1917 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION - INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE
Teams:
American Association
Columbus Senators
Indianapolis Indians
Kansas City Blues
Louisville Colonels
Milwaukee Brewers
Minneapolis Millers
St. Paul Saints
Toledo Iron Men
International League
Baltimore Orioles
Buffalo Bisons
Montreal Royals
Newark Bears
Providence Grays
Richmond Virginians
Rochester Hustlers
Toronto Maple Leafs
Schedule Characteristics:
American Association: SCHEDULE type="ILN_BGY_G112_T8_C_" inter_league="0" balanced_games="1" games_per_team="112" start_month="4" start_day="11" start_day_of_week="4"
Each team plays 112 games. Teams play each other 16 times.
Season starts on April 11 and ends on August 5. Weekday games start at 3:00, weekend games start at 1:00. Double-header games start at noon and 3:00, except for split home-and-home double-headers between Minneapolis and St. Paul, which start at 10:00 and 3:00.
International League: SCHEDULE type="ILN_BGY_G112_T8_C_" inter_league="0" balanced_games="1" games_per_team="112" start_month="4" start_day="17" start_day_of_week="3"
Each team plays 112 games. Teams play each other 16 times.
Season starts on April 17 and ends on August 4. Weekday games start at 3:00, weekend games start at 1:00. Double-header games start at noon and 3:00. Sunday games only at Montreal, Newark, and Providence.
Interleague Schedule: SCHEDULE type="ILY_BGY_G160_SL1_D1_T8_SL2_D1_T8_C_" inter_league="1" balanced_games="1" games_per_team="160" start_month="4" start_day="11" start_day_of_week="4"
Each team plays 160 games. Teams play each team in their own league16 times and teams in the other league 6 times.
Season starts on April 11 and ends on September 22. Weekday games start at 3:00, weekend games start at 1:00. Double-header games start at noon and 3:00 except for split home-and-home double-headers between Minneapolis and St. Paul. Interleague games start on August 6.
This is truly a one-of-a-kind schedule. After playing a 112-game championship season, the AA and IL planned to play an interleague round-robin tournament (3 home - 3 away) to determine which was the premier minor league. It is clear that the interleague games were
not intended to count in the pennant races - they were, in effect, post-season exhibition games. All of the IL teams were to travel to AA cities from Aug. 6 to Aug. 29, and then the AA teams would travel to IL cities from Aug. 31 to Sept. 22.
The plan, however, never got off the ground. I'm not sure when the decision was made to ditch the interleague games, but each league ended up playing a standard 154-game schedule in 1917.
This must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but it's the sort of thing that probably appealed more to sportswriters than to ordinary fans, who weren't all that interested in knowing whether their league was better than some other league. In any event, 1917 was a bad year for minor-league baseball in general. The minors were still recovering from the Federal League war, and the US entered the Great War just prior to the start of the season. A number of established minors collapsed during the year, and there was talk of suspending all minor-league operations in 1918. In short, it was not a good year for experimentation. The AA and IL continued to hold the "little" world series between their pennant winners, but any talk of interleague play was quickly and quietly shelved.
Attached are the schedules for each league individually, and one for the combined league-interleague schedules.
American Association 1917.lsdl
International League 1917.lsdl
IL-AA 1917.lsdl