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West Coast Baseball

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Posted 10-07-2009 at 10:25 AM by tarmer

(This is a double post - I want to try the blog feature to see where this dynasty best works, here or the dynasty section)

Backstory:

The Pacific Coast League has been around in some format since the early 1900's, Though it tried to put together a good product, And was mostly recieved as a good league - It was just never seen as "Major League Material".. It came close but nevre quite got there.. This is the story of this league trying to flex it's muscles

The year is 1920, Baseball on the West Coast has gone through a few incarnations with several different leagues coming and going, The PCL, The Northwestern League, The Inter-Mountain League, The Oregon League, The California League and so on most of these leagues by now have either merged or failed.

Currently both the Pacific Coast League as well as the Pacific Coast International League are operating on the West Coast. The Pacific Coast League is the big dog of the two, Still trying to prove it belongs in the Major Leagues has managed over the years to have some good players on their rosters only to have them sold to the Majors after a season or so.

This became frustrating to the league as they felt this talent was nurtured by them and should be able to help them elevate to the next level rather than raid all the talent and keep them a second tier league.

The PCIL on the other hand has also been around a few years with various teams in and out of the league. Though much less recognized and much less talent, They felt they too should get more notarity as a league.. This all changed in 1920

The presidents of both leagues got together late in the 1919 season to discuss pooling their collective resources and as they said "really making a go of it" Between the two of them they covered most of the West Coast whose population was growing (5.5 millon per the 1920 census) this was still a small number compared to say New York who was over 10 million but it was more than a lot of the cities in the East.

With this and the fact that their was no other professional baseball leagues anywhere in the Mountain West or Coast, They figured they had a great market to play to and with "fewer" teams and leagues, They could actually make some real money. And that was the secret, If they could make money, They may be able to keep and possibly lure good talent into the league thereby forcing MLB to take a serious look at them.

By the fall of 1919 both Presidents and league owners had come up with a plan and it had all been approved and was to be en-acted for the 1920 Season - The plan called for there to be interleague play between these teams thereby creating a market for the lesser known PCIL as they would benefit from the better known PCL and for the PCL this would allow them to continue to expand their following into other areas along the coast.

This plan was formally submitted to Major League Baseball as a hope that it would get a interested response, But the hopes of this inital plan were dashed as the President's of both the National League and American League as well as Mountain Landis replied to the leagues "quest"

"We feel that this is a feeble attempt to not only extort money from our highly profitable leagues but also a slap in the face to the game of baseball, Your so called leagues have no business playing with our league, You do not have enough talent to be able to compete on same footing. We do not see the sense in playing baseball in the west as here in the east, This is where the fans are and the money is made.. We will continue to purchase your talent as we see fit, And will do so because we can offer more monetary compensation. So while we applaud your attempt at "joining us" we find you have succeeded in a very humourous letter. So we must at this time deny your request and wish you the best in your endevor"

This single letter solidified the path the West Coast Baseball League was to take. With several well known players on the books, Sam Crawford, Tom Hughes (though older) the league felt they needed to really pick up big names to help draw in a base and fond the castoffs that MLB no longer needed.

So the league formed in December 1919 - They understood (and had for some years) that one of the best ways to keep players is to pay them a little more so they did not have to try and find off-season jobs so the league who had always played close to 200 games (also due to the ability to have longer seasons due to weather) set up a 198 game season in which each league would play themselves as well as each other - At the end of the season the Division champions would meet in the WBL World Series..
So the groundwork was set....

In early April just prior to the start of the season, A windfall came to the League which would change the landscape of MLB..

Mountain Landis had banned for life from baseball the "Chicago 8" which included Joe Jackson, Happy Felsch, Buck Weaver, Ed Ciccotte and the rest as well as a few other players such as Hal Chase, Joe Geden, Eugene Paulette, Benny Kauff, Lee Magee, Heinie Zimmerman, Joe Harris, Ray Fisher and Dickie Kerr..

These players all out of baseball wanted a second chance to continue their playing careers, And since Landis made it clear he had no concern in how the West Coast wanted to handle their affairs - They jumped on the opportunity. Knowing that this may further alienate them from the Major Leagues and possibly draw the wrath of Landis, They decided to take the chance and allow these players to be signed to help the talent level and draw. And since these players were banned from the Majors, They could not be bought and taken away without a formal re-instatement.

Also looking to join the league were some of the players who had just resigned from the Majors, They wanted to see if they could draw just a few more paychecks in a nicer climate. Joe Benz, Red Ames, Gene Packard, Willie Mitchell, Terry Turner, Sherry Magee and a few others. This was exactly the break the league was hoping for.. These names would surely bring credibility and a draw to the league.

These players all got snapped up by teams in the league - This is the story
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