WILBERT, WARREN N. The Arrival of the American League

WILBERT, WARREN N. The Arrival of the American League

REVIEWS: BOOKS
WILBERT, WARREN N. The Arrival of the American League: Ban Johnson and the 1901
Challenge to National League Monopoly. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2007. Pp. viii,
232. Photographs, appendices, notes, bibliography, and index. $29.95 pb.
The National League (NL), founded in 1876, is the oldest professional circuit in American sport. From the American Association to the Continental League, several organizations have challenged the hegemony of Major League Baseball’s established order, but,
amongst the upstart rivals, only the American League (AL) endured. The Arrival of the
American League examines the birth of the game’s most successful insurgent circuit. The
AL emerged from a strong minor league, the Western League (1894-1899), which changed
its name its name to the American League in 1900, preparatory to proclaiming itself a
major league, at war with the NL, in 1901. By 1902, AL attendance exceeded that of the
Senior Circuit, and in 1903 the two leagues made peace, agreeing to a new National
Agreement and participating in the first World Series. Ban Johnson, former president of
the Western League and first president of the AL, is the protagonist of Warren N. Wilbert’s
account of this “masterfully staged venture” (p.4). The focus is on the critical year 1901, a
season that gave the AL legitimacy and a foundation for the future.
At the turn of the twentieth century, flaccid attendance, weak franchises, illicit gambling, rowdy behavior, internecine conflict, and controversy over syndicalism made the
NL, as Wilbert persuasively demonstrates, vulnerable to a challenge by a new circuit. An
essential factor in the success of the AL was the leadership of its president, the “determined, strong-willed” (p. 18) Johnson. The return of prosperity allowed him to attract
substantial investors, most notably Cleveland coal mogul Charles Somers, who provided
capital to four different AL franchises. Johnson, however, held, in escrow, 51 percent of
the stock in each of the eight AL teams, giving him tremendous power over the league and
its franchises. Johnson animated others with his dream, installed his chief confederate —
Charles Comiskey—at the helm of the Chicago franchise, invaded Eastern and NL markets, facilitated the acquisition of land on which to build ballparks, disciplined the insubordinate, buttressed the authority of umpires, and kept careful scrutiny on all within his
domain. Johnson assembled a remarkable coterie of managers, some of whom were also
franchise shareholders. Their ranks included Connie Mack, Clark Griffith, Jimmy Collins,
George Stallings, and John McGraw—although the “abrasive nature” (p. 210) of the latter
circumscribed his AL tenure. Managers assisted in the creation of a league infrastructure,
boosterism, and player recruitment.
Wilbert makes a strong case that the AL played major league caliber baseball in 1901.
Flouting the National Agreement of 1892, the AL, offering higher salaries than the Senior
Circuit, successfully raided top players from NL rosters. Moreover, the downsizing of the
NL from 12 to 8 teams following the 1899 season left a number of former major leaguers
open to new employment. In 1901, the majority of AL players had previous major league
experience, including several future Hall of Famers. Nonpareil second baseman Nap Lajoie,
lured from the NL’s Philadelphia Phillies to the AL’s Philadelphia Athletics, was the new
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circuit’s “biggest signing coup” (p.45). His league-leading .426 batting average and .643
slugging percentage were, respectively, 86 and 123 points higher than those of the runners
up. The on-field performance of Lajoie and other stars, the shrewd leadership of Johnson,
and fortuitous timing rendered the 1901 AL a success in terms of quality of product,
attendance, and financial returns.
Wilbert capably illuminates the principal reasons for the triumph of the AL. Nonetheless, his chronicle elicits certain caveats. A work of synthesis, the volume is derivative,
offering little that is seminal, either empirically or interpretively, to scholars. Other than
contemporary newspapers, few primary sources are in evidence, and Wilbert appears not
to have consulted important secondary works germane to nuanced analysis of the game’s
relationship to urbanism, ethnicity, and culture during the Progressive Era, such as Steven
Riess’s Touching Base (1980). Given Lajoie’s centrality to the saga, it is surprising to find
no reference to Jim Murphy’s biographical treatment of the second baseman. Moreover,
Wilbert generally eschews relevant historiographic discussion concerning the early twentieth-century creation of a fully developed baseball ideology.
Nonetheless, its intended audience will find The Arrival of the American League informative and engaging. Although length and structure render some sentences turgid, vivid
language and vernacular phrases offset such incursions to invest the presentation with
appeal and accessibility. Wilbert’s enthusiasm and identification with the topic are infectious. Heavily annotated timelines for each month, which include game accounts, attendance figures, and updates on the performance of individual players, dramatically capture
the ebb and flow of the 1901 season. Readers will appreciate the abundance of well-chosen
and revealing photographs of AL pioneers. Substantive excerpts from contemporary newspapers convey the emotions and perceptions of a significant passage in baseball history.
General baseball readers will find this volume a good introduction to the birth of the AL.
—WILLIAM M. SIMONS
State University of New York at Oneonta
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Volume 35, Number 2