| Most recent season or competition: 1899 | |
| Sport | Baseball |
|---|---|
| Founded | February 11, 1885 |
| First season | 1885 |
| Replaced by | American League |
| President | Ban Johnson (1894–1899) |
| Country | United States |
| Continent | North America |
| Most recent champion | Indianapolis Hoosiers (1899) |
| Most titles | Indianapolis (4) |
| Related competitions | Western AssociationNorthwestern League |
TheWestern League was the name of severalminor league baseball leagues that operated between 1885 and 1899. These leagues were focused mainly in theMidwestern United States.[1]
The 1893 incarnation of the league hiredBan Johnson as president in 1894.[2] In 1899, Johnson renamed it theAmerican League and declared that it was now amajor league, intending to compete against the olderNational League of 1876, which was centered in the American Northeast states.
Before its incarnation in November 1893, the Western League existed in various forms. The League was formed as a minor league on February 11, 1885.[1][3][4] The original clubs were located inIndianapolis‚Kansas City‚Cleveland‚Milwaukee‚Toledo andOmaha/Keokuk, Iowa.[5] The season began on April 18, 1885 with theIndianapolis Hoosiers winning the first title with a record of 27–4–1.[4] The league then folded on June 15, 1885.[6]
The league was reformed on January 18, 1886, to play an 80-game schedule.[1] Denver won the pennant on September 20, 1886 with a record of 54 wins and 26 losses.[7] In 1887, the league was dominated byTopeka'sGolden Giants, a high-priced collection of major leaguers, includingBug Holliday,Jim Conway,Perry Werden andJimmy Macullar, which won the title by 15½ games on October 2, 1887.[4] The league returned in February 1888, but dissolved after a partial season on June 21, 1888. Denver had finished first with a record of 18 wins and 6 losses.[8] The league was revived in 1892. Columbus won the title with a record of 46 wins and 26 losses. The league shut down on July 11, 1892.[9]
The league was revived on May 17, 1893 and had planned a schedule[10] before being shut down on June 20, 1893.[1]
In a meeting inIndianapolis, Indiana, on November 20, 1893,[11] the Western League reorganized again and namedBan Johnson its president, who would remain so until his retirement in the 1920s. From this point forward, this version of the WL has continued in existence, eventually becoming the modern-dayAmerican League. Initially, league headquarters were to be inCincinnati, Ohio, where Johnson was based as a sport editor for a newspaper, but were ultimately located in Chicago.[12] Johnson had been recommended by his friendCharles Comiskey, a former major league star with theSt. Louis Browns in the 1880s, who was then managing theCincinnati Reds.[2] After the 1894 season, when Comiskey's contract with the Reds was up, he decided to take his chances at ownership. He bought theSioux City team and transferred it toSaint Paul, Minnesota. These two men were among the cornerstones of the American League.
After the 1899 season, the National League announced it was dropping four of its franchises, reducing its membership from 12 to 8 teams. The franchises that were eliminated wereBaltimore,Cleveland,Louisville andWashington. This afforded an opportunity for the Western circuit to expand into those vacated cities.
In a meeting inChicago on October 11, 1899, the Western League renamed itself the American League. It was still a minor league, subject to theNational Agreement, and generally subordinate to the older National League ofMajor League Baseball, which was founded in 1876. The NL gave permission to the new AL to put a team in Chicago that year, and Comiskey moved his St. Paul club to theSouth Side. However, the new team in Chicago was subject to rules from the NL. The Cubs (then called the Orphans) were allowed to draft two players each year from the AL team. Comiskey was also barred from using the name "Chicago" in all of his dealings, so he cleverly revived the old moniker "White Stockings" from the days ofCap Anson for his team. The AL also transferred theGrand Rapids team toCleveland for the 1900 season.
After the 1900 season, the American League declined to renew its membership in the "National Agreement" and declared itself a "major league". It began raiding NL team rosters and attempting to compete directly against the NL. The franchises in the smaller cities ofBuffalo,Indianapolis,Kansas City andMinneapolis were replaced by the larger, more important urban centers ofBaltimore,Boston,Philadelphia andWashington for the 1901 season. The second and third of those cities already had NL teams. Next,Milwaukee moved toSt. Louis in 1902.Baltimore, having fallen into disarray, was replaced byNew York City in 1903, for the reason that the new league would not be totally respected and have "major league" status without a team in the nation's largest city. The American League team lineup settled on five franchises in cities that already had NL teams (Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis) and two in cities that had been recently abandoned by the NL (Cleveland and Washington), but only one in a city remaining from the former Western League lineup of 1899 (Detroit). Four of the other 1899 Western League cities now host Major League Baseball today (Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis and Saint Paul jointly), while three do not (Buffalo, Grand Rapids, and Indianapolis, but all have minor league teams). This membership list for both leagues lasted in place for nearly a half-century until the move of theBoston Braves to Milwaukee in 1953, theSt. Louis Browns to Baltimore, becoming the newBaltimore Orioles in 1954, and thePhiladelphia Athletics to Kansas City in 1955.
The American League's claim to major league status was disputed, but had to be recognized after theBoston Red Sox defeated the NL championPittsburgh Pirates in the firstWorld Series held in late 1903.
WhenBan Johnson changed his league's name to the American League before the 1900 season, another "Western League" was immediately formed to function on the supporting minor-league level.[1] This league operated from 1900 to 1937 and later from 1947 to 1958. Its franchises were located west of theMississippi River, in theGreat Plains andRocky Mountains states.
In its post-World War II incarnation, the later Western League included clubs inDenver, Colorado;Des Moines, Iowa;Omaha, Nebraska; andColorado Springs, Colorado. Each of those cities later served as the home for aTriple-A team in thePacific Coast League (theDenver Bears,Iowa Cubs,Omaha Royals, andColorado Springs Sky Sox, respectively).
Several other 20th century minor-league circuits have also used the same name.
The first line is the formation of the 1894–1899 Western League (WL). The second line marks when the WL was classified as aClass A minor league. The third line marks when the Western League was renamed as the American League (AL). The fourth line marks the declaration that the AL was a major league.
Pennant winners are shown with a "•".
*There were no seasons in 1889, 1890, 1891, and 1893
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