Players' League - Legacy

Legacy

The Boston and Philadelphia franchises joined the American Association after the Players' League folded. The Brooklyn, New York, Chicago and Pittsburgh franchises each merged with their National League counterparts after the season.

Although the league was started by the players themselves, essentially as an elaborate job-action to improve their lot, the venture proved to be a setback for them in the longer term. The infamous reserve clause remained intact, and would remain thus for the next 85 years or so. The already-shaky AA had been further weakened by the presence of the PL. The Lou Bierbauer incident caused a schism between the NL and the AA, and the AA failed a year later, reducing the total number of major league teams (and players) significantly, giving the remaining owners much greater leverage against the players.

One benefit of the league, from the management standpoint, was the construction of new facilities, several of which were used for a while by the established major league clubs. The most prominent of these was a new Polo Grounds, originally constructed for the New York Giants of the Players League, which served afterwards as the home of the National League's New York Giants from 1891 to 1957 (it was rebuilt in steel and concrete in 1911) and of the New York Mets in their first two seasons. It was also the site of many other famous sporting events through its 75 years of existence.

Chicago's still-standing Wrigley Field has been called a "silent monument" to the Federal League experiment of 1914-1915, and it was likewise with the Polo Grounds and the Players' League. Once the demolition of the Polo Grounds began in 1964, the game's historians realized that this was not only the end of an era in general, but also in a sense it was the final chapter of the Players' League.