The Western League of Professional Baseball Clubs, simply called
the Western League, was a minor league baseball league founded in
1893, and focused in the Midwest. In 1900, the league was renamed the American
League, and declared itself a major
league in 1901.
As described in Lee Allen's books, the Western League had been around
in various forms since 1879, but had gone bankrupt. In a meeting in
Detroit, on November 20, 1893, the league reorganized. This is the point
from which the eventual American League can effectively date itself.
At that meeting, Ban
Johnson was elected President, and would remain so until his
retirement nearly 35 years later. Johnson, a Cincinnati-based
newspaper reporter, had been recommended by his friend Charles Comiskey,
former major league star with the St. Louis Browns in the 1880s, who was
then managing the Cincinnati Reds. After the 1894 season, when Comiskey's
contract with the Reds was up, he decided to take his chances at
ownership. He bought the Sioux City team and transferred it to Saint Paul,
Minnesota. These two men would be among the cornerstones of the American
League.
After the 1899 season, the National League
announced it was dropping Baltimore, Cleveland, Louisville and Washington.
This afforded an opportunity for the Western circuit to expand into those
vacated cities. In a meeting in Chicago on October 11, the WL renamed
itself the American League. It was still officially a minor league,
subject to the National Agreement and generally subordinate to the
National League. The NL actually gave permission to the AL to put a team
in Chicago that year, and Comiskey moved his St. Paul club to the South
Side. The AL also transferred the Grand Rapids team to Cleveland.
The way Lee Allen characterizes it in his
book on the American League, the National was too absorbed in its own
infighting to see what was afoot. After the 1900 season, the American
League declined to renew its membership in the National Agreement,
declared itself a major league, and began raiding National League
rosters...and cities.
In addition to the original Western League, several 20th century minor
league circuits used the same name. Its franchises were located west of
the Mississippi River, and in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains states.
Foremost among these was the WL that existed from 1902-37 and 1947-58. The
WL was then classified as an "A" league, but in today's minor
league structure it would be a Class AA loop. In its post-World War II
incarnation, the Western League included clubs in Denver, Colorado (now in
the National League), Des Moines, Iowa, Omaha, Nebraska and Colorado
Springs, Colorado, now all members of the AAA Pacific Coast League.
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JUNIOR CURCUIT
As the 'younger' of the two Major Leagues, the AL is known as the Junior Curcuit.
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