In the 14th Season

In the 14th season....

..of Major League Baseball (1889) theree were still two leagues - the National League and American Association.

The National League was still an unstable league. The Indianapolis franchise was $30,000 in debt ($700,000 in 2010 money) and ownership basically walked away from their franchise, saying "here you go, league, see if you can make baseball work in Indianapolis". An ownership group led by John T. Brush took over the franchise.

Even big teams like the New York Giants had to face their own humiliations. The City of New York wanted to build new streets through the Polo Grounds. Supporters of the Giants tried to get a bill passed in the New York State legislature that would block the construction, but New York Governor David Hill vetoed the bill after
it passed - the right of a city over its domain was to be respected, regardless of what he thought of the act.

The Giants had to move to Staten Island to the St. George's Cricket Grounds; the right fielder was basically playing on open soil that served as a stage in the off-season.

Players were unhappy with their low pay, and trouble was brewing. John Montgomery Ward was planning on a strike, but was going to hold off - for now. His plan would be to start a brand new league that would give players greater control over their sport. Players were assigned to look for capital, as it were, in their home cities. Later in the season, the players would issue a manifesto. In November, the National League would denounce the manifesto, and the war was on.

In conservative Cincinnati, church was considered more important than baseball, and the Red Stockings were kept twice by police from playing on Sunday. The American Association, founded by brewers, was the Beer and Whiskey league that played on Sunday; the NL was the league that didn't. Cincinnati and Brooklyn jumped from the American Association to the National League. Kansas City left the AA to join the Western League, and then the Baltimore Orioles dropped out, leaving a four-team league. The American Association would be scrambling for teams at the end of the 1889 season.

Particularly damaging was Brooklyn jumping to the National League - the Bridegrooms were the American Association champions! But the American Associations biggest test would come the following year.

In the 14th season....

...of the National Football League (1933), the league decided to split into two divisions following the success of the 1932 playoff game. "Hey! We shouldn't give the championship to whomever finishes at the top of the league! We should have a playoff!" I'm surprised that the league didn't think of this earlier.

There was a lot of NFL franchise movement. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Cincinnati joined the league. Staten Island suspended operations for the 1933 season, in hopes of coming back the following year. It didn't happen.

Furthermore, the NFL made a decision to separate itself from the college game. For a long time, both the NFL and big-time college football followed the same rules. Now, there would be new rules. Inbounds lines. Hashmarks. The goal post placed on the goal line. The most important rule was that the forward pass would be legal anywhere behind the line of scrimmage. Before that, one had to be five yards behind the line of scrimmage to throw a legal forward pass.

The year ended with the first real NFL Championship Game, with the Chicago Bears beating the New York Giants 23-21. The title game was still being held in December, weeks before Christmas.

In the 14th season....

...of the National Basketball Association (1959-60), the NBA was doing better than the year before. There was a brand new kid playing in the NBA called Wilt Chamberlain. He was not just the Rookie of the Year, but the Most Valuable Player, sort of the Candace Parker of his era.

However, the Minneapolis Lakers still weren't making money in Minnesota. Given that Bob Short couldn't make basketall work in Minneapolis, and given that Los Angeles was interested, Short relocated the Lakers to Los Angeles. For two years, the Lakers would be all alone out on the West Coast.

And the league was still an eight-team league.

In the 14th season....

...of the WNBA (2010), there will be twelve teams. A new team in Tulsa. I just keep telling myself, "three more months"...!

In The 13th Season

In the 13th season....

...of Major League Baseball (1888) there were two leagues - the National League and the American Association. The National League was the "purer" of the two leagues, the AA was the upstart. (Since the American Association was called the "Beer and Whiskey League" what better initials for it than AA?)

The leagues were in direct competition with each other. There were probably too many teams in baseball at the time - there were sixteen - but the AA was still holding on. Each league played each other in what could loosely be called a "World Series" but there was no fixed number of games between the two leagues. Each league was quite happy to poach the other's players when it could.

Already, the AA was instituting cost-cutting measures. There might not have been giveaway tickets, but prices were lowered to 25 cents and visiting teams were denied a percentage of the gate - they simply got a flat $130 for showing up.

There were still franchises in trouble. Oddly enough, the franchise that was in trouble was Detroit of the National League. One reason the AA made the move to limit visiting gate receipts was to kill Detroit - the Wolverines knew the only way they could survive was to sign big stars and hope for a big showing at the gate while on the road. Home attendance wasn't good enough to keep the team alive, and it disbanded after the 1888 season.

Detroit was gone at the end of the year. The National League stole the AA's Cleveland team and the AA replaced that team with one from Columbus.

Oddly enough, not only did the Detroit team disband in the 13th season of Major League Baseball, that Detroit team won the league championship the previous year.

In the 13th season...

...of the National Football League (1932) the fortunes of the NFL were at their lowest ever. In the midst of a Depression, the league had contracted to just eight teams. The previous season, the Frankford Yellow Jackets folded in mid-season. In the off-season, the Providence Steam Rollers and Cleveland Indians called it quits.

Generally, the rule of the previous 12 seasons was that the regular season champion was also the league champion. However, there were a lot of tied football games in those days - the Bears finished 6-1-6 - and the championship was given by winning percentage with ties excluded. Chicago and Portsmouth each finished 6-1 (not counting ties) and rather that split the title the NFL decided to have a playoff game.

Unfortunately, it couldn't be played at Wrigley Field due to severely cold weather. It was moved indoors to Chicago Stadium, which wasn't large enough for a full-sized football field. In spite of that, the idea of a playoff game was very popular.

You could say that the playoffs rejuvinated the sport. The following year, the NFL expanded with two more teams.

In the 13th season....

...of the National Basketball Association (1958-59), the league was actually doing very well. However, there was quite a bit of relocation going on, mostly from small cities to big cities. There were still the Minneapolis Lakers and the Philadelphia Warriors. The Celtics finished the year by winning their second NBA championship. It was only Bill Russell's third year as a Celtic, and Bob Cousy was still with the squad.

Looks good doesn't it? Oh by the way, the size of the NBA in 1958-59? Eight teams.

At the end of the 13th season....

...of the WNBA (2009)...it looks like there will be a 14th season to follow.

Packers Thinking of Putting Logos on Their Jerseys

From Sports Business Daily. The article is hidden behind a paywall, but you can get the gist from the title.

I suspect that the other sports were just looking for someone to step into the limelight and take the hit before bedecking their gear with logos. That "someone" turned out to be the humble Mercury of the WNBA, with the blessings of NBA Commissioner David Stern. Yes, soccer clubs have corporate logos but American soccer doesn't have a David Stern.

Corporate logos might be the road to heaven, or the road to hell. But wherever that road leads, the first milepost of the road was in Phoenix.

WNBA Not Only League Feeling Economic Pinch

This article is from Outsports, a gay sports site. Perhaps not safe for work, if you/your employer is squeamish about OH N OES TEH GAY!!1!

It looks like both the NFL and NBA are starting to feel the pain as well. The NFL is "rightsizing" 15 percent of its staff in an effort to save $50 million dollars. The NBA is "eliminating redundancies" in the name of 80 employees. Even in the middle of the season, it looks like intake != outflow where it comes to cash.

I wonder how many of baseball's minor league franchises will survive.