Page:Spalding's Baseball Guide (1894).djvu/11

Rh breaking and "revolving," with the kindred abuses of drunkenness and insubordination in the ranks of both of the then existing major professional organizations, brought into existence by the rivalry for players between the two organizations. Despite these early drawbacks to the success of professionalism in base ball, so great was the inherent attractions of the game itself, that the professional clubs flourished to an extent surprising under the circumstances. Then followed the era of the rule of the "national agreement," a mutual compact between the two major professional organizations, brought about by the absolute necessity for defensive operations against the prevailing abuses of the period, which had threatened the very life of professional ball playing. Under the beneficial operation of the national agreement, the professional clubs benefited financially to an extent which, in 1889, culminated in the ending of the most brilliant and financially successful season previously known in the history of professional ball playing.

The opening year of the decade of the nineties, however, inaugurated a revolutionary period, which was followed by such utter demoralization in the club ranks as almost to give the death blow to the whole professional system. The Brotherhood revolt of the star players of the two major organizations in 1890 was due, in a large measure, to the rivalry between the League and the Association in the efforts made by the clubs of the two organizations to strengthen their club teams from each other's ranks, a rivalry which the star players of the period were quick to take advantage of, and to such an extent as to run up salaries to ruinous figures; and finally to efforts on the part of a minority of the players to take possession of the club business for themselves. Such was the rotten condition of things in the professional base ball world at the close of the demoralizing season of 1890, that in 1891 the American Association became, as it were, "a house divided against itself," and before the season was half over the controlling "combine" of the Association gave the death blow to the future existence of that organization, by their open repudiation of the national agreement, and that proved to be the last straw on the camel's back.

By the close of the season of 1891, the magnates of the National League found that some prompt and stringent measures of reform in the government of the fraternity had become essential to the future existence of the professional business at large. They had experienced the fact, that year, that what with the player's revolt of 1890 and