July 30, 1919: The Carl Mays Trade

July 30, 1919: The Boston Red Sox trade pitcher Carl Mays to the New York Yankees for pitchers Bob McGraw and Allen Russell, and $40,000. More than any other trade in the history of the sport, this one changed the history of baseball.

McGraw, Russell and the money don’t matter for this discussion. Mays, a 27-year-old Kentuckian with a righthanded "submarine" delivery -- think 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates World Series hero Kent Tekulve, and 1980s Kansas City Royals closer Dan Quisenberry -- had already helped the Red Sox win the 1915, 1916 and 1918 World Series.

But he was a rotten guy, what we would now call "a clubhouse cancer." One teammate (I can't find a record of which one) said, "He has the disposition of a man with a permanent toothache."

Mays himself couldn't explain it: "I always have wondered why I have encountered this antipathy from so many people, wherever I have been. And I have never been able to explain it, even to myself."

While he was at Spring Training in 1919, his farm house in Missouri burned down. He believed it was arson. He began the 1919 season with a 5-11 record. In a game in Philadelphia, home fans at Shibe Park pounded on the roof of the visitors' dugout, and Mays reacted to this by getting up and throwing a ball into the stands, hitting a fan in the head.

On July 13, against the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park, Eddie Collins tried to steal 2nd base. Catcher Wally Schang tried to throw him out, and hit Mays in the head by mistake. When the inning ended, Mays walked off the field, walked into the clubhouse, changed his clothes, went to the train station, and headed back to Boston. He told Burt Whitman, a Boston sportswriter:

I’m convinced that it will be impossible for me to preserve my confidence in myself as a ballplayer and stay with the Red Sox as the team is now handled. The entire team is up in the air and things have gone from bad to worse. The team cannot win with me pitching, so I am getting out…

Maybe there will be a trade or a sale of my services. I do not care where I go.

His teammates had turned against him. Sox management were eager to get rid of him. The Yankees, needing pitching, were happy to make the trade.

But, because he had "jumped the club," Mays had been suspended by Red Sox owner Harry Frazee. And Byron Bancroft "Ban" Johnson, President of the American League, ruled that Mays could not be traded while he was suspended.

"Baseball cannot tolerate such a breach of discipline," Johnson said. "It was up to the owners of the Boston club to suspend Carl Mays for breaking his contract, and when they failed to do so, it is my duty as head of the American League to act."

This move by Johnson split the League. On one side: Johnson, one of its co-founders, and the "Loyal Five": The Philadelphia Athletics, owned by Benjamin Shibe and manager Connie Mack; the Cleveland Indians, owned by James Dunn; the Detroit Tigers, owned by Frank Navin; the St. Louis Browns, owned by Phil Ball; and the Washington Senators, owned by former pitching star Clark Griffith.

On the other side, the "Insurrectos," the other 3 teams: The Red Sox, owned by Frazee; the Yankees, owned by Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston; and the Chicago White Sox, owned by the AL's other co-founder, Charlie Comiskey, once Johnson's best friend, and now a bitter enemy.

The Yankees went to court, and got an injunction against Johnson's ability to prevent the trade. Mays went 9-3 the rest of the way, finishing the season 14-14. He would win 80 games for the Yankees, helping them win their 1st  Pennants and their 1st World Series.

He would also -- unintentionally, he always insisted -- become the only pitcher ever to kill an opposing batter with a pitch: On August 16, 1920, at a time when there were no batting helmets, he hit Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman in the head. Chapman died the next day.

But the implications of this trade went beyond that. After this, the Loyal Five refused to make any deals with the Insurrectos. Those 3 teams could now only make deals with each other. And Comiskey was famously cheap, which resulted in the Black Sox Scandal. So if Frazee had to make a deal, he had to make it with Ruppert. (Huston more or less stayed out of it.)

And that's why so many of the Red Sox champions of the 1910s went to the Yankees, and helped to make their Dynasty of the 1920s. Mays was the first, and Babe Ruth would be the biggest. Pretty much everybody who has studied this period of baseball history knows that.

What they tend to overlook is what happened to the Loyal Five. Sure, the moves wrecked the Red Sox for a generation. But what did it do to the other teams? The downfall of the White Sox can be traced to the banning for life of the "Eight Men Out" during the Black Sox Scandal.

But from 1921 (after the Indians won the 1920 World Series) through 1964, while the Yankees were winning 29 Pennants in 44 years, how many did the Loyal Five win? The Tigers 4, the Athletics (moving to Kansas City in 1955 and Oakland in 1968) 3, the Senators (becoming the Minnesota Twins in 1961) 3, the Indians 2, the Browns (becoming the Baltimore Orioles in 1954) 1.

And even that wasn't the end of it. The injunction unblocking the Mays trade, combined with the Black Sox Scandal, led to the replacement of the command structure of what we would now call Major League Baseball.

Previously, the game was run by a National Commission, consisting of each League's President and a 3rd man, allegedly impartial (but still doing what the owners wanted.) Afterward, the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball was created. The League Presidents would still have power, particularly in the area of discipline, until Commissioner Bud Selig eliminated their offices in 1999. But they would never be so strong again.

The Carl Mays trade was huge, above and beyond leading to the Babe Ruth sale.

*

July 30, 1919 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees split a doubleheader with the Chicago White Sox at the Polo Grounds, and both games went to 10 innings. The Yankees won the opener, 6-5, on a suicide squeeze bunt by James "Truck" Hannah that scored Del Pratt. Bob Shawkey went the distance for the win. Wally Pipp hit a home run.

The South Siders won the nightcap, 5-3. Buck Weaver doubled home the winning run. Over the 2 games, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson went 4-for-5 with 3 walks and an RBI, and Eddie Collins went 3-for-10.

* A doubleheader was split at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The New York Giants won the 1st game, 9-0. Jesse Barnes pitched a 3-hit shutout. Hal Chase went 4-for-4 with an RBI and a stolen base, unaware that, due to getting caught throwing games, he was in his last 2 months as an active player. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the 2nd game, 6-1.

* The Brooklyn Robins beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-0 at Weeghman Park in Chicago. Jeff Pfeffer allowed 9 hits, but kept the shutout. Zack Wheat went 3-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs. (The Dodgers were named the Robins while Wilbert Robinson was their manager, from 1914 to 1931. Weeghman Park was renamed Cubs Park in 1920, and Wrigley Field in 1926.)

* A doubleheader was split at Fenway Park in Boston. The Detroit Tigers won the 1st game, 3-1. The Boston Red Sox won the 2nd game, 3-2. Over the 2 games, Ty Cobb went 4-for-7 with 2 walks and a stolen base, and Babe Ruth went 0-for-6 with 2 walks.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Cleveland Indians, 2-1 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Tris Speaker went 0-for-4.

* The Washington Senators beat the St. Louis Browns, 1-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. With 1 out in the bottom of the 9th, Sam Rice hit a triple, and Robert "Buzz" Murphy singled him home. Jim Shaw pitched a 4-hit shutout. George Sisler got 1 of those hits.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Boston Braves, 7-6 at Redland Field in Cincinnati. (It was renamed Crosley Field in 1934.)

* And the Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-1 at Robison Field in St. Louis. Rogers Hornsby went 0-for-4.

July 8, 1902: John McGraw Joins the New York Giants

July 8, 1902: John McGraw signs with the New York Giants, to manage them. Baseball, especially in New York, will never be the same.

He had been born on April 7, 1873 in Truxtun, New York, about 25 miles south of Syracuse. By 1891, he had joined the Baltimore Orioles of the American Association. The following year, they joined the National League, and he was their starting 3rd baseman.

The Orioles were masters of strategy: Excellent bunters, base stealers and hit-and-run performers. On defense, they were pioneers by instituting the cutoff man and having the pitcher cover 1st base.

But they were also sneaky. Sometimes, if they thought the umpire wasn't looking, they would round 1st base, cut across the infield, and slide into 3rd base without even going near 2nd. It took a while for the umpires to catch on to this. But then, it took a while for them to catch on to the need for better umpiring at all: There wasn't even a 2nd umpire on the field until 1888. (It would take until 1926 for games to have 3 umps, and 1940 to have 4, with stadium organists teasing umpires by playing "Three Blind Mice.")

And the Orioles were dirty. They would slide spikes-high, and start fights over nothing, hoping the umpire would only see the retaliation, not the first punch, and throw the opponent out of the game.

Their infield was Dan Brouthers at 1st base, Henry "Heinie" Reitz at 2nd, Hugh Jennings at shortstop, and McGraw at 3rd. Their outfield was Joe Kelley in left, Steve Brodie in center, and "Wee" Willie Keeler in right. The catcher was Wilbert Robinson. This was the team, managed by Ned Hanlon, that won the NL Pennant in 1894, 1895 and 1896, and nearly did so in 1897 and 1898.

Hanlon, Brouthers, Jennings, McGraw, Kelly, Keeler and Robinson are all in the Baseball Hall of Fame -- and while Hanlon, Jennings, McGraw and Robinson were elected in the Manager category, all but Hanlon could have been elected in the Player category. (Unlike the Basketball Hall of Fame, the Baseball Hall of Fame doesn't induct men as both players and managers/head coaches.)

A short man who tried to make up for it by taking on any man, in any contest, at any time, including physical fights when he felt like it, McGraw became known as "The Little Napoleon," which he didn't mind. His tendency to fight got him another nickname: "Muggsy." That nickname, he hated.

McGraw preferred what had come to be called "inside baseball" or "scientific baseball," what would be known today as "small ball": Get your runs any way you can, instead of getting somebody on base and then waiting for a home run.

After the team's 1898 second-place finish, Hanlon and most of the team's stars were moved to the Brooklyn Superbas -- they were renamed the Dodgers in 1911 -- by the joint ownership of the clubs, something that would be outlawed over the next few years. The same thing happened with the owners of the Cleveland Spiders and the team that would become known as the St. Louis Cardinals, with disastrous results for the Spiders.

McGraw and Robinson remained in Baltimore, with McGraw remaining as player/manager, only 28 years old. Following a 4th-place finish in 1899, the Orioles were eliminated by the National League, along with the Spiders, the Washington Senators and the Louisville Colonels. In the 8-team NL of 1900, McGraw and Robinson joined the Cardinals.

Sportswriter Byron Bancroft "Ban" Johnson, president of the Western League, converted into a major league, the American League, for the 1901 season. Among the 8 cities he put teams in were 3 of the abandoned NL cities, including Baltimore. McGraw had arranged to become a free agent, and became the manager of the new Baltimore Orioles.

McGraw had some injuries, limiting his playing time; and his frequent arguing with umpires led Johnson to suspend him, limiting his appearances altogether. As a result, attendance was poor. A rumor spread that Johnson wanted to move the team to New York, but without McGraw.

Suspended while the Orioles were on a Western roadtrip, with Wilbert Robinson as acting manager, on June 18, 1902, McGraw went to New York, and met with New York Giants owner Andrew Freedman, himself having worn out his welcome in his current city. They planned it all out. McGraw was free to return to managing and playing for the Orioles on June 28. In that game, against the Boston Beaneaters, he provoked an umpire into throwing him out of the game. He refused to leave, and the umpire forfeited the game. Johnson suspended McGraw again, this time indefinitely.

McGraw went to the directors of the Baltimore franchise, and demanded that either they reimburse the $7,000 he had advanced towards player salaries, or that they release him. They released him on July 8. Later that day, it was announced that Freedman had bought a controlling interest in the Orioles; had released McGraw, Joe McGinnity, Roger Bresnahan, Dan McGann and Jack Cronin; signed all of them for the Giants, making McGraw the manager; and also released Joe Kelley (whose father-in-law, John Mahon, had been the Orioles' majority owner) and Cy Seymour.

John T. Brush, owner of the Cincinnati Reds, then signed Kelley and Seymour. The following month, Brush sold the Reds to Garry Herrmann, and bought the Giants from Freedman.

McGraw had wanted to destroy the AL. Johnson knew that could happen, as his Baltimore franchise was left with so few players it had to forfeit its next game. He confiscated the Orioles from Freedman, and got the other 7 teams to contribute players to the Orioles.

After the season, knowing that peace would be better for each side's business than war, the 2 Leagues hammered out an agreement: The AL accepted the NL's reserve clause; each League would respect the other's contracts, and would play under the same game rules. During the 1903 season, a postseason series between the Leagues' champions was agreed upon, and this would be named the World Series.

Johnson folded the Baltimore franchise, and started a new one in New York. (Documentary evidence has been found to prove that it is not the same franchise, moved.) McGraw and Brush acted to try to prevent this team from finding a place to play, but one of the owners was Bill Devery, a former Police Commissioner with more connections, and a place was found. This team began play in April 1903 as the New York Highlanders. In 1913, they became the New York Yankees.

When McGraw took over the Giants on July 8, 1902, they were 21-45, dead last in the NL, 28 1/2 games out of 1st place. They split a doubleheader that day, against the Chicago Orphans at the West Side Grounds, winning the opener 1-0 on a 6-hit shutout by Christy Mathewson, and losing the nightcap, 2-0.

(The Chicago team, formerly known as the White Stockings and, for their youth, as the Colts, had long been led by 1st baseman and manager Adrian Constantine Anson. He was known as "Cap," for "Captain," until he got older, and became known as "Pop." He retired after the 1897 season, and the team became known as the "Orphans," because "they missed their Pop." They were renamed the Chicago Cubs in 1903.)

McGraw, and the players he brought with him from Baltimore, couldn't save them that season, but they finished 2nd in 1903, behind the Pittsburgh Pirates; won 106 games and the Pennant in 1904, but refused to play the World Series against the Boston Americans, considering the AL an inferior League; and won 105 games and the Pennant in 1905, and then, having taken so much abuse for his stubbornness (some suggested cowardice) the year before, played the World Series, and beat the Philadelphia Athletics.

McGraw was done as a player: In Spring Training in 1903, he injured his knee, and an errant practice throw hit him in the nose, causing him respiratory problems that plagued him for the rest of his life. He was about to turn 30, but only played another 25 games.

But his managing, with "scientific baseball," not only made the Giants the best team in New York, and made the team celebrities in the city, allowing McGraw and his team to hobnob with Broadway stars like George M. Cohan, it made the Giants, at times, the best team in baseball. McGraw's style of play would dominate the game until the early 1920s. The game's best players played in the same contact-hitting, base-stealing style as his Giants: Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Eddie Collins.

Between playing and managing, McGraw was involved with 13 Pennant winners and won 3 World Series. He retired as Giant manager in 1932, and died 2 years later. He outlasted Ban Johnson: He had been essentially stripped of most of his power by the AL team owners in 1920, resigned the presidency in 1927, and died in 1931. In 1937, McGraw and the Athletics' Connie Mack were the 1st 2 managers elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

*

July 8, 1902 was a Tuesday. In addition to the Giants-Orphans doubleheader, these games were played:

* The Brooklyn Superbas lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 5-4 in 11 innings at The Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati. In 1911, the Superbas accepted the name by which they had already been widely called, the Dodgers, short for "Trolley Dodgers," a pejorative for a Brooklynite. In 1914, with McGraw and Robinson have ended their friendship and begun a feud, the Dodgers hired Robinson as manager, and they became known as the Brooklyn Robins. He was fired after the 1931 season, and became the Brooklyn Dodgers again in 1932. In their final years, McGraw and Robinson reconciled.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Boston Americans, 22-9 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. The Americans became the Red Sox in 1908. 

* Without McGraw, the Baltimore Orioles beat the Washington Senators, 8-1 at Oriole Park in Baltimore.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-0 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. Jack Chesbro pitched a 6-hit shutout, and Honus Wagner went 3-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Chicago White Stockings beat the Cleveland Bronchos, 2-1 at League Park in Cleveland. The next season, the Bronchos renamed themselves for their best hitter and 2nd baseman, and even named him their manager: Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie. They became the Cleveland Naps in 1903, the Cleveland Indians in 1915, and the Cleveland Guardians in 2022. The White Stockings became the White Sox in 1905.

* The Boston Beaneaters swept a doubleheader from the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2 and 6-4 at Robison Field in St. Louis. The Beaneaters went through some name changes before becoming the Braves in 1912.

* Also in St. Louis, the St. Louis Browns swept a doubleheader from the Detroit Tigers at Sportsman's Park, winning the 1st game 5-4, and the 2nd game 3-2 in 10 innings.

February 9, 1920: Baseball Outlaws the Spitball

 

Burleigh Grimes, the last man to legally do it

February 9, 1920: Baseball's National Commission -- then consisting of National League President John Heydler, American League President Byron Bancroft "Ban" Johnson, and Cincinnati Reds owner August "Garry" Herrmann -- votes to outlaw a set of actions that results in what had been known as "trick" or "freak" pitches, which fell under the unofficial category of "spitballs."

Ever since, there has been a perception that baseball outlawed such pitches in the wake of Carl Mays hitting Ray Chapman in the head with a pitch on August 16, 1920, causing Chapman to lose consciousness, and die the next day. Certainly, it would have been the right thing to do, had it not already been done. But the ban actually came before that.

There were other notable rule changes that took effect for 1920:

* Fly balls hit over the fence along the left and right-field lines will be judged fair or foul according to where the ball passes the fence. Previously, umpires would judge based on where the ball landed. On June 25, the rule reverted to the 1919 version, which is based upon where the ball disappears from view. The rule would re-revert to the 1920 version before the 1928 season began.

* When a batter hits a ball over the fence to win the game, he is now credited with a home run. Previously, the batter would be rewarded with only the number of bases needed for the team to win the game and were not considered home runs. In other words, if a game was tied in the bottom of the 9th inning, and a runner was on 2nd base, and the batter hit the ball fair and over the fence, since only 2 bases were required to drive the winning run home, the batter was only credited with a double (and an RBI). From this point onward, it would go into the books as a home run (and the batter would also get RBI credit for driving himself home).

* A balk was to be called if the pitcher releases the ball while the catcher is out of his box.

* The failure of a preceding runner to touch a base would not affect the status of a succeeding runner.

* Cases where the defense intentionally allows the runner to advance without attempting to put him out are scored as "defensive indifference," and do not count as stolen bases. The lack of a putout attempt does not, by itself, indicate defensive indifference; the official scorer must also factor in the game situation and the defensive players' actions.

But the biggest change was the outlawing of the trick pitches. The term "spitball" implies that a pitcher spit on the ball. That's not usually how it happened. Usually, the pitcher would lick his fingers, and then grip the ball, so the moistness would cause it to drop just before it reached the plate, like what would now be called a hard sinker.

Other "foreign substances" would be used on the ball, such as tobacco juice (chewing tobacco was all too common for players, especially pitchers, even into the 1980s, and many died from cancer as a result), Vaseline or some other petroleum product, or resin (not to be confused with rosin, from the rosin bag on the pitcher's mound). Some would damage the ball, including "scuffing" it with an emery board: The emery ball was common in the early 20th Century. Some would just rub the ball in the dirt on the mound. These actions became known as "doctoring the ball."

But all this did more than just make the ball drop or curve sharply. Sometimes, it would make the ball rise, or come inside and hit the batter. Or, worse, both rise and hit the batter, sometimes in the head. And when there was dirt on the ball, turning a white ball brown, or some sort of gunk on the ball, making it an even darker color, that made it hard to see, especially later in the day when the Sun sank in the sky. It's this reason that led later observers to see the year, "1920," and presume that the rule was put into place after Chapman's death. The ban happened before.

If a ball was found to be doctored, the pitcher and the ball would both be thrown out of the game, and the pitcher then fined and suspended. And, while a pitcher blowing on his hand to warm it up during a game in cold weather was allowed (and still is), if an umpire thought he saw a pitcher stick his finger in his mouth, the umpire would automatically call a ball. For a 2nd offense, a warning. For a 3rd offense, ejection from the game, and a 10-game suspension.

Detroit Tigers center fielder Ty Cobb, the best player of the era, in one of his many "Old man"/"Get off my lawn" pronouncements, complained in his autobiography, "Freak pitches... were outlawed when the owners greedily sold out to home runs." Indeed, fewer sharp-breaking pitches and easier-to-see balls did give rise to what became known as the Lively Ball Era. Cobb kept on hitting until his retirement in 1928, though, never batting as low as .323 until his last season.

Cobb wasn't the only one who objected to the rule change: Many pitchers did, claiming the spitball was their best pitch, their "money pitch," their "bread and butter." So 17 pitchers were "grandfathered in," allowed to continue using it: Ray Fisher, Doc Ayers, Ray Caldwell (all retiring after the 1921 season), Phil Douglas (1922), Dana Fillingim, Dutch Leonard, Allen Russell (all retiring after 1925), Marv Goodwin (who died right after the 1925 season), Allen Sothoron (1926), Dick Rudolph (1927), Urban Shocker (died of heart trouble late in the 1928 season), Hall-of-Famer Stan Coveleski (1928), Bill Doak (1929), Clarence Mitchell (1932), Hall-of-Famer Urban "Red" Faber and Jack Quinn (1933), and, finally, Hall-of-Famer Burleigh Grimes (1934).

Although Carl Mays was known to throw the spitball, he was not one of the pitchers "grandfathered in," and he did not rely on the pitch after the ban. And no player is known to have publicly complained about having to face any of the 17 pitchers after the ban.

In March 1955, Commissioner Ford Frick advocated for the return of the spitball, telling a sportswriter, "If I had my way, I'd legalize the old spitter. It was a great pitch, and one of the easiest to throw. There was nothing dangerous about it." Despite his enthusiasm, the team owners didn't vote on it, and the pitch remained illegal.

After 1934, a few pitchers were accused of throwing doctored balls, including Claude Passeau of the 1940s Chicago Cubs, Hugh Casey of the 1940s Brooklyn Dodgers, Preacher Roe of the 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers, Early Wynn of the 1950s Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox, Lew Burdette of the 1950s Milwaukee Braves, and Don Drysdale of the 1960s Los Angeles Dodgers.

One pitcher who ended up making the Hall of Fame admitted to doing it: Gaylord Perry. In 1975, he published an autobiography, Me and the Spitter. He claimed to have used Vaseline, but wouldn't say where he hid it. He would also fake hitters out by wiping the sweat off his face, and off his brow, leading some people to think he kept the Vaseline on the brim of his cap. It was a mind game: "Just the idea that batters think I'm throwing the spitter when I might not be helps me," he said. "Some of 'em worry more about whether I'm throwing it than about hitting it."

Only once was he ever caught on the field, in 1982, at the age of 44, having already joined the 300 Wins Club and the 3,000 Strikeouts Club, and having become the 1st pitcher to win the Cy Young Award in both Leagues, and, at the time, the oldest pitcher to win the Cy Young.

*

February 9, 1920 was a Monday. Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. And the NHL had no games scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.

January 10, 1903: The American League and the National League Make Peace

January 10, 1903: After 2 years of "war," baseball's American League and National League make "peace" with each other.

All that Byron Bancroft "Ban" Johnson, founder and President of the AL, wanted was for the NL to recognize his League as "major."  Had they done so when his League began play in 1901, he was willing to play by the same rules as the NL, and to respect its teams' contracts. But the NL wasn't willing to give up their monopoly on the concept.

So the AL raided NL teams, pulling away such stars as Cy Young, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, Willie Keeler, Ed Delahanty, Elmer Flick and Sam Crawford. After 2 years of their players threatening to "jump" to the AL, and then doing so if their salary demands were not met, the NL surrendered.

The AL was magnanimous in victory. They agreed to accept all NL contracts still in place as binding, and to abide by the reserve clause. They established a National Commission, consisting of each League's President and a neutral third party.

They accepted the NL's 140-game schedule as a model for their own. Each League had 8 teams, and played 20 games against each of the other 7 teams in their League. The next season, both agreed to make it 22 games against each of the other 7 teams, for a total of 154. This would remain in place in the AL until 1960, and in the NL until 1961. In each case, in the following season, there was an expansion from 8 teams to 10, and a 162-game schedule, 18 games against each of the other 9 teams.

The AL adopted a rule that the NL had in 1901: Foul balls are to count as strikes, unless there are already 2 strikes. The pitcher's mound was limited to 15 inches, which would also remain until 1968, after which it was dropped to 10 inches. And, as the NL had in 1900, the AL adopted the pentagonal, "house-shaped" home plate.

And the Leagues agreed to let their respective Champions play each other in a best-5-out-of-9-games World Series, for the overall championship of the sport. The Boston Americans, forerunners of the Red Sox, beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5 games to 3.

And so, for the next 50 seasons, the 2 Leagues would, effectively, be 1, with the same teams, listed here with the names they would have for most of that time, in alphabetical order:

* American League: Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Athletics, St. Louis Browns, Washington Senators.

* National League: Boston Braves, Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, New York Giants, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals.

*

January 10, 1903 was a Saturday. Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball and professional hockey barely existed. But there were scores in English soccer. Among them: Woolwich Arsenal, the Kent-based team that would one day become North London-based Arsenal, traveled to Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, and played Burslem Port Vale (eventually just Port Vale) to a 1-1 draw at the Athletic Ground.