The Federal League: Part Two

The second part of my three part series focuses on the 1914 season of the Federal League. Part one can be viewed here.

Finally on April 13^th 1914, after a long off-season, the Federal League threw out its opening pitch in Baltimore. Across the street at Orioles Park, the New York Giants played the Orioles in a highly-publicized exhibition. The exhibition match drew only 1,000 spectators, though, as 25,000 fans crammed into Federal Park in Baltimore to watch the first Federal League game. The home side scored three runs in the 4^th inning, making Baltimore 3-2 winners over Buffalo.

Late in April, Organized Baseball made perhaps its biggest move to cripple the Federal League. The Major Leagues announced it was suspending the 25-man rule, which stated that teams could only have 25 players under contract at one time. This rule would allow major league teams to sign as many players as they wanted to, thus draining the player pool for the Federal League teams, specifically the major league teams prospects, who were signing contracts with the Feds.

On the field, the St. Louis Terriers got off to a 9-2 start, and had a two and a half game lead on the 7-3 Chicago squad. The Terriers were led by ex-Cardinal Doc Crandall who started 4-0 for the hot St. Louis squad. On May 11^th, after playing the first 23 games on the road waiting for their stadium to be completed, the Brooklyn Tip-Tops debuted at Washington Park. The Tip-Tops, who were 13-10 at the time, got swept by the defending champions, Indianapolis. The Tip-Tops were not a success in the bleachers either, each game getting out-drawn by the Dodger crowd at Ebbets Field.

Walter Johnson, who declined a Federal League contract in the off-season, made headlines after declaring he would pitch for whomever showed him the most money for the 1915 season, this after meeting with Chicago Feds manager Joe Tinker. When asked if “anywhere” included the Federal League, Johnson said “That means anywhere in the world.” In the off-season, Johnson said he wouldn’t jump his contract, but people close to him said if he were a free agent, he would be pitching in the Federal League in the 1914 season.

In September, President Gilmore sent a letter to Organized Baseball, asking for the Federal League to be able to participate in the World Series, saying you can’t “call them the world champs if they don’t go through us.” The American and National Leagues both decided just to ignore the letter and not to respond. On the field, a tight four-way race for the pennant was underway between Brooklyn, Baltimore, Indianapolis and Chicago, the latter two having battled for the top spot since mid-June. In mid-September, an important series took place between Brooklyn and Indianapolis. The Hoosiers, coming in having won two in a row, made that number five after a sweep of Brooklyn. The sweep put Indy up one game on Chicago and all but crushed Brooklyn’s pennant hopes. Brooklyn’s slide continued in its next series against Chicago, in which they lost three out of four. Chicago was now situated one game up on Indianapolis.

The pennant would be declared on the last series of the season. Sixth-place Kansas City would visit Chicago, who came into the weekend with a half-game lead on the Hoosiers, for a double-header on October 6^th and finish the season on the 7^th. Indianapolis would play at home against last-place St. Louis on the 6^th through 8^th. With the race looking to go right down to the wire, Chicago made its move early, but not the move it wanted to make. The Packers shocked the Federal League by sweeping the double-header at Weeghman Park by the scores of 1-0 and 5-3. Indianapolis, who defeated the Terriers 5-3 that night, moved into first with a one-game lead on the ChiFeds, who now needed a win and two Indianapolis losses to win the pennant.

The Hoosiers took care of business the next day, defeating St. Louis 4-0, thanks to a gem by Cy Faulkenberg. Faulkenberg went the full nine innings, allowing only three hits (two in the ninth) and striking out eight. Indianapolis’ pennant win was engineered in large part thanks to Benny Kauff. Kauff, who’d batted 11 times with the Yankees in his only major league season in 1911, led the FL in batting average (.370), runs (120), doubles (44), and stolen bases (75). Faulkenberg led the Hoosiers on the mound, collecting 25 wins in 49 games, completing 33 of those while posting an ERA of 2.22.

The Tinker-led ChiFeds (87-67) ended up a game and a half back of the Hooisers. Outfielder Dutch Zwilling would have been Kauff’s only other competitor for MVP, after leading the Federal League with 16 home runs and 95 RBIs. Ex-Pirate Claude Hendrix was also brilliant for Chicago on the mound, leading the FL with 29 wins, 34 complete games and posting a 1.69 ERA.  Hendix’s mark was second best behind teammate Rankin Johnson, who was cut by the Boston Braves mid-season, who had a 1.57 ERA. Baltimore (84-70) finished third, four and a half back of Indy, while Buffalo (80-71) finished in fourth. The biggest disappointment was the St. Louis Terriers, who led for the first month, before finishing in last place with a 62-89 record, 25 games back of first.

The first big off-season news came from the newly renamed Chicago Whales. They had already strengthened their team in the off-season, adding free agent Three Finger Brown to an already great pitching staff. Then, on December 4th, the Whales agreed to a three-year contract, worth $58,500 contract with Walter Johnson. The Big Train, who was rumored for over a year to be talking contract with Tinker, finally stopped in Chicago. AL president Ban Johnson tried to defuse the situation by calling Johnson “damaged goods” in the paper the next day. Washington owner Clark Griffith knew more than the president did because he lured the future Hall-of-Famer back to
Washington a week later with a then record five-year, $80,000 contract. The other American League teams, much like what they did with Tris Speaker, pitched in money to keep Johnson in their league. Johnson was the Whale who got away.

After the Johnson debacle, two big names quickly filled the star void for the Feds. Connie Mack had led the Philadelphia Athletics to an AL pennant in 1914, much in thanks to his pitching staff, but two of his starters, Chief Bender and Eddie Plank, deserted the Athletics. Bender signed with Baltimore and Plank signed with the Terriers in the two biggest actual signings to happen in the 1915 off-season. What was even more surprising than the signings themselves was Mack’s opposition to them, which amounted to none at all. Despite winning the World Series the previous season, Mack was upset at his team’s lackluster play down the stretch and in October and said he was rebuilding the team. Though the two ex-A’s had great 1914 seasons, one would end up being a huge bust in the 1915 campaign.

In January 1915, the Federal League made its biggest mistake and nailed its own coffin shut. The Federal League decided to sue the other two leagues for violation of the Sherman Antitrust Law. The lawsuit stated that the AL and NL had conspired with each other to destroy the Federal League. They also said that the agreement they had with the National Commission, organized baseball’s governing body, was illegal, and therefore, all contracts signed under that agreement were void. The Feds chose Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis to preside over the case, a noted a trust-buster and a big Cubs fan. While the Feds wanted quick and swift action, Landis encouraged both sides to negotiate. The legal costs were starting to add up for the Federal League and with those costs and teams going over budget trying to compete with each other; the once financially stable league was losing money fast.

The Federal League wanted another team in New York, it had publicly said after the season, and was to move a struggling franchise to the New York area. It was widely speculated to be Kansas City, who was without a field for the upcoming season and drew the worst attendance the season previous. Then late in March, Indianapolis’ owners backed out of the franchise, leaving the champs ownerless. So in March, the Federal League moved Indianapolis to Newark, and renamed them the Peppers. The team would be moving without Benny Kauff, though, who the Feds moved to the Brooklyn team in November.

While on the field, the fans and Feds alike were gearing up for what was shaping up to be a better season than last, off the field, the costs from the ongoing court case and skyrocketing player contracts were starting to hurt the league and Federal League officials were starting to worry that the 1915 pennant would be the last one awarded.