Union Association

Union Association

By Patrick Mondout

The Union Association (UA) was a short-lived attempt to start a third major league to compete with the American Association and National League in 1884.

At a glance... UNION ASSOCIATION League Facts Established 1883 (a minor league) 1884 (as a Major League) Disbanded January 1885 President H.B. Bennett (1883) Henry Lucas (1883-1885) Clubs Altoona Mountain Citys Baltimore Unions Boston Reds Cincinnati Outlaw Reds Chicago Browns/Pittsburgh Stogies Kansas City Unions Milwaukee Grays Philadelphia Keystones St. Louis Maroons St. Paul Saints Washington Nationals Wilmington Quicksteps Pennants 1884 St. Louis Maroons

St. Louis millionaire Henry Lucas founded the league, but also doomed it. He had his own franchise in the league and made sure it was stocked with all the best players. This made the league horribly imbalanced from a competition standpoint and made following the alleged UA pennant race pointless (the St. Louis Maroons went 94-19).

See also: National League, 1884 Attendance, Other Defunct Leagues.

By the end of May, the Altoona Mountain Citys dropped out of the UA and became an independent. They were replaced on the schedule by they Kansas City Unions. In August, the Browns of Chicago moved to Pittsburgh and called themselves the Stogies. The Philadelphia Keystones soon dropped out to become a semipro team and were replaced by the Wilmington Quicksteps.

The Quicksteps quickly disbanded and were replaced by a team from St. Paul. That unfortunate team was stranded when the Northwestern League disbanded and their players were playing games just to earn enough money to make it back home (they did). Another Northwestern League refugee, the Milwaukee Grays replaced the departed Chicago/Pittsburgh franchise.

Major League owners wanted to be rid of this nuisance and eventually convinced Lucas to sell his fellow UA owners up the river by letting him purchase his way into the National League. The league disbanded and Lucas thought he'd finally made it. But team now known as the St. Louis Cardinals were already succeeding in the same city in the American Association. The last remnant of the UA folded after just two dismal National League seasons and with it went Lucas' major league dreams.

Was the UA a Major League?

The shenanigans of Henry Lucas and the instability of the franchises (which led to the unwanted nickname "Onion League") make that a fair question. Hardly any publications from the time of the Union Association (UA) up until the present have ever disputed the classification of the UA as a major league. There are some, however, who consider the league a poor excuse for a minor league, let alone a major league. 

In his Historical Abstract, Bill James makes a number of convincing arguments against including the UA - including that the players were largely not "major league" quality. The most enjoyable feature of his books is that he has opinions and is only too happy to share them. We have that much in common at least. We differ greatly, however, on whether or not the UA should be consider a major league.

It is not hard to imagine how thin the talent was spread with three major leagues in 1884 when there had been but one in 1880 and would again be one starting in 1892. The upstart league would be challenged for talent to say the least. The established leagues informed the players that any who jumped would be blacklisted. Nevertheless, the "outlaw" league did declare itself on par with the NL and AA and did attempt to sign players from both. It succeeded in signing some 50 in its first (and only) year. By contrast, the Federal League, though it signed many castoffs that were no longer under a major league contract, only managed to get 18 players to "jump" their contracts.

In contrast to the 1877 International Association, a league that a very small minority (but thankfully not Bill James) claim as major, the UA had teams in most of the population centers (more on that below) with the notable exception of New York, which already had three teams.

James' also cites as proof the lack of respect the league received from the contemporary Spalding and Reach Guides. That these were official National League publications makes the outlaw UA's inclusion at all remarkable. The 1915 Spalding Guide, for example, refused to even mention the Federal League by name though it goes out of its way to disparage it. 

Albert G. Spalding's friend A.G. Mills resigned as president of the NL over the league's decision to allow UA owner Henry Lucas to purchase the St. Louis franchise. Would Mills have cared if the UA had been a minor league that caused little disruption? James also cities Spalding's American's National Game and points out how it dispenses with the UA in two paragraphs, calling the league a "humiliating failure." One might expect such language from a friend of Mills and a part owner and president of the NL's Chicago club, which had to compete with the UA's Chicago Browns. The title of Spalding's book, however, reminds one that this volume can hardly be relied upon for accuracy by baseball historians. In it Spalding repeats what he knows to be a myth that he paid the Mills Commission to invent regarding Abner Doubleday and the American roots of baseball. Spalding may not have lied about everything in his book, but how can you tell when he is faithfully conveying the facts as he knows them and when he's simply spinning his own mythology?

If you will allow me to arbitrarily choose a Spalding Guide to cite, I'll choose the 1906 edition. A section between the all-time records of the National and American leagues contains entries for the American Association, the 1890 Player's League, and, of course, the 1884 Union Association. Clearly the Spalding Guide editor - which was still future Hall of Famer Henry "Father of Baseball" Chadwick - knew this was a real major league.

"Then came the organization of the first "outlaw league," the Union Association formed at Pittsburg in 1883. They started their first season in 1884 with clubs in Boston, Mass.; Altoona, Pa.; Baltimore, Md.; Chicago, Ill.; Cincinnati, O.; Philadelphia, Pa.; St. Louis, Mo., and Washington, D. C. This league was in direct opposition to the National Agreement, which at that time controlled the clubs of the National League, American Association, Eastern League, Northwestern League, Ohio State League and the Iron and Oil League. The fortunes of this league, however, were none too good and in January, 1885, it disbanded.

The only championship of the Union Association was won by the St. Louis team, but only five of the original teams that started the season finishing their schedule. Altoona disbanded early in the season and Kansas City took its place. Milwaukee and St. Paul also figured in a few games before the year was over. The players who deserted the National League for the Union Association were put on the blacklist."

Here is a relevant excerpt from a December 12, 1909 Washington Post article entitled "Five Baseball Wars Have Cost Old League Fortune":

"Then in 1884 the Union Association was organized and a fight to the finish with the National League and the American Association followed... Lucas' bank roll provided the means for wholesale raids on the National League and American Association clubs, and before spring arrived 50 ball players had been induced to jump the reserve clauses in their contracts..."

As you know, Lucas sold out his fellow UA owners when given the chance to move his team to the National League and A.G. Mills resigned over the decision to let Lucas in. Obviously the NL owners took the UA seriously. And if a league quacks like a duck...

James' comparison in the Abstract of the UA to the 1920 Pacific Coast League was ludicrous on many levels. Many minor leagues of the Roaring Twenties may well have been better organized that the UA (or the 1882 AA or 1876 NL for that matter) and may have happened to have future Hall of Famers on their rosters, but it does not make it a fair comparison. It should also be noted that he is comparing a league formed before the invention of the bicycle to a league enjoying its 20th season of existence during the same year in which the first commercial radio station began broadcasting.

Among the comparisons with the PCL he makes are the size of the cities: "The UA had St. Louis, Kansas City, Baltimore, and Altoona. The PCL, on the other hand, had Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Oakland, and Portland." Sounds like an unfair comparison, and it is. Just not the way Mr. James intended it. The table on the right shows the population figures for those cities in 1920, according to the U.S. Census (these figures are for the metropolitan areas):

Even ignoring the fact that he has listed only four UA cities and five PCL cities, there were still more people in those UA cities (and surrounding areas) than in the PCL cities. James also conveniently leaves out UA hotspots Boston (3,500,000), Chicago (3,400,000), Cincinnati (766,000), Washington D.C. (807,000), and Philadelphia (2,750,000), all of whom played more games than Altoona, who he seems to be making an example of. The 1880 Census also shows that the Union Association had teams in 6 of the top 8 cities while the the 1920 census shows that the PCL had only one team in the top 10 (#10, Los Angeles) and only 4 in the top 40. If anything this evidence shows that the UA was in major league cities - at least using James' own criteria.¹

A number of the arguments for the PCL could also be used to disqualify other leagues. For example, did the 1877 National League (Boston, Hartford, Louisville, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis) have better media coverage than the PCL (see table above for cities)? If your answer is no, then you realize how unfair it is to compare media coverage from different eras. If your answer is yes, then recall the list of UA cities and ask the same question.

Another example is ballparks. James suggests that he didn't take time to research it, but that it was a "safe bet" that the 1920s PCL had better ballparks than the UA. I'll take it a step further. It is a safe bet that the PCL in the 1920s had better ballparks than any league James cares to mention from the 19th Century. So why not just cut to the chase and suggest as some have that true major league baseball did not begin until 1901? 

If you could use H.G. Wells' fictional invention to attend a National League game circa 1878 (Monday-Saturday only!) in a wooden park with 300 spectators, a dead ball, walks issued only after 8 balls, no overhand pitches, the ability for a batter to call for high or low pitches, and umpires drawn from the roster of one of the teams, would you consider this "major league" baseball? What passed for major league in 1876 is not what passed for major league in 1901. Times change and we change with the times; standards change as well. To be fair, we must compare leagues, teams, and players with their contemporaries or at least acknowledge the how unfair the comparison is. 

Of course nothing that went on in 1920 (or 1946) alters whether or not the UA was a major league in 1884. I could make convincing arguments showing how the 1999 Pacific Coast League was much more of a major league (using the same logic as James) than the 1876 National League, the 1890 Player's League or the Federal League ever were. It would not alter the fact that the Union Association was and will always be a major league.

Player's League sources/bibliography:
The Formation, Sometimes Absorption and Mostly Inevitable Demise of 18 Professional Baseball Organizations, 1871 to Present by David Pietrusza.
Total Baseball: The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia by John Thorn, et al.