Share your founding/essential baseball documentation?

[dbussell12]

Curious to see + would love to see everyone's archival documents - whether that be letters, founding documents, what have you -- regarding pivot points in baseball's architecture. Things regarding legislation, legal docs, contracts, rules, notices, letters, et cetera.

I think frequently about baseball's architecture; the tectonic plate shifts that are cracking beneath it. Walter Johnson almost signing with the Federal League is one of them; so is the Federal League. Many parts of baseball can be looked at not only as foundational to American history, but as entire civilizational historical moments themselves -- occurring within baseball, unto the nation of baseball itself.

I know you guys have some cool stuff; if anyone wants to share, it would be great to see what sorts of archival documentary magic is hidden deep in your private collections!!

Cheers,
David


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Here's my contribution. I think of this as something similar to George Washington's Revolutionary War battle plans and hidden movements prior to the spark of the war itself.

For those who don't know, Stovall was the first big major leaguer to violate the reserve clause, setting off the big bang which was the serious challenge of the Federal League to the existing power structure of the AL/NL. This document documents him moving to meet the team for the first time just weeks before the start of the season in real time, as Secretary Neily of the KC Feds prepares to release pre-season exhibition games to local news outlets for coverage, to get the word out to the public about the emergence of a third major league's challenge to baseball.

As you can see, it is on Wichita Falls CoC stationery, which reveals just how important local outlets and public channels were to getting the league off the ground. Stovall and KC, along with the Fed League itself, was organized much like a revolutionary movement -- strategizing battle plans as it grew up off the ground.

Neily, interestingly enough, would later go on to be instrumental in working with Ban Johnson to uncover the full extent of the Black Sox Scandal in 1919. You can trace this in real time assemblage of challenge to power to Curt Flood, the 1994 strike, and last season's signing of Juan Soto for a record sum of 765 million dollars. Neily was part of the two major bang-moments of this period at the end of deadball -- both of which centered around corruption and the inner economy of baseball and labor rights in the midst of an ever-increasingly profitable national pastime. Many forget the early days of the Federal League and its orchestration and character; furthermore, its essential importance in the revolutionary arc of the end of deadball + the onset of the live ball era. The labor movement and real challenge of the Federal League is an originating echo.


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"Ignoring the reserve clause he so despised, Stovall signed to manage an unspecified club, with a generous contract for $7,000 a season for three years, plus a signing bonus of $5,000 to $10,000. “No player had yet broken his reserve contract to go with the Federal League. But I argued that somebody had to be the first and it might as well be I,” he said. Joe Tinker came along two months later, followed by Mordecai Brown, both at the urging of “The Jesse James of the Federal League,” Firebrand Stovall. It was announced that Brother George would be back in his hometown, as player–manager of the Kansas City Packers.

It was Stovall and Tinker who landed more than half the Federal League players for the 1914 season. Though failing to sign big stars, Stovall got a kick out of costing teams money by forcing them to pay players more to stick with the established leagues. He usually went after unsigned and reserve list players, but was also known to loiter around hotels at spring training sites. He especially delighted in aggravating Hedges, Rickey, and Ban Johnson while courting hurler Earl Hamilton, who committed himself to Stovall but jumped back to the Browns after they offered him a substantial raise. Stovall commented in his usual homespun way, “I can go out and get these ball players, but I can’t chain ’em down.”

- SABR, George Stovall Player Bio