Windy City World Series I: 1906, White Sox–Cubs: The Year, the Season Enhanced with Period, Original Poetry

Windy City World Series I

1906

White Sox—Cubs

The Year, the Season Enhanced

with Period, Original poetry

RICHARD CHABOWSKI

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Windy City World Series I: 1906, White Sox—Cubs

The Year, the Season Enhanced with Period, Original poetry

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Chabowski.

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ISBN: 978-1-4697-9573-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-9575-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-9574-4 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 05/18/2012

Contents

Pre

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

The Source-s

Post

Addendum

Extra Poetry of 1906

Bibliography

Acknowldegements, Personal

To, For Chicago, History, The Annals

That’s Baseball

—Mordecai Three Finger Brown, pitcher Chicago Cubs 1904-1912, when asked how the Chicago White Sox had beaten the seemlessly invincible Cubs in the 1906 World’s Championship series.

Baseball is full of memories, it is a big part of American life.

—Yogi Berra

When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It with Dave Kaplan.

Chicago’s baseball season of 1906 remains the city’s greatest of all time at both semipro and major league levels.

—Ray Schmidt The Golden Age of Chicago Baseball Chicago History Winter 2000 Yesterday’s City, page 39.

By permission of John L. Hart FLP, and Creators Syndicate, Inc.

’06

The Cubs and Sox meet in the fall

for the Championship of all of baseball

They played on the fields with determined zeal

It was apparent that there was no deal

The Cubs had their mighty team on the field

The Sox had a spitball pitcher that would not yield

The Cubs batted and fielded pretty well

The Sox did it just a bit better and the West Siders fell

The South and West sides saw three home games each

This was indeed a Series that could not be beat

The basics of dead ball were seen far and wide

Of just exactly when to hit and where to slide

Heroes came in all sizes and fashion

The South Side Sox seemed to have a bit more passion

Pitching and hitting would rule these autumnal days

The Sox clearly made more superior plays

Six games would continue with many a fan

Sitting in the bleachers, but not getting a tan

The games were all played in the fall of the year

Only Cub fans would shed the tears

The Series was concluded and would be no more

These Cubs, Sox and Series became diamond lore

Many a Chicago fan’s spirit did soar Watching the ultimate ’06 Chicago Baseball War.

—Richard Chabowski.

Pre

The (Chicago) Inter Ocean October 10 1905, page 1.

Is it all but forgotten?

The Past. The First and ONLY, so far, All-Chicago World Series. Years ago, a century, in two ball parks in the City known as Windy, the two Chicago professional baseball franchises finished the season atop their respective leagues, the American and the National. This was to be the twelfth autumnal post season series of all time and the third between the AL and NL. This Chicago match up has happened only once-it has not occured again—yet . . .

The (Chicago White) Sox and the Cubs . . . and a wonderful Chicago baseball story—here it is . . .

It was one hundred years ago when Chicago’s two current, 2005, major league baseball teams vied in the first and only Chicago World (’s Championship) series. Most of the individual participants, players, for the most part, have become faceless, lifeless words in texts, books. A century ago, however, they lived, they toiled. Just as a century from now others will live and toil.

How is one century similar and or dissimilar from another? Technology? Social movements?

The most glaring inequality from today’s vantage point was the Right to Vote, Franchise for Women. The non participating gender in 1906 would have to wait for fourteen years before inclusion in the national plebiscites. Technologically, the automobile and means of communication, telephone, radio, were entering the main stream of America and world society.

From February 3-10, 1906, the fifth Chicago Auto Show convened at the Chicago Coliseum and First Regiment Armory, seventy two auto manufacturers and suppliers showed their wares.

Electronic communication was evolving. The telephone had been around since February 14 1876 when both Elisha Gray of Chicago and Alexander Graham Bell of Salem Massachusetts filed for the rights at the United States (US) Patent Office. The telephone device, which was to transmit vocal sounds telegraphically, The Atlantic Monthly February 1906 p 264, was born and so duly noted. By 1906, thirty years later, independent telephone companies in the US had three million subscribers, the Bell Company had 2.6 million, ibid p 268. The US population was nearing ninety million. Also in The Windy City a great electrical show was held, also in January at the Coliseum, in which this telephone was featured with other electrical wonders of the day, Chicago Sunday American January 26 1906. The telephone was seen and marketed as a protector—

THE PROTECTING TELEPHONE

Burglar insurance may be a good thing, but it will not prevent robberies.

After a house has been entered and valued treasures carried away, it’s poor consolation . . . The modern house breaker is more afraid of a Telephone than of the traditional shot gun.

The man with an Extension Telephone at his bedside can quietly summon the whole police force . . .

Extension Telephones for timid people! should be the cry . . .

CHICAGO TELEPHONE COMPANY Contract Department—Main 294 (street address illegible) Street

—advertisement Chicago Record Herald October 2 1906.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean Guglielmo Marconi had-was perfecting his wireless telegraph and seeking capital for its furtherance, Chicago Sunday Tribune April 8 1906 III, 7. What would become the radio was seen as—

. . . the Bell Telephone of the ocean . . . (the) Marconi wireless (was to be) a greater monopoly than (the) Bell telephone . . . (it was the) opening of transatlantic service . . .

An advertisement in the Chicago Tribune had a coupon in which inquirers may send for a pamphlet and wireless Marconi news . . . ibid. The published name and locations of the American company was—

F PWard and Company Marconi Securities

New York 41 Wall Street

Philadelphia Land Title Building

San Francisco Crossley Building.

As the boom for the wireless was beginning, internationally, thirty-one governments were planning to meet in Berlin Germany in October of 1906 to regulate (this) wireless . . . new telegraphy of Marconi. These were the cooler heads, since the Marconi Company . . . refused to allow its stations to do business with persons using other than Marconi apparatus, Chicago Chronicle October 1 1906, 5.

. . . in 1901 (the Marconi Company) set up stations for public telegraph purposes. The refusal of . . . stations to take messages sent . . . brought about the international wireless telegraph conference. That year Marconi had accomplished his first trans Atlantic broadcast. The historic date was December 12 1901.

Most Chicagoans, however, did not own or have access to either burgeoning technology, the telephone nor the radio, in 1906.

Life for many centered around employment, be it in the Stockyards, the Chicago Board of Trade or some other manufacturing or service endeavor.

I am a freight handler with a big railroad system. My wages are $1.85 a day (average often hours) and (with) a family of five to support. My house rent is $9 a month and food costs . . . $7 a week, then there is fuel . . . clothes . . . incidental expenses . . . sickness of loss of job means debt . . . Comforts and any joy are denied us. All I can do is to slave away for a corporation in order to support the wealthy in luxury.

—Frank Warren

Letter to the Economic Editor

December 4 1906 Chicago American.

Average salaries in Chicago was $900 per year, ibid.

At 2403 Garfield Boulevard a five year old Brownstone with 12 rooms and two stories with hot water heat, a large bath room with tile floors was advertised to sell at $15,000.

In Evanston, 1580 Sherman Street, one could rent a furnished or unfurnished apartment for between $30 and $200, Chicago Record Herald June 5 1906.

Four acres at 83rd and California was listed at $3,000.

On the West side at 3706 Lake, a seven room rental was going for $40 a month, Chicago Record Herald September 1 1906.

The cost of a daily newspaper varied on your choice—the Chicago Record Herald went for two cents, the Chicago Daily News for half that price, one cent.

Despite what some would feel, or see, was an onerous economy, a building boom was well underway in the national and local, Chicago, economy. The state of Pennsylvania was finishing, in 1906, a new state capital building in Harrisburg. A daily newspaper in Chicago termed that this new state structure was erected without graft. Cost was thirteen million dollars and was made with Vermont granite, Chicago Record Herald October 1906. Also east, in the District of Columbia, an office building for the House of Representatives had its cornerstone laid Chicago Evening Post April 14 1906.

In The Windy City building was also moving along, unabated, as usual, for the City on The Make

- a Chicago and Northwestern, railroad, station was to be built, it was announced, for twenty million dollars. It was heralded as the finest plant of its kind in the world The (Chicago) inter-Ocean October 7 1906, at Canal and Madison in downtown Chicago; in 2005 it is the Ogilive Transportation Center,

- a less costly structure had been approved by the voters of Cook County on April 4 1905. A five million Court House was to be erected on Clark street at Randolph and Washington streets. It would have eleven floors with twelve million cubic feet of floor space Chicago Record Herald September 12 1906. Ground was broken in January of 1906 and the civic structure was completed in September, of 1906. commercially, the International Harvest building, at the southwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Harrison street, was announced for erection with a price of one million dollars. Completion was anticipated a year hence, September 1907 Chicago Tribune October 20 1906;

- Marshall Field’s was expanding, changing and modifying its array of buildings along and between State, Wabash, Randolph and Washington streets in The Loop to sell his wares as never before to Chicagoans. In general, the lines of the Wabash annex will conform to those of the State Street portion . . . the new structures . . . will be ready for occupancy by the great retail establishment some time next year (1907) Chicago Chronicle October 5 1906, 7.

All total this building boom in Chicago in 1906 totalled $100 million Chicago Daily Journal May 24 1906. Other structures included in this totalling, were

- the Commercial National Bank building

- the Mentor Building.

was published at a mere $25,000. Dr R FJohonnot, pastor of the Unity Temple, elaborated—

The structure consists of two buildings—a house of worship . . . and a building to house . . . social and religious activities . . .

Chicago and the suburbs were indeed a bustling, toddlin’, town. The Loop, every business day, received 724,000 workers and shoppers via seven railroad and street car lines Chicago Sunday American February 11 1906, 9.

From the outside looking in, however, The Windy City was seen as horrible and the wickedest city in the world. The latter label coming from a Prussian government source, the Oppermann Report, that was circulated widely with a special object of counteracting emigration . . . (to) . . . America Chicago Daily News May 21 1906. The former criticism came from a General Bailington Booth, head of a group of volunteers. This group, 25,000 strong, had just completed its tenth annual convention in The Windy City. Views published, which were attributed to the General and his wife, Maud Balington Booth, a religious leader, raised havoc in Chicago—

1- Saloons. "The number of saloons in Chicago in proportion to the population is appalling . . .

2- Holdups. ". . . where a man who ventures from his home to the corner grocery after dark takes his life in his hands . . .

3- Murders. ". . . conditions (in Chicago) remind one of . . . the age of primordial man . . .

4- lrreligion. The dizzy electric whirl of life in Chicago . . . make men and women irreligious. In such a mad rush . . . all are fighting . . . thoughts of God, death and the future life are crowded out. and the final straw—

5- Fast living. . . . acquired wealth has (be)come the attendant evils of fast living. It was the way of Ninevah and Babylon and Rome.

The General did temper his strict, stern opinion with some absolution—

Chicago is not wholly unregenerate. It is a great city, the business, the buildings, its benevolencies—the sins are all on a mammoth scale . . . It has mammoth possibilities for good.

When comparing New York City and Chicago he thought the former was almost a model city, the latter the wickedest of all cities Chicago American November 10 1906.

In this steamy, seemy, seethy gaslight, progressive and ragtime cauldron of a 5-Fast living. . . . acquired wealth has (be)come the attendant evils of fast living. It was the way of Ninevah and Babylon and Rome.

The General did temper his strict, stern opinion with some absolution—

Chicago is not wholly unregenerate. It is a great city, the business, the buildings, its benevolencies—the sins are all on a mammoth scale . . . It has mammoth possibilities for good.

When comparing New York City and Chicago he thought the former was almost a model city, the latter the wickedest of all cities Chicago American November 10 1906.

In this steamy, seemy, seethy gaslight, progressive and ragtime cauldron of a city on the shores of Lake Michigan were two professional major league baseball teams.

The West Side Cubs and the South Side Sox.

The White Stocking-Colt-Orphan-Cubs had a storied past dating back to the origins of Chicago professional baseball, 1871 in the American Association and 1876 in the National League. The upcoming season, the thirty-fifth or thirtieth, from which ever starting point you begin, 1906, was a year in which the President, Charles Webb Murphy, and the manager player, Frank Chance, began their first full season at each respective helm. It was clearly a new beginning.

Murphy hailed from a small town near Cincinnati Ohio. He had been a sportswriter in New York City, Gotham, and most recently, 1905, been the publicist for the New York baseball Giants.

Chance took over the field managerialship from to be baseball Hall of Famer Frank Selee. It was Selee who transformed Chance from a backstop, catcher, to a Hall of Famer at the primary sack, first base. Selee, born in Amherst New Hampshire, had to leave the Chicago clime for the west due to health. He would hang on for a few more years, passing in 1909 in the Mile High City, Denver Colorado.

Chicago and the Cub franchise had not seen post season championship play in twenty years, 1886. 1885 was a pennant winning year also. The team had the first player to achieve the plateau of three thousand hits—Cap Anson at first. The supporting cast for the air tight infield, termed the Stone Wall Infield, was comprised of Fred Pfeiffer at second, Ned Williamson at third, and Tom Burns at short. (1885 and 1886 saw Williamson and Burns swap positions) Also on this Cub crew was Catcher King Kelly, Billy Sunday, and pitcher John Clarkson. This was a good team with three seeing enshirnment in the Hall of Fame later, Anson, Clarkson and Kelly.

However, this National League, NL, best would play the American Association, AA, champion St Louis Brown Stockings in a pre World Series autumnal Championship series. Two years running, 1885 and 1886, it was the upstart AA which salvaged a draw in 1885 and a clear cut victory in 1886. (As early as 1882 the AA and the NL had been having a post season Championship playoff. The last such series was in 1890. It was not the World Series, not yet.).

A native Chicagoan, Charles A Comiskey, by 1906 was affectionately termed The Old Roman for his classic and innovative play at first base. His Chicago White Sox were now embarking on their seventh season, sixth in the offical professional American League, AL.

Success was very apparent for Commy. The beginning of the new century and new decade showed—

1900 first place in the AL

1901 first place again

1902 fourth place, eight games behind Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletcis

1903 the year of the first modern World Series, the Sox plummeted to seventh place, in an eight team league, thirty and one-half games behind the World Champion Boston Red Sox

1904 rebounding to third place six games behind Boston again, but no World Series. John McGraw’s New York baseball Giants won the NL pennant.

1905 had the Sox come within two games, in second place, of Mack’s A’s again.

Amidst all the building in the nation and the City the Chicago major league baseball teams still had wood structures for their respective home fields. The Cubs were located at a field called West Side Park. It was located on the near West Side of Chicago within walking distance of downtown. The Park was bounded by on the—

- west: Polk street

- east: Wolcott avenue (in 1906 it was named Lincoln street)

- north: Taylor street

- south: Wood.

The Sox were within proximity of their current ballpark, US Cellular Field, Comiskey Park II. Their parameters were—

- west: 37th street

- south: Princeton avenue

- west: Pershing road (which is also 39th street)

- south: Wentworth avenue.

As the proverbial crow flies the two parks were 3.69 miles from each other. In 1905, the Sox, after their near miss to play or not to play John Mugsy McGraw’s Giants in the World’s Championship series, rather played the Cubs in a Chicago Championship Series. The West Siders, Cubs, finished third in the NL, thirteen games behind the Gotham Giants. It was published, Chicago American September 29 1905, that $50,000 was bet.

The Comiskey’s White Sox were in a pennant race with Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics. Rube Waddell, ace of the A’s staff, was said to be out for the year with an injury. He would lead the AL in three categories in ’05—wins with 26, strike outs 287, and era 1.98.

It seemed like a sure thing with Waddell out this late in the season, the Sox could waltz into the World’s Championship series.

The odds were fixed at—

- Sox to win three straight 3-1

- Sox to win two of three games 4-5.

This was a short term bet.

The Sox lost two of the next three head to head with the A’s in Philly.

For the remainder of the season, the Sox went on a .500 binge, eleven days and nine games, 4-4-1. The A’s saw an opening and went 6-3-1.

The AL pennant would fly in Philadelphia in, for 1905 and Macks’ A’s would contest McGraw’s Giants for the top title.

Seasonal and all winter long bragging rights were in the balance of this series when the White Sox fell short. Other cities, with dual league membership, also staged such series—New York, Philadelphia, Boston, St Louis. This was only the second time that both Windy City teams had met.

In Chi Town the intra city inter league series was termed the baseball Championship of Chicago. The initial Chicago Championship series took place three years earlier, 1903. It was a very elongated set of fourteen games. Ironically no one came out the victor, each team won seven. In 1904 World’s Championship, nor Chicago, series was held.

It was set then, for the Cubs and Sox to grapple . . . for (Chicago) baseball supremacy, Chicago Chronicle October 10 1905, with considerable money bet . . . bet even . . . South Side fans were offering 5 to 4 (odds) . . ..

Game 2 saw the South Side Sox even the game total with a 7-4 victory behind the southpaw Nick Altrock.

The Cubs would take the next three contests. The finale was a crowning 10-5 West Side Cub victory for the Chicago Championship. Manager—lb Frank Chance was give a wild ovation after the struggle, Chicago Chronicle. In other post season match ups—

- the World’s Championship series saw McGraw’s Giants best Mack’s A’s four games to one

- in Boston the Red Sox topped the NL franchise, Braves

- in St Louis, in the tightest of all match ups the AL topped the NL 4-3.

Officially the season was now history, players would disperse to their winter homes and jobs, for Frank Chance this was his native California, avoiding the futherance of a cold winter in Chicago.

As ’05 faded, adieu was in order to two NL Chicago pillars, since the guard had changed. Recognition.

James A Hart had retired as president of the West Side Cubs. He had one of the longest records of any man that has ever been connected with the game. He was Cub team president for fourteen years.

Frank Selee team manager was departing also. 6000 streamed into West Side Park for a final regular season benefit game. It was reported that between exactly $3,640.25 and $4,000 was raised for Selee. All attending this event were required to purchase a ticket so as to boost the gate. Press tickets and complimentaries . . . were tabooed. Outgoing Cub President Hart was looking forward to purchasing the first ticket, so he could bark at the umpire and kick on the management. Other notables at the benefit game were Cap Adrian Anson, Charles A Comiskey, Harry C Pulliam, NL President and National Baseball Commission (NBC) member, attended. The Cubs that day topped Boston 7-4, with Three Finger Brown being the main hurler for the West Siders.

Long before an era of all star balloting and all star games a very forward minded thinking columnist for the Chicago American, Jesse F Matteson, chose an All National (League) . . . Ail-American (League) team for the 1905 season—

Autumn 1905 in Chicago saw the winter approach. The City waited for the spring of 1906 and another baseball season as many areas of Amercia, and the world do.

Life in The Windy City went on.

The John A Logan statue in Grant Park was being cleaned after eight years of inattention Chicago Chronicle October 8 1905, 8. The traction issue, a new more modern system of mass transportation, was on the front burner. A "referendum vote of the people of Chicago was insisted on by Alderman Dever. True machine politics had not arrived yet, Chicago Chronicle October 10 1905. The Independent voter in this very much Progressive Era was apparent.

January

—The (Chicago) Inter-Ocean January 1

Chicago januaries are usually the coldest month of the year. Baseball, in Chicago, in 2006, is nearly non existant in this month. In this earlier time there was an indoor variety.

A hotly stoved minor league meeting and other off season manuverings by leagues, teams, board and commissions raised the temperature significantly this first month of 1906 for all who followed baseball.

The minor leagues, for the most part, were an independent lot at the beginning of the twentieth century. No major league team, per se, owned or controlled outright any minor league team or league as such. A stratification of the minor league farm system, by the major leagues, was in the future, 1925. A player, a rostered catcher during this season, Branch Rickey, would have a major impetus for all of baseball over the next several decades. Rather, both major and minor league teams would survive on what talent they could amass and maintain through the season and in the off season. Money and contracts were the vital vehicles which kept this seemingly open and loose system alive.

Most minor leagues played ball with the major leagues, since the latter was the source of greater revenue. A method of drafting a player and paying his former team an amount for the transaction was business as usual. However in many situations the human element of any concerned party would enter and often send things awry.

For various reasons a player would not move on to the next team. Such a non agreed on move could raise havoc for all involved, the team-s, league-s, and player-s involved in such a run amuck transaction. Leagues and teams which would harbor such non compliant players were labeled outlaws or pirate leagues.

Baseball soon organized bodies to alleviate controversy and to rule on specific cases.

A National Board of Arbritration (NBA), a supreme court of sort among the minor leagues, was established. In addition, in 1901 the minor leagues organized under the title of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (NAPBL), Inc., which is still in existence in 2005. This group was to hold its annual meeting in Chicago in January of 1906.

As the minor league confab approached, several players’ status hit to the core of the loosely confederated system of major, minor and outlaw leagues. These players included, but were not limited to—

- Jimmy Sebring

- Jimmy Callahan

- Mike Kelly

- Peter Noonan.

Sebring, age 24 in 1906, was an outfielder in the National League (NL) with the Pittsburg Pirates and the Cincinnati Reds. In late 1905 he was traded from the Reds, with Harry Steinfeldt, to the Chicago Cubs for a pitcher, Jake Weimer. Weimer reported to the Reds, played three seasons, and concluded his career with the New York Giants in 1909. Steinfeldt would complete the legandary infield of Tinkers—Evers—Chance and assist the Cubs one, if not its most, gloriful era.

Sebring, on the other hand, the Chicago Daily News reported, probably would report to the Cubs and that he and Steinfeldt would strengthen the Cubs considerably. The young Sebring is etched eternally in the record of American baseball lore as having hit the first home run in the first modern World Series in 1903. This was no fluke, Sebring was a good, very good ball player, a natural, batting left and throwing left. In that 1903 series he led his losing Pirates with a .367 batting average, garnering 11 hits in 30 at bats. Teammate, and future Hall of Famer Honus Wagner batted .222, 6 hits in 27 at bats. The team which Sebring was traded to, the Chicago Cubs, had not won a league pennant in twenty years.

Jimmy, or Nixey, James Joseph Callahan, age 32 in 1906, was more of a veteran to the game and Chicago, but had not had the autumn glory that Sebring had earned and felt. Callahan had been playing in the major leagues since 1894, manage the AL Chicago White Sox in the 1903 and 1904 seasons, and pitched with the Cubs from 1897 through 1900. One of his greatest achievements on the West Side was pitching a no hitter. In what could be considered outlaw fashion Callahan bolted the Cubs after the 1900 season and joined the new South Side Chicago White Sox for their inaugural American League (AL) season, 1901. He would pitch, play and manage for five seasons for The Old Roman, Charles A Comiskey. In June of 1904, however, Comiskey relieved Callahan as manager. The managerial replacement was Fielder Jones, who would remain in the Sox’ managerial position until 1908.

In the first month of the new year, 1906, Callahan, feeling confident and having a following, would cast himself in yet another outlaw role. He had a certain vision of the semi professional league-s of Chicago. He made, what could be seen initially as an innocent statement. However, this statement would be prophetic for him for the next half decade—

the ball players would greatly benefit by the (semi pro) league, as large enough salaries could be paid them to keep them from the minor leagues

—Chicago Record Herald December 18 1905.

A niche was found or created.

Mike Kelly’s situation was a bit more complex. The previous month, December 1905, it was revealed that the National Baseball Commission (NBC), THE supreme court of all of professional baseball in the United States, ruled that Kelly belongs to the St. Louis American League club. Kelly maintained that to the contrary, he and a colleague own the Minneapolis club of the American Association. Further, Kelly claimed he still held the reins, ownership, of the neighboring St. Paul club and was chairman of its Board of Directors.

And finally, one Peter J. Noonan, 25, a catcher and a first baseman. At the beginning of 1906 he had played in only one season with the Philadelphia Athletics. He sat out the 1905 season and the NBC ruled on his status. Noonan claimed, and the NBC agreed that he was entitled to

- the balance due on his salary and bonus from the St Paul club, and that

- the St Paul management may deduct $45 from the time Noonan was absent.

The Chicago Cubs drafted Noonan. Under the rules of player movement, unless St. Paul pays the claim, they, St.Paul, have no title to Noonan’s future services.

The NAPBL and the American League were relative babes to the machinations of organization vis a vis the National League. The latter, senior league, had been around twenty five plus years and its architects, William Hulbert and A G Spalding had laid strong foundations. The National League, NL, had seen numerous other leagues, major and minor, come and go. There was a peace on in baseball; a harmonious existence, but some dirty laundry, as the aforementioned cases existed. It did not so much taint the game of baseball, as other even more serious factors may, but player movement was an old but new issue which, in many respects, the whole of the game needed to get a handle on.

Such were some of the scenarios that revolved around the players, leagues, teams and ruling bodies of baseball at the beginning of 1906. Arriving in Chicago for its annual meeting the minor leagues and the NAPBL would have these and other issues to wrangle with, clarify, sustain and amplify.

The minor leagues descended on Chicago from the four points of the compass, the east, west, south and north. Accounts vary as to the exact total of how many came, somewhere between 19 and 29 leagues, from 158 to 191 clubs (teams), and about 500 delegates came to the Windy City.

One Pat Powers, orginally, from the Eastern league, was the founder and president of the NAPBL and was seeking reelection at this meeting. Of major significance at this conclave were two other issues—

- the drafting rules, for players, of the minor leagues and how they interact with major league baseball

- the election of officers and boards, most notably the Board of Arbitration, which settled many player and team disagreements, and was a final voice for disputes. The minor leagues were divided into groups by mostly population size of the cities, towns and villages they represented. Class A was the largest, with smaller classes being of B, C, and D, the smallest.

An attempt was made by some of the Class A leagues and teams to control the meeting and take over the NAPBL. The lower class leagues, through sheer numbers, determination, parliamentary procedure and the guidance of Pat Powers repeled the advance.

The majority of the NAPBL, the Class A group being in a minority, voted for an increased size to the Board of Arbitration from five to seven. This decreased the voting clout of Class A members.

Once the power struggle was over Secretary J. H. Farrell gave his annual report which included—

- over the course of the year the NAPBL had received 967 telegrams

- a little over $30,000 was received in first payments of drafted players

- there were 244 temporary suspension of players made by the Board of Arbitration

- 637 players were released to the major leagues and clubs of the national organization.

The NAPBL issued many rules and fines for the teams, leagues and players who violated the natural or prescribed order. The most severe sentence received from the Board of Arbitration and or the NAPBL would be suspension, banishment, black balling from the baseball which it controlled.

On January 9 Jimmy Sebring jumped his contract with the Chicago Cubs and joined the Pennsylvania outlaw league. Sebring went on to sign a contract with the Williamsport, PA club for the 1906 season.

Cincinnati

The NBC, National Baseball Commission, met later the very same week in Cincinnati to review the proceedings of the NAPBL and render its verdict on issues if need be.

The NBC held sway over the minors since it represented a larger, and definitely more powerful force in the baseball. The NBC was comprised of three voting members—

- Garry Herrmann, President of the NBC, President of the NL Cincinnati Reds

- Harry Pulliam, President of the National League.

- Ban Johnson, President of the American League.

Each had one vote on issues which came before them. The NBC, or rather, he, Ban Johnson, had a couple of disagreements with the NAPBL, which were recently modified—

- the Arbitration Board, with seven members, was too large and

- a resignation by a certain owner, Ed Grillo of the Toledo American Association club, from any elected held post in the NAPBL. The NBC did agree with

the remainder of the NAPBL’s code and procedures, especially the method and cost of drafting players from the minor league-s to the major league-s—

- from Class A $1000

- from B $750

- from C $300-$500

- lower $200-$300.

All fees had to be paid in full as the draft was made. The NBC was concerned about the issue of concealing players, since this was a common act at this time, 1906. The NBC could assess penalties for violations to teams, leagues, players, owners and anyone else suspect.

Other aspects of the major and minor league game which the NBC reviewed at their initial meeting were more docile and profitable. Included were—

- the handling of $148,000 to $176,000 during the past year, 1905, including the World Series and Chicago Championship games (the post season Chicago series between the victorious Cubs and the White Sox netted the NBC $3,000)

- $2610 was the actual amount for operating the NBC in 1905

- $800 came in from the collection of fines.

Finally the NBC decided to establish permanent headquarters in the Wiggins Building in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Chicago Cubs

The new Cub owner, Charles Murphy, was serious about having the Cubs excel. To do so he was in search for talent to raise the Cubs above their previous year’s effort, a third place finish, thirteen games behind the National League (NL) and