Union Association - History

History

The league was founded in September 1883 by the young St. Louis millionaire Henry Lucas. Lucas was eventually named the league's president, with owner Tom Pratt of the Philadelphia franchise serving as vice-president and Warren W. White of the Washington franchise as secretary.

Lucas' favoritism toward his own team doomed the league from the beginning. He acquired the best available players for his St. Louis franchise at the expense of the rest of the league. The Maroons won 94 games while losing only 19, for an .832 percentage. For comparison, if extrapolated to the length of a modern 162-game schedule, that would translate to 134 wins.

The lopsided competition and the revolving-door nature of its franchises and schedules was a continual problem, and the league was derisively dubbed "The Onion League" by its detractors in the two established leagues. Four different franchises folded during the season, forcing the league to scramble to replace them from lower classification leagues or from scratch. The Altoona team was the first to fold in May, and was replaced by a newly-formed team in Kansas City. After the Philadelphia franchise folded in August, the Unions recruited the Wilmington Quicksteps from the Eastern League; the Quicksteps lost many of their best players, and dropped out of the Association in September. The Chicago franchise had moved to Pittsburgh in August and finally disbanded about the same time as Wilmington, and both teams were replaced by two teams from the disbanding Northwest League, Milwaukee and St. Paul. On January 15, 1885, at a scheduled UA meeting in Milwaukee, only the Milwaukee and Kansas City franchises showed up. The league was promptly disbanded.

The St. Louis franchise itself was deemed to be strong enough to enter the National League in 1885, but it faced heavy competition within the city, as the St. Louis Browns were a power in the American Association. Thus, the lone survivor of the Union folded after the 1886 season, having compiled records of 36-72 and 43-79 in NL play. These figures perhaps reveal the gulf in class between the UA and the established major leagues.

Perhaps the most obvious impact of the short-lived league was on the career of a player who did not jump to the new league: Charles Radbourn. With a schedule of a little over 100 games, most teams employed two regular pitchers. The Providence Grays' entry of the National League featured Radbourn and Charlie Sweeney. According to the book Glory Fades Away, by Jerry Lansche, Sweeney fell out of grace with the Providence team in late July after he refused to be replaced in a game while drunk, and was expelled. Rather than come crawling back, Sweeney signed with Lucas' team, leaving Radbourn by himself. Leveraging his situation, Radbourn pledged to stay with the club and be the sole primary pitcher, if he would be granted free agency at season's end. Radbourn, who already had 24 wins at that point to Sweeney's 17, pitched nearly every game after that, and went on to win an astounding 60 games during the regular season. For an encore, he won all three games of 1884's version of the World Series, pitching every inning of a sweep of the New York Metropolitans of the American Association. His performance in 1884, along with a generally strong career topping 300 wins overall, assured his place in the Baseball Hall of Fame.