Tops 5 (game one of doubleheader),

at Federal League Park, Indianapolis by Harry Schoger

Hoosiers Top Tip-Tops for 11th Straight Win; Grab FL Lead by

June 20, 1914: Indianapolis Hoosiers 7, Brooklyn Tip-Tops 6 (game two of doubleheader),

at Federal League Park, Indianapolis by Harry Schoger

Kauff Adds Two Steals by

July 7, 1914: Indianapolis Hoosiers 7, St. Louis Terriers 4,

at Federal League Park, Indianapolis by Kevin Larkin

Kaiserling Muzzles Terriers by

July 19, 1914: Indianapolis Hoosiers 3, St. Louis Terriers 0, at Handlan’s Park, St. Louis by Harry Schoger

Billiard Brilliant in Relief as Hoosiers Outlast Terps in 13 Innings by

July 27, 1914: Indianapolis Hoosiers 6, Baltimore Terrapins 2, at Terrapin Park, Baltimore by Frederick C. Bush

HooFeds Are Tip-Top by

August 24, 1914: Indianapolis Hoosiers 7, Brooklyn Tip-Tops 6 (game one, 13 innings),

at Federal League Park, Indianapolis by Kevin Larkin

Hoofeds Clinch Second Straight Federal League Pennant by

October 7, 1914: Indianapolis Hoosiers 4, St. Louis Terriers 0,

at Federal League Park, Indianapolis by Jerrod Cotosman

Newark Peppers

A Home-and-Away Doubleheader by

May 31, 1915: Newark 5, Brooklyn 3, at Harrison Park, Harrison, New Jersey;

May 31, 1915: Brooklyn 5, Newark 3, at Washington Park, Brooklyn, New York by Bill Nowlin

Newark Peppers Ride Mud Ball to Third Consecutive, Extra-Inning Win by

August 7, 1915: Newark Peppers 4, Kansas City Packers 3,

at Harrison Park, Harrison, New Jersey by Maury Bouchard

Laboring (and Traveling) on Labor Day by

September 6, 1915: Brooklyn Tip-Tops 5, Newark Peppers 1,

at Washington Park, Brooklyn, New York (game one of a doubleheader) by John Zinn

To the Victor Goes the Revenge by

September 6, 1915: Brooklyn Tip-Tops 1, Newark Peppers 0,

at Harrison Park, Harrison, New Jersey (game two of a doubleheader) by John Zinn

Chicago Chi-Feds / Chicago Whales

A Walk-off To Remember by

July 12, 1914: Chicago Chi-Feds 6, Indianapolis Hoosiers 5, at Weeghman Park, Chicago by Benjamin Sabin

Chi-Feds Crush Terriers 11-0 in 1:45 by

July 14, 1914: Chicago Chi-Feds 11, St. Louis Terriers 0, at Weeghman Park, Chicago by Bill Johnson

Chicago Battles Buffalo to 12-Inning Tie by

September 9, 1914: Chicago Chi-Feds 5, Buffalo Buffeds 5,

at Federal League Park, Buffalo by Brian M. Frank

Claude Hendrix No-hits the Rebels by

May 15, 1915: Chicago Whales 10, Pittsburgh Rebels 0, at Exposition Park III, Pittsburgh by Sean Kolodziej

Triple Play Highlights Chicago’s Win over Buffalo During Pennant Stretch by

September 19, 1915 (first game of doubleheader): Chicago Whales 3, Buffalo Blues 1,

at Weeghman Park, Chicago by Richard Cuicchi

October 3, 1915: Whales Clinch Federal League Title by

Chicago Whales 3, Pittsburgh Rebels 0 (7 innings, game two of doubleheader),

at Weeghman Park, Chicago by Mark S. Sternman

Baltimore Terrapins

Baltimore Beats Banged-Up Buffalo for Eighth Time in Nine Days, 8-0 by

July 18, 1914: Baltimore Terrapins 8, Buffalo Buf-Feds 0 (first game),

at Federal League Park, Buffalo by Richard Riis

Terrapins’ Parade Around the Bases Takes Nightcap, 15-2 by

July 18, 1914: Baltimore Terrapins 15, Buffalo Buf-Feds 2 (second game)

at Federal League Park, Buffalo by Richard Riis

Terrapins Defeat Chi-Feds With Controversial Play, W

hen Dutch Zwilling Homers and Strikes Out in Same At-bat by

August 16, 1914: Baltimore Terrapins 1, Chicago Chi-Feds 0, at Weeghman Park, Chicago by Mike Huber

Blowout in Baltimore2

October 6, 1914: Baltimore Terrapins 11, Pittsburgh Rebels 1 (first game of doubleheader),

at Terrapin Park, Baltimore by Mark Pestana

Another Day, Another Doubleheader, Another Tie by

October 6, 1914: Baltimore Terrapins 1, Pittsburgh Rebels 1

(10 innings, second game of doubleheader), at Terrapin Park, Baltimore by Mark Pestana

The Sloppy 12-Inning Game that May Have Cost the Terriers the Pennant by

September 19, 1915: Baltimore Terrapins 12, St. Louis Terriers 9,

at Handlan’s Park, St. Louis by Paul Hofmann

Buffalo Blues

Buffalo and the Sheriff Greet Hal Chase on His Day by

June 25, 1914: Buffalo Buffeds 6, Pittsburgh Rebels 2, at Federal League Park, Buffalo by Jack Zerby

A Freak Contest by

September 28, 1914: Buffalo Blues 10, Kansas City Packers 10 (tie game, nine innings),

at International Fair Association Grounds, Buffalo by Rob Nee.

Russ Ford Throws 16-Inning Shutout to Beat Rebels by

October 9, 1914: Buffalo Buffeds 1, Pittsburgh Rebels 0 (16 innings), at Exposition Park by Brian M. Frank

Blues Bats Come Alive in St. Louis by

May 20, 1915: Buffalo Blues 11, St. Louis Terriers 1, at Handlan’s Park, St. Louis by Brian M. Frank

Brooklyn Tip-Tops

Opening Day of the 1914 Federal League Season

April 14, 1914: Brooklyn Tip-Tops 1, Pittsburgh Rebels 0 (10 innings),

at Exposition Park, Pittsburgh by Kevin Larkin

Steve Evans Breaks Scoreless Tie with Game-Winning Home Run in the 12th by

July 13, 1914: Brooklyn Tip-Tops 1, Pittsburgh Rebels 0 (12 innings), at Washington Park by Jimmy Keenan

Circus Solly’s 18th Inning Walk-Off by

July 29, 1914: Brooklyn Tip-Tops 4, St. Louis Terriers 3 (18 innings), at Washington Park by Paul Hofmann

A Novel Pitching Victory by

September 7, 1914: Brooklyn Tip-Tops 12, Pittsburgh Rebels 11

(second game of doubleheader), at Washington Park by Joel Rippel

Doc Lafitte Tosses the Federal League’s First No-hitter by

September 19, 1914: Brooklyn Tip-Tips 6, Kansas City Packers 2,

at Washington Park by Jim Leeke

The Day Bob Groom Both Umpired and Pitched in the Same Game by

September 12, 1914: Brooklyn Tip-Tops 5, St. Louis Terriers 3,

at Washington Park by Bill Nowlin

A Success in the Stands if Not on the Field:

Visiting Whales Rally to Best Tip-Tops as 18,000 Attend Fans’ Day by

June 28, 1915: Chicago Whales 10, Brooklyn Tip-Tops 5, at Washington Park by Mark S. Sternman

Kansas City Packers

The Toughest Baseball Combat of the Year by

April 19, 1914: Kansas City Packers 7, Chicago Chi-Feds 6 (15 innings),

at Gordon and Koppel Field, Kansas City, Missouri by Steven Schmitt

Packard Goes the Distance as Packers Defeat Chi-Feds in 14 Innings by

July 17, 1914: Kansas City Packers 3, Chicago Chi-Feds 2,

at Gordon and Koppel Field in Kansas City, Missouri by Frederick C. Bush

Holiday Fireworks by

July 5, 1915: St. Louis Terriers 4, Kansas City Packers 3

(second game of doubleheader), at Gordon and Koppel Field, Kansas City, Missouri by Joel Rippel

The Main Event by

August 16, 1915: Kansas City Packers 5, Buffalo Blues 0,

at International Fair Association Grounds, Buffalo by Mark Pestana

Gene Packard Does It All by

September 29, 1915: Kansas City Packers 1, St. Louis Terriers 0,

at Handlan’s Park, St. Louis by Jerrod Cotosman.

Pittsburgh Rebels

Pittsburgh Rebels’ Ed Lennox Becomes Only Federal League Player to Hit for the Cycle by

May 6, 1914: Pittsburgh Rebels 10, Kansas City Packers 4,

at Gordon and Koppel Field, Kansas City, Missouri by Mike Huber

Rebels Escape Cellar in 12-Inning Win by

July 24, 1914: Pittsburgh Rebels 5, Indianapolis Hoosiers 4,

at Exposition Park III, Pittsburgh by Blake W. Sherry

Expo Park Extra Time, Times Two by

July 25, 1914: Pittsburgh Federals 2, Indianapolis Federals 1 (first game, 13 innings);

Pittsburgh Federals 6, Indianapolis Federals 5 (second game, 12 innings),

at Exposition Park, Pittsburgh by Andy Terrick

No Offense in Gateway No-No – Frank Allen Pitches a No-Hitter by

April 24, 1915: Pittsburgh Rebels 2, St. Louis Terriers 0, at Handlan’s Park, St Louis by Kevin Larkin

St. Louis Terriers

Terriers Top the Tip-Tops by

June 16, 1914: St. Louis Terriers 13, Brooklyn Tip-Tops 12 (12 innings),

at Handlan’s Park, St. Louis by Mark Pestana

Terriers Turn Triple Play, but Brooklyn Snags Victory by

May 6, 1915: Brooklyn Tip-Tops 3, St. Louis Terriers 2, at Washington Park, Brooklyn by Chad Osborne

Eddie Plank Dominates Brooklyn by

May 29, 1915: St. Louis Terriers 11, Brooklyn Tip-Tops 0 (first game),

at Handlan’s Park, St. Louis by Jeff Findley

Darkness Wins in Tie Game Between Terriers and Tip-Tops

May 29, 1915: St. Louis Terriers 4, Brooklyn Tip-Tops 4 (second game, 12-inning tie),

at Handlan’s Park, St. Louis by Jeff Findley

Dave Davenport’s No-Hitter Is Highlight of his 1915 Pitching Gems by

September 7, 1915 (first game): St. Louis Terriers 3, Chicago Whales 0,

at Handlan’s Park, St. Louis by Richard Cuicchi

Nick Cullop Breaks the Hearts of St. Louis’s Baseball Fans by

October 2, 1915: Kansas City Packers 4, St. Louis Terriers 1,

at Handlan’s Park, St. Louis by Robert Peyton Wiggins

Contributors

Sheet Music

Introduction

The Federal League formed in 1913 as an outlaw league in six cities across the Midwest. In 1914 it added two teams and declared itself a major league. The league’s owners stole players from the two existing major leagues and put teams in some of the same cities. Both the American and National Leagues struck back. After the 1915 season, with several Federal League teams struggling financially, the two more-established leagues bought out several teams. This caused the collapse of the Federal League.

The impact of the Federal League on baseball is still felt today. The league filed one of the first antitrust lawsuits against Organized Baseball. The case ended up in the court of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who looms large in baseball history. Although that case was settled, a later lawsuit went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court decided that baseball is entertainment and thus not subject to antitrust law. This decision has had a wide-ranging effect on the business of baseball. For a physical reminder of the Federal League, one can still see the ballpark built for the Chicago Whales, now known as Wrigley Field.

This summary of the Federal League’s history is necessarily brief. We did not set out to present a full history of the league, but to offer a little more of a feeling for league play, and a little more depth of a different sort than is in a straightforward history. There already exist excellent histories of the league. We particularly recommend these recent books by SABR authors: The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs: The History of an Outlaw Major League, 1914-1915 by Robert Peyton Wiggins (2011), and The Outlaw League and the Battle That Forged Modern Baseball by Daniel R. Levitt (2014).

This book contains biographies of a number of the key players and executives, and game accounts of some of the most interesting games during the league’s brief existence. The book represents the collaborative work of 54 SABR members, who quickly signed up to write for the book when it was first announced.

—Bill Nowlin and Steve West

Federal League officials, 1914: (top row) Weeghman, W. Ward, Comstock;

(middle row) L. Goldman, R. Ward, Steininger, Gilmore, G. Ward, Schleunes,

Walker, Robertson, George, Carroll; (bottom row) Krause, Ball, H. Goldman,

Mullen, Rickart, Hanlon, Gates. Courtesy of the Bain Collection, Library of Congress.

JIM GILMORE

By Dan Levitt

After several years in the military, Long Jim Gilmore spent his life as a successful, if conventional, businessman. For two years in the middle of his life, however, Gilmore was at the center of the baseball world as one of the most visible and quoted men in the industry. As president of short-lived Federal League, the last league to challenge the major leagues on the field of play, Gilmore fought to establish his league as a third major and gain acceptance in the prevailing Organized Baseball structure. For the FL’s two years of existence, 1914 and 1915, Gilmore gamely tried to sell the public on the new league, attract well-heeled owners, negotiate a détente with the established major leagues, and sign the game’s top players. Despite heroic efforts, the Federals folded after the 1915 season, accepting a buyout, and Gilmore returned to a less public life in private industry.

James Alexander Gilmore was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, on March 2, 1876, to Thomas and Jane (McCartney) Gilmore.¹ When he was 6, Gilmore’s father, Thomas, moved the family, including three brothers and a sister, to Chicago due to his employment at Carson Pirie Scott & Co., a Midwest-based department-store chain. Gilmore attended Marquette, a school on the old West Side, and played a lot of baseball. Eventually filling out to 6-feet-3, Gilmore joined a couple of sandlot squads and eventually hooked up with the Chicago Wyandottes and other semipro teams, primarily as a pitcher. Teammates on the Wyandottes included Jack Hendricks, who had a brief major-league stint as a player and later manager in the major leagues, and Claude Varnell, a future minor-league owner who married Hendricks’ sister.

When Gilmore graduated, he accepted a job as a messenger for Armour & Co. at $3 a week; several months later he went back to demand $4 and was let go. Fortunately, Gilmore had two brothers in the coal business (the third worked for a ribbon company), and one helped land him a job at Crescent Coal and Mining for $7 a week, a nice increase.²

When the Spanish-American War came in 1898, Gilmore’s father told him, I fought in the Civil War. So did three of my brothers. You are my only unmarried son. Go to War.³ His initial tenure was rough. Gilmore caught malaria in Cuba and lost nearly 70 pounds in a month and a half. After a 13-month recovery, Gilmore decided to give the Army another try. He joined the 43rd volunteers at Fort Ethan Allen in Connecticut and was shipped out to the Philippines, another active war zone, in November 1899. On this second stint in the Army, Gilmore spent nearly two years as a commissary sergeant, earning $40.80 a month.⁴

Upon his discharge Gilmore resumed his prewar job as a coal salesman, at which he proved highly adept. He was a good free off-hand talker, a good leader, a well-preserved man who would make a success, say in the railroad business.⁵ Another admirer of his sales skills said: Gilmore could not only convince you the moon is made of green cheese, but he could sell you a slice of it.⁶ In 1910 his success at sales led him to the presidency of the Kernchen Company, a manufacturer of ventilators and ventilating engines. At the time, he was living in Chicago with a 39-year-old widow, Genevieve Williams, and her 22-year-old daughter. The next year, 1911, Gilmore and Williams were married in Louisville, Kentucky. The author has not been able to find reference to any additional children.

In the summer of 1913 the 37-year-old Gilmore was playing golf with his friend Eugene Pike, an investor in the Chicago Federal League franchise, then a first-year minor league unaffiliated with Organized Baseball and playing in rinky-dink venues in large Midwestern cities. For their round the two were joined by E.C. Racey, who also happened to be the treasurer of the team. The two admitted to Gilmore that the club was losing money, but sold him on the idea of a new league in large Midwestern cities that could compete with Organized Baseball. Over the next few weeks, as Gilmore contemplated the opportunity he not only decided that the Chicago investment could work, but that if he was going to invest, he wanted an active role in running the league. Gilmore and his associate Charlie Williams agreed to take an ownership interest in the team in exchange for assuming their share of the liabilities, mostly player salaries over the remainder of the season, which in the event came to about $14,000.

Moreover, at the league’s August 2 meeting Gilmore maneuvered himself into the presidency, although technically only on an interim basis. The league’s owners were frustrated with existing president and founder John Powers, who they felt had not sufficiently built publicity and had made a couple of bizarre scheduling and umpiring decisions. Gilmore’s salesmanship and fighting spirit appeared to be a perfect fit for what they were looking for. And in many ways he was.

When the league’s owners decided over the next several months that they wanted to challenge Organized Baseball as a third major league in 1914, they were woefully unprepared for the battle ahead. Most obviously they needed a more national footprint of franchises, much deeper-pocketed owners, star players, and major-league-quality ballparks. AL President Ban Johnson recognized the problem. I cannot see how the Federals can expect to make much progress, Johnson related. You see they must build new ballparks, which will require a hefty outlay. Then, again, they must have a lot of money to induce star players to go with them.⁷ Gilmore took on all these challenges with intelligence and enthusiasm and by Opening Day 1914 the league was better positioned than anyone could have reasonably expected.

Gilmore felt that the league in particular needed strong, aggressive ownership for its largest market, Chicago. He successfully addressed this by attracting Charlie Weeghman, a popular, wealthy, and well-connected local businessman. Weeghman owned a string of restaurants around Chicago, mostly self-service lunch counters – what passed for fast food at the time.

Now Weeghman, Gilmore proposed, I have a fine business opening for you, but we need more financial resources. We are going to reorganize the club with a capitalization of $50,000. If you will take $26,000 worth of stock, that will give you control of the club.

Are you sure $50,000 will be enough to finance this thing, Weeghman queried his friend. Won’t there be any other expenses that crop up when the club gets under way that will be likely to cost a lot of money?

Oh no, Gilmore assured him, all we want is $50,000. There won’t be any other expenses. That will be all the money we shall require.⁸

After making the investment, Weeghman quickly realized that his initial instinct had been correct and that the club needed much more than $50,000. To help with the burden, Weeghman approached his friend William Walker, a local fish merchant. Weeghman would also build the league’s best ballpark, opening what is now known as Wrigley Field just in time for the home opener.

Gilmore also helped force the redistribution of franchises as he recruited wealthy owners. He persuaded bread manufacturer Robert Ward to take on the new Brooklyn franchise. Once the wealthiest men in all of baseball, Ward would help bankroll several of the struggling franchises over the next couple years. For a new Pittsburgh franchise, Gilmore landed Edward Gwinner, son a well-heeled contractor, and a bank president. The St. Louis franchise was strengthened through the addition of Phil Ball, a wealthy ice-plant manufacturer to its ownership ranks. Every franchise competing directly with major-league teams – Brooklyn, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis – now had solid ownership. The other four that competed with high minor-league teams –Baltimore, Buffalo, Indianapolis, Kansas City – were owned by large syndicates of affluent locals, but only Baltimore could be said to have reasonably deep pockets.

Gilmore also proved successful on the ballpark front beyond Chicago’s Weeghman Park. Once he had the new owners in tow, one of his greatest achievements was prevailing upon them to invest the large sums necessary to acquire prime sites and construct new ballparks or gain control of quality existing venues.

Gilmore was also a tireless ambassador in recruiting players to jump to the new league. In late December 1913, the Federals effectively announced they were for real when they signed Joe Tinker away from the majors on a three-year contract for $36,000, a huge contract for the time. With open checkbooks, high expectations, and a belief in their mission, everyone connected with the Federals approached players in late December and January. In the hopes of making another big splash, Gilmore wired Ty Cobb a five-year contract offer at $15,000 per year (including the first year paid in advance), which would have made him the highest-paid player in baseball. Cobb parlayed this offer into a salary increase with his existing team, the Detroit Tigers. As the Federals soon discovered to their dismay, many players reacted similarly.⁹

In a more humiliating example, the Chifeds lost pitcher King Cole back to Organized Baseball. To avoid any appearance of impropriety when Cole signed his contract given his existing negotiations with the Yankees, Gilmore told Cole, Now to avoid any trouble we will date these contracts December 30th, 1913.¹⁰ In fact, the contract was signed on January 3.¹¹ Gilmore and Weeghman were both embarrassed when this came out publicly. Overall, however, the Federals scrupulously targeted only players whose contracts had expired and were tied to their teams only by the generally non-enforceable reserve clause.

As the major leagues recaptured many of the players the Federals thought they had successfully lured away, Gilmore still imagined that a grudging accommodation with Organized Baseball could be arranged. Ban Johnson disparaged the new league both publicly and in private, but Gilmore believed that if he could just make his case in person, Johnson might be willing to enter into some sort of détente. Fortunately for Gilmore, his brother Charles was a friend of Johnson’s. When Charles first approached Johnson for a meeting with his brother, Johnson replied that their interests were so wide apart it would probably be advisable not to meet him.¹² But Charles persisted, and Johnson reluctantly agreed.

According to Gilmore, the meeting ended with Johnson driving him over to the Chicago Athletic Club and promising to call the next day regarding a more formal follow-up summit after conferring with his counterpart, NL President John Tener. When another player the Feds thought they had landed, Fred Blanding, jumped back to Organized Baseball just days after Gilmore’s meeting with Johnson, Gilmore’s frustration boiled over. He believed that the Federals had acted honorably. If the American and National Leagues ignore our contracts and fail to appreciate the spirit of sportsmanship we have shown, we will start the biggest of baseball wars.¹³ But Gilmore would be sorely disappointed.

As Gilmore fumed, Ban Johnson gave an interview to the New York Evening Sun on March 5, 1914. He blasted not only the Federals but even the National League owners for an apparent willingness to negotiate with the new league: I don’t favor these confabs. If the idea is to bring about a peaceful settlement of the present trouble in baseball the American League will put a stop to all negotiations. There can be no peace until the Federal League has been exterminated. Put it as strongly as you can that we will fight these pirates to a finish. There will be no quarter.

A chastened, disappointed Gilmore renewed the effort to lure major-league players. At the beginning of March he wired Christy Mathewson an offer of $65,000 over three years – which would have made him the highest-paid player in baseball – to pitch and manage the Brookfeds. Mathewson spurned the huge offer, instead re-upping for a nice raise with the New York Giants. Cubs President Charles Thomas complained of an April assault by the Federals on his players: Gilmore met with Larry Cheney; other representatives made offers to Fred Mollwitz, James Lavender, Heine Zimmerman, Jimmy Archer, and Frank Schulte. None were successful.¹⁴

Gilmore spent the 1914 season frenetically traveling around the country to bolster his league. He met with existing and prospective owners, helped with various schemes to entice players to jump leagues, gave frequent interviews in local newspapers hyping the league, and at the end challenged the majors to have the World Series winner play the FL pennant winner. It wasn’t quite enough; the Federals lost a lot of money and never landed as many major leaguers as they needed or anticipated.

After the season several FL owners put out discreet peace feelers. The ensuing talks left Gilmore in an awkward position. As president of a putative major league and often in the news, he liked the salary and prestige of his job. He tried to stay in front of the negotiations by publicly announcing the league was willing to make peace at fair and honorable terms, but was not standing on the doorstep, hat in hand.¹⁵ At one point the Federal League office – surely a euphemism for Gilmore himself – released a statement that Gilmore had met in New York with Red Sox owner Joe Lannin, Cleveland owner Charles Somers, Philadelphia Phillies owner William Baker, and Braves owner James Gaffney. Gilmore was probably embellishing a short earlier meeting between Weeghman and Lannin.¹⁶

With this pronouncement Gilmore foolishly overplayed his hand. Over the next few days the referenced major-league owners could categorically deny the story and further ridicule Gilmore’s league. As partial information disclosed to the newspapers hampered discussions by causing the negotiating parties to worry about their reputations as information leaked out, Gilmore made an extraordinary admission to the press: In the course of the next few months I may have to tell many lies. If I could avoid it I would, but there are some things that must be kept quiet, and in order to insure secrecy it is very often necessary to stretch the truth a little. I hate to do it, but there are times when the truth is not apt to be practicable.¹⁷

By the end of November, the peace negotiations had collapsed, and the Federals redoubled their attempt to sign major-league ballplayers. Once again the bulk of the players Gilmore and Feds enticed to jump, most notably Walter Johnson, repudiated their Federal League contracts and re-signed with Organized Baseball. As their frustration level rose over the aggressive tactics and antitrust violations by the major leagues, in January, Gilmore and the Federal League owners filed suit in the court of Chicago federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

Gilmore also hoped to strengthen his ownership ranks. In late 1914 he and Weeghman traveled to the resort community at French Lick, Indiana, where Jacob Ruppert, a wealthy New York brewer known to be exploring buying into baseball, spent a portion of the winter. They hoped to persuade Ruppert to purchase one of the struggling FL franchises and move it to New York or its environs. Instead, Ruppert purchased the Yankees along with a partner.

Gilmore had a backup plan. He had found another wealthy investor, Kansas oilman Harry Sinclair, through Sinclair’s relationship with Pat Powers, a longtime minor-league executive who wanted to have a team in northern New Jersey. Gilmore maneuvered Sinclair and Powers into ownership of the Kansas City franchise, which was highly in debt and had apparently forfeited its franchise back to the league. Sinclair and Powers intended to transfer the franchise to Newark.

There was only one problem: Kansas City did not want to lose its team. On February 16 one of the team’s stockholders phoned Gilmore to grill him on what was happening.

All I can say to you, Gilmore responded, is that I feel sure that everything will be all right, and Kansas City will retain its franchise. In fact it is a hundred to one shot.

What is the one shot?

After receiving assurance he was speaking in confidence, Gilmore added the one wrinkle, and yet another long-shot contingency: I have an option on the Indianapolis Federal League franchise, and am now going to New York and Pinehurst, North Carolina, and will do my best to have the men who want to take the Kansas City franchise take the Indianapolis franchise instead, and I have no doubt that will be accomplished. Gilmore told the director to keep at the money-raising and added, In the meantime if I am interviewed by reporters, I must of necessity deny anything but that the club has been transferred to an Eastern City.¹⁸

Despite Gilmore’s reassurance that they would likely keep their franchise, the Kansas City directors recognized that Gilmore was in fact stalling them with the hope of making the transfer a fait accompli before they could react. A delegation from Kansas City descended upon Gilmore in Chicago on February 25. They had raised much of the money owed and intended to settle their debts. When the delegation demanded an accounting of their outstanding debt, Gilmore produced a paper showing $38,518. The delegation disputed this amount, arguing that some expenses were not the responsibility of the team and also pointing out that it was not offset by money owed to the team by the league. Gilmore told them it didn’t matter, he would not accept the money if it was laid on the table.¹⁹

The Kansas City mission then hastened over to the United States Circuit Court where they surprised Gilmore by asking for and receiving a temporary injunction against the transfer of the franchise to Newark. Not surprisingly, this flung much of the preparation for the season into chaos. Powers and Sinclair had already purchased a site in Harrison, New Jersey, a suburb across the Passaic River from Newark and needed to begin construction immediately on a 20,000-seat ballpark if it was to be ready by Opening Day. Powers had also made arrangements for the team to report to spring training in Texas less than two weeks later on March 8. Gilmore and Sinclair moved ahead as if the transfer would be sanctioned by the court. It also began to dawn on Gilmore that the Federals could lose the case, and he needed to seriously consider his previous suggestion of substituting Indianapolis, another club in financial difficulty, for Kansas City.

Gilmore would need to quickly invoke this contingency plan because the judge sided with Kansas City and agreed that Kansas City should be allowed to raise $40,000 to repay the league its cash advances. Stalemated on Kansas City, Gilmore, Sinclair, and Powers now formally turned their attention to Indianapolis. Gilmore along with two owners met with the Hoofeds board of directors on March 19 and eventually reached a deal to buy the team for $81,000, a pretty good payday for an effectively bankrupt franchise.

Despite the introduction of another well-heeled owner in Powers, the mounting losses during the 1915 season sapped much of the optimism that remained among the FL’s ownership ranks. Once again Gilmore spent the season shuttling around the league trying to encourage owners and fans alike, while trying to entice players to jump. Late in the season he began touting that the league was going to move into New York City for the 1916 season. Given that both Ward and Sinclair were rich enough to absorb further losses, this was not an idle threat. Years later Gilmore testified that this was just a bluff to force the Organized Baseball to sit down and discuss a settlement with the Federal League, but this seems unlikely. This was surely a serious option, at least until the unexpected death of Robert Ward in October.

If the Federals still had hopes of struggling through another season, the death of Ward surely ended them. The owners now hoped to settle for the best terms they could achieve. Gilmore played an active if secondary role in the negotiations that delivered settlement terms better than could reasonably be expected, with the Federal League’s owners receiving roughly $700,000 to agree to fold their league. With its demise, Jim Gilmore was out of a job.

The next year Gilmore and his wife quietly divorced in November, and Gilmore moved to New York. Gilmore’s ex-wife was awarded $2,500, the family furniture, and $250 per month for the rest of her life. The divorce, however, was alleged to have been collusive and was challenged and investigated by the court. At the time, when cause was still a condition of divorce, a husband and wife who wanted to separate but didn’t have a formal complaint might set up a situation where the husband appeared to commit adultery so that the court would grant a divorce. Gilmore and his wife were observed living together well after the stated dated of the adultery, bringing into question the legitimacy of the filing. Interestingly, the judge who looked to reopen the case, Judge Charles Foell, was the same one who ruled decisively against the FL in the Chief Johnson case in 1914, a seminal decision in the battle between the leagues. After some posturing that also included State’s Attorney Maclay Hoyne, the divorce was allowed to stand.

In October 1918 Gilmore reenlisted, two decades after he had first joined the Army, joining the Motor transportation Corps. There is a fight going on and I simply can’t keep out of it, Gilmore told the press. I am 42 but still husky enough to whip a half-dozen Germans before breakfast.²⁰

After the war Gilmore returned to New York, where he became a stockbroker, his profession until the mid-1930s when he apparently retired. In early 1925 Gilmore met Texas heiress Electra Waggoner Bailey in Palm Beach, Florida, and two were married just three weeks later, on February 14. At the time of the wedding, Electra had just divorced her second husband. Gilmore and Electra annulled the marriage eight months later on September 11, officially because they had married too quickly after her divorce. But Gilmore’s sanguine comment on the annulment suggests the two had little interest in continuing the marriage: We learned that under Texas law Electra was not allowed to marry so soon after securing a divorce from Weldon Bailey, so we went to Texas and amicably arranged the annulment.²¹ Electra suffered from heart and liver troubles, and two months after the annulment she died from complications brought on by gallstones.

Gilmore became gravely ill in 1945 and was hospitalized in New York in December. He died on March 19, 1947, in Downey Veterans’ Administration Hospital in Waukegan, Illinois, from a stroke complicated by pneumonia. At some point along the way he had remarried and was survived by his third wife, Marie Boura Gilmore.²²

As a precocious but obscure businessman, when he was 37 years old Jim Gilmore was thrust into the baseball limelight and national press. He found himself squaring off in public against some of baseball’s most press-savvy executives, men like Ban Johnson, John Tener, Charles Comiskey, and Garry Herrmann. Gilmore acquitted himself surprisingly well. He traveled extensively and untiringly to spread the message and merits of his new league to fans, players, and the press. That he made some missteps along the way serves mainly to highlight the extent of his challenge.

James A. Gilmore, 1914. Courtesy of the Bain Collection, Library of Congress.

Notes

1 Ancestry.com. Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths Index, 1916-1947 [database online]. Provo, Utah, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

2 J.A. Gilmore, The Sporting News, January 22, 1914.

3 Harvey Woodruff, James A. Gilmore, the Fighting President of the Federal Baseball League, Chicago Tribune. January 18, 1914.

4 J.A. Gilmore, The Sporting News, January 22, 1914.

5 T.H. Murnane, Feds Use Gaffney as Aid in Introduction to Boston Fans, The Sporting News, August 19, 1915.

6 Frederick Lieb, Federal’s Fate Haunts ‘Third Major’ Prospects, The Sporting News, November 23, 1944.

7 Sporting Life, December 6, 1913.

8 Famous Magnates of the Federal League – Messrs. Weeghman and Walker and How They Gained Success, Baseball Magazine, September 1915: 56.

9 Charles Alexander, Ty Cobb (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 116.

10 Cole affidavit filed with The Federal League of Professional Baseball Clubs v. The National League, the American League, etc. case.

11 Farrell affidavit filed withThe Federal League of Professional Baseball Clubs v. The National League, the American League, etc. case; Cole affidavi

12 W.J. McBeth, Johnson Jottings, Sporting Life, February 6, 1915.

13 Letter from Ban Johnson to August Herrmann, February 28, 1914, August Herrmann papers at National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum; Washington Post, March 4, 1914.

14 A New Backer for Federals. Washington Post, March 3, 1914: 8; Thomas affidavit filed with The Federal League of Professional Baseball Clubs v. The National League, the American League, etc. case.

15 Federals Seek Peace, New York Times, October 2, 1914.

16 Ibid. Baseball Peace Near, New York Times, October 3, 1914; No Quarter as Long as Gilmore Figures, New York Sun, October 3, 1914; Boston American undated; Presidents Deny Story, Boston Post, October 4, 1914.

17 Unidentified newspaper clipping, August Herrmann Hall of Fame file; Handy Andy, Feds to Discuss Offer of Peace, Chicago Tribune, October 19, 1914; Sam Weller, Gilmore Admits Deception Necessary in Baseball, Chicago Tribune, October 20, 1914.

18 The Kansas City Injunction Case in Court, Sporting Life, March 20, 1915.

19 Ibid.

20 Pvt. Jim Gilmore, Now, Washington Herald, October 21, 1918.

21 Race with Death Costs Rich Oil Man $14,000, Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, November 16, 1925.

22 James A. Gilmore, New York Times, March 20, 1947; Ancestry.com. Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths Index, 1916-1947 [database online]. Provo, Utah, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

Phil Ball: Cantankerous Owner;

Passionate Fan

By Steve Steinberg

Phil Ball was the owner of the St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League (1914-1915) and bought the American League’s St. Louis Browns in December 1915, as part of the settlement between Organized Baseball and the upstart league. ¹ In 1917 he said, I’ll pay – well, I’ll go to the limit – to get a world’s series for St. Louis. … I’m just as interested in a ball game as the kids who hand their two bits over the windows for the bleacher seats. ² He owned the Browns until his death in October 1933 but never won an AL pennant, though he came close in 1922. He was a fiery and gruff man, who, in the words of a St. Louis magazine writer, did not affect a great softness of manner, unruffled evenness of temper or a slow and deliberate enunciation. ³ He was also the only club owner who challenged the authority of Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis and did so more than once.

Philip De Catesby Ball was born in Keokuk, Iowa, on October 22, 1864, to Charles Ball, a West Point graduate who fought in the Civil War, and Caroline (Paulison) Ball. His mother wanted to name him after a great-uncle and famous commodore in the US Navy, Thomas ap Catesby Jones.⁴ She did not care for ap and instead inserted De in her son’s name. Charles was an engineer who started an ice business in 1878, with refrigeration equipment that produced ice.⁵ The Ice and Cold Machine Company built ice plants in the South and Midwest, and Phil Ball did various jobs for his father’s company, from collecting bad debts to driving an ice wagon to overseeing the construction of ice plants. The family lived in Sherman, Texas, for a number of years when Phil was a teenager. Before joining his father’s company, Phil worked at many jobs, including surveying, railroad work, and hunting buffalo.⁶ For this reason, Arthur Mann wrote, Ball was a gruff and growling Iowan of 56 [b.1864] who had been everywhere and done everything.⁷

Historian Daniel Boorstin has written about the central role ice has played in democratizing the national diet and homogenizing the regions and seasons.⁸ Until refrigerators became common household appliances in the 1920s and 1930s, the icebox was the kitchen cold-storage unit, with blocks of ice supplied by ice plants. When Charles Ball retired to California (where he died in 1901), Phil bought his company for $20,000 and built it up.⁹ In a 1932 article in The Sporting News, Harry Brundidge reported that Ball had 156 ice plants, including the world’s largest, at Anheuser-Busch. It has been said that I inherited my money from my father, but I never got a nickel from anybody, Ball said.¹⁰ Although he was a civil and mechanical engineer, Ball had no technical-school training.

When Ball lived in New Orleans, he played amateur-league baseball, but his career ended when he was stabbed in a barroom brawl. Sportswriter Dan Daniel wrote, Philip De Catesby Ball is a born scrapper. You have only to look at his determined jaw to discern that.¹¹

He married Harriett Heiskell of Indiana in 1885. They had three children and then moved to St. Louis in the 1890s. His son, James, was a supervising engineer for the Ice and Cold Machine Company. His younger daughter, Phillipa (Mrs. John Nulsen), died in 1918. His older daughter, Margaret, married an accomplished ice skater, William Cady, one of the founders of the St. Louis Skating Club. In 1916 a St. Louis building from the 1904 World’s Fair was converted to the St. Louis Winter Garden ice-skating rink, with the support of the Ball Ice Machine Company.¹²

The Federal League began as a Midwestern minor league in 1913, and a group of 14 St. Louis men, including Phil Ball and brewer Otto Stifel, each put up $1,000 for the city’s club. When the league decided to go national and challenge Organized Baseball in 1914, only Stifel and Ball remained as owners from what was known as the Thousand Dollar Club. Ball’s fellow oil executive Harry F. Sinclair (Ball had substantial oil investments), founder of Sinclair Oil, joined them as owner of the Browns. Sinclair soon moved on to become one of the major backers of the league as a whole.¹³

When the Federal League was taking on Organized Baseball in early 1914, Ball urged his fellow owners to invest the necessary capital. We’ve got the opportunity of a lifetime, but some of you fellows seemed to think too much of your bankroll. Some of you fellows seem to be showing the ‘white feather’ [a sign of cowardice].¹⁴ He told reporters later that year, They [Organized Baseball] are going to get a financial and legal raking that they never dreamed of. … We are willing to match money and brains against anything organized ball may have to offer.¹⁵ Ball had diversified interests beyond ice. He owned a 10,000-acre ranch and had investments in oil.

During the 1914 season the Terriers signed Cuban star Armando Marsans from the Cincinnati Reds. What Baseball Magazine called the sensational Marsans case played out in the courts.¹⁶ The Reds secured an injunction that kept Marsans on the sidelines for more than a year. Ball tried unsuccessfully to get the injunction lifted in Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis’s court. Historian Robert Wiggins wrote that as part of the Federal League settlement, Reds owner Garry Herrmann paid Ball $2,500 in damages for keeping Marsans from playing for the Browns.¹⁷

Ball was pursuing one of baseball’s biggest stars, pitcher Walter Johnson, for his Terriers after the 1914 season. When Johnson did not sign with the Terriers, Ball let the Federal League’s Chicago Whales sign him. In return Ball got the right to pursue pitcher Eddie Plank, whom he signed for 1915.¹⁸ When Johnson reneged on his contract with the Whales, Ball told the press, If Johnson pitches for any team besides the Chicago Feds next season, it will be in Leavenworth, Kansas, and his identity will be hidden behind a number.¹⁹

In 1914 Chicago pitching great Mordecai Brown was the Terriers’ manager.²⁰ With the team mired in seventh place in August, Ball replaced Brown with more of a disciplinarian, Fielder Jones. The manager of the 1906 world champion Chicago White Sox Hitless Wonders, Jones was lured out of retirement with an interest in the club’s ownership and a hefty three-year guaranteed contract of $50,000.²¹ While Jones could not turn around the Terriers at the end of the season, he achieved success the following year. The 1915 Terriers (87-67, .565) fell just short of the Chicago Whales (86-66, .566). It was the closest pennant race in major-league baseball history.²²

Under the settlement, two Federal League team owners, Charles Weeghman of Chicago and Phil Ball, were allowed to buy existing teams of the major leagues, the Cubs and the Cardinals, respectively. Ball was anxious to acquire an established team, even though he revealed he had lost $182,000 in his two seasons with the Terriers.²³ But when Helene Britton, the owner of the Cardinals, decided not to sell (she resented the male owners trying to force out the game’s only female owner), the entire settlement with the Federal League was threatened.²⁴

At this point, Robert Hedges decided to sell his American League club, the St. Louis Browns, to Ball.²⁵ Hedges had facilitated the 1903 peace treaty between the American and National Leagues by returning Christy Mathewson to the New York Giants.²⁶ Maybe once again St. Louis will have to be the central figure in establishing peace in baseball, he said.²⁷ Hedges sold the Browns and Sportsman’s Park for what was variously reported as between $425,000 and $550,000.

The 1916 Browns (like the Cubs) had the benefit of drawing on players from two teams, the Terriers and the Browns. Ball made Jones the manager of the combined team and moved Branch Rickey, the Browns’ manager, into the front office. He could not fire Rickey because Hedges had given him a contract for 1916.²⁸ The two men did not get along from the start. So you’re the goddamned prohibitionist! Ball reportedly said to Rickey when they first met.²⁹ Ball thought Rickey’s ideas too radical, and Rickey’s endless talk and large vocabulary made him uncomfortable, wrote Murray Polner in his Rickey biography. Rickey was, in turn, uncomfortable with Ball’s crudeness: he considered Ball uncouth and, in matters of baseball, virtually illiterate.³⁰

The 1916 Browns finished a disappointing fifth in the AL with a 79-75 record. But 1917 was much worse, with 97 losses against only 57 wins. Rickey was gone before the start of that season; he became the president of the St. Louis Cardinals early that year, after a citizens group bought the club from Helen Britton for $375,000.³¹ At first Ball supported Rickey’s move. But after consulting with American League President Ban Johnson, who did not want to lose the talented Rickey to the National League, Ball changed his mind. Just tell those bastards you can’t go through with it, he told Rickey, who replied, Mr. Ball, whether or not I ever go with the Cardinals, I’ll never work another day for you.³² The dispute headed to the courts and had an odd settlement: Rickey was enjoined from joining the Cardinals, but only for 24 hours.

In early September 1917, Ball was again in the center of a controversy – one that he created. He was so upset with a 13-6 loss to the White Sox on September 4 that he decreed he’d cut salaries $100 for every $1,000 he would lose. If these ball players think they are getting away with something on me by ‘laying down,’ they are all wrong, all wrong.³³ Three of the club’s players, infielders Del Pratt and Doc Lavan, and outfielder Burt Shotton, took issue with Ball and refused to suit up. Ball had not mentioned names, but these three men were having poor seasons, in no small part because of injuries.

Pratt and Lavan sued Ball for libel for $50,000 each. Ball then backtracked and said, I have been told they [some of his men] were laying down, but that I myself am not competent to judge of that. The writer of the St. Louis magazine Reedy’s Mirror noted that Ball has not the polished mien one finds in some successful business men, nor the insouciance noted in others. … He is not a man whose actions bespeak craft or design. He is just a plain whole-hearted individual, with the pugnacious tenacity of a leader.³⁴

Sportswriter Hugh Fullerton said that Ball should be eliminated from Organized Baseball. The fans ought to get up a memorial to Johnny Lavan and Derrill Pratt for bringing suits against Ball, he wrote. For a man of the Ball type to accuse men of the moral and mental standing of Lavan and Pratt is a final blow to baseball in St. Louis.³⁵ Both men, along with Shotton, were traded before the 1918 season. Eventually Pratt and Lavan dropped their lawsuits after receiving $2,700 each.³⁶

Fielder Jones was a stern taskmaster, and his abrasive style created dissension on the Browns. Yet in early 1918, Ball told the press that Jones had been too lenient. No more Coddling – Iron Fist to Rule Browns Hereafter was his message.³⁷ Just a few months later, after a painful loss by his Browns, Jones suddenly resigned and walked away from baseball forever.³⁸ When Ball got the news, he erupted. So you want to quit? You haven’t an ounce of courage. Get out of my office. I wouldn’t take you back if you’d work for nothing.³⁹

Early in his ownership of the Browns, Ball made perhaps his best and worst baseball decisions. In 1917 he hired Bob Quinn, a decent man and sharp evaluator of baseball talent, to replace Branch Rickey as business manager. There’s really nothing to the job. All you need is bunk and bluff, Ball told him. Quinn replied, I have never practiced bunk or bluff in my life.⁴⁰ What Quinn practiced was solid, uncanny team-building. Through trade and acquisition, he assembled a powerful club that came within one game of the 1922 AL pennant.

Fred Lieb said that Quinn once canceled a Browns home game because of damp weather; he thought Ball would make more money if the game was rescheduled. But Ball was furious. Bob Quinn, let me tell you something. I worked myself to a frazzle at the office so I could see this game, and if you want to keep your job, don’t ever do anything like this to me again.⁴¹ Yet Quinn was no yes man and insisted that Ball not interfere with baseball operations. He once even walked out for a few days when Ball pushed his meddling too far.

Ball made arguably his worst baseball decision in 1920. The St. Louis Cardinals were in a desperate financial state, and their ballpark, League Park, was decrepit. Their president, Sam Breadon, who was consolidating ownership of the club, repeatedly begged Ball to allow the Cardinals to play their home games at the Browns’ Sportsman’s Park. In 1918, when Ball turned him down, he suggested that Breadon sell to Kansas City sportsmen.⁴² Ball finally relented, even though he detested Branch Rickey, who by this point was the Cardinals manager. He felt sorry for Breadon and admired his fighting nature.

The Cardinals played their first home game in Sportsman’s Park on July 1, 1920. They sold their League Park property for $275,000: $200,000 to the school board (Beaumont High School operated on the land until 2014) and $75,000 to the transit company for a streetcar turnaround. The deal gave us money to clean up our debts, and something to work with, said Breadon. Without it, we never could have made our early purchases of minor-league clubs.⁴³ Would the Cardinals have left St. Louis? It’s hard to say. Instead, now Rickey’s farm system would become a reality. The club had the money to start buying minor-league teams.

Ball became close friends with American League President Ban Johnson, even though they were "warring parties during 1914-1915.⁴⁴ Fred Lieb noted, Despite Ball’s truculence and quirks, he was intensely loyal.⁴⁵ When Ban lost power with the demise of the National Commission in 1920 and the rise of the commissioner system, Ball became a fierce opponent of Commissioner Landis. At one heated owners meeting in early 1920, Ball and Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert almost came to blows. When the owners voted to hire Landis later that year, Ball was the only one not to vote for the new commissioner (though he let Bob Quinn vote for the judge).

In the fall of 1924 Landis and Johnson came into open conflict, when Johnson recommended the cancellation of the World Series in the wake of the O’Connell-Dolan affair, a scandal involving attempts to throw ballgames. Landis demanded that Johnson be reprimanded; the owners responded with a resolution that humiliated Johnson. They felt they had to support Landis – or risk destroying fan confidence in the game’s integrity. Eugene Murdock, Johnson’s biographer, wrote, It is unlikely that any group of subordinates had ever humiliated their superior officer so completely. Ball refused to sign the document and said, The biggest figure in the national game has been a victim of men whose gratitude has bowed to the dollar sign.⁴⁶

Late in his life, Johnson expressed what Ball meant to him. I owe my life to Phil Ball. He stepped in and took charge of my case and refused to permit amputation of my leg.⁴⁷ NEA Service sportswriter William Braucher summed up their relationship: Ball stood shoulder to shoulder with Johnson in every important battle the great old fighter had. Even the last battle that Johnson finally lost – for his life.⁴⁸

The dramatic 1922 AL pennant race generated a large profit of around $300,000 for Ball.⁴⁹ He paid out bonuses of around $20,000 that year.⁵⁰ A decade later, Ball said, The Browns made money for me in 1922, not before, not since. As president I get no salary, and I run the club for the pure fun of it.⁵¹ Sportswriter Dan Daniel said that Ball set aside $250,000 each winter to run the Browns in the coming season. I’d give anything to win with the Browns, said Ball. Well, money is no object. Baseball is not only a hobby with me, it is a source of relaxation.⁵²

In 1923 Bob Quinn left the Browns to take over the presidency of the Boston Red Sox, after Harry Frazee sold the team. Quinn had also tired of pushing back against Ball’s interference. Ball felt the quiet manager of the Browns, Lee Fohl, was an ineffectual leader who had done a poor job of rallying his team after they lost two out of three games in a crucial September series against the New York Yankees.⁵³ With Quinn gone, Fohl now had to deal directly with his team’s owner.

On July 27, 1922, controversial Browns pitcher Dave Danforth had been suspended by the league for throwing a ball whose seams were loaded with dirt or mud.⁵⁴ Quinn and Fohl sent Danforth down to the club’s Tulsa farm club for the rest of the season. They did not want to bring him back in 1923, but Ball overruled them. On August 1, 1923, Danforth was again suspended, this time for throwing a doctored ball that had rough spots. When his teammates signed a petition to Ban Johnson, Fohl refused to do so. St. Louis Times sports editor Sid Keener wrote, I know the character of Lee Fohl. … If Lee wouldn’t sign [the petition], there must be some black smoke in the air.⁵⁵

But Ball fired his manager a few days later and told reporters, For the good of the game and the morale of the club, Lee Fohl is hereby relieved of his duties as manager.⁵⁶ When Fohl felt his integrity had been demeaned, Ban Johnson persuaded Ball to reword his statement: For the good of the game as played by the Browns’ team ...

Just a month later, as the Browns left for their final East Coast swing, they suspended star pitcher Urban Shocker. He had already won his 20th game of the year on August 30, his fourth consecutive 20-win season. The temperamental spitball pitcher insisted on taking his wife along on the trip, but the club’s new business manager, Billy Friel, denied the request. Since Bob Quinn’s departure, Phil Ball was really making all the major decisions; Friel’s executive experience and reputation did not come close to that of the man he replaced.⁵⁷ Syndicated columnist Westbrook Pegler wrote that Ball’s philosophy was, Women in baseball are like gun play in a crowded street car.⁵⁸

Ball and Friel, with Ban Johnson’s full support, contended that this was the simple issue of an insubordinate employee not following team rules, as he had agreed to do in his contract. To Shocker, however, this was a violation of his personal liberty, and he took his case to Commissioner Landis, who was the ultimate arbiter. Landis was also an unpredictable wild card in the dispute. Even as a judge, he enjoyed defending the rights of the little guy in struggles with management. And Landis certainly did not want to uphold a position held by his nemesis, Ban Johnson.

Sportswriter Fred Lieb wrote, There is a stick of dynamite in the Shocker case. It is fraught with danger.⁵⁹ Ball did not like to compromise when he felt he was right, and even more so in dealing with Shocker, whom he disliked. But should Landis declare Shocker a free agent, Johnson and the owners feared the reserve clause would come into challenge, opening the door to a legal fight that might shake baseball to its foundation.⁶⁰

Johnson decided the risk of a Landis ruling was too great, fireworks that would have made the Last Days of Pompeii look like a wet match by comparison.⁶¹ He facilitated a settlement: He pulled Bob Quinn into a meeting with Shocker, in which Ball had allowed his friend Johnson to act on his behalf. Shocker signed a 1924 contract with a large salary increase, more than enough to cover the fine Ball had levied.⁶² He then withdrew his hearing with Commissioner Landis. Ball wanted to trade Shocker, but he had recently hired the club’s star first baseman, George Sisler, as player-manager, and Sisler wanted to keep the talented pitcher. A year later the Browns did trade Shocker, to the Yankees, after Sisler decided it was time for the unhappy pitcher to leave St. Louis.

The Browns did not come close to the pennant in the next few years. In early 1925 Phil Ball felt the brunt of St. Louis fans’ ire, when outfielder Baby Doll Jacobson was locked in a salary dispute.