1882—Hubert Williams had exercised his absolute authority as NBBL President to expel three franchises in two years. Neither the owners of these clubs nor the cities their teams had represented were content to go quietly, and during the off-season a new league was quickly formed, with every intention to compete with the National on equal terms, or as equal as the upstarts could muster. The American Base Ball Association, with franchises in Baltimore, Cincinnati, Louisville, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis, set May 1, 1882 as Opening Day, and its fledgling clubs quickly began to sign whatever talent they could. For the most part they filled their rosters with minor league players, amateurs, and NBBL castoffs, but all six teams were indeed stocked and ready to play on May Day. They would play an 80-game schedule in contrast to the NBBL’s 84, with far fewer restrictions: alcohol sales were permitted, as well as games on Sundays, at least in the cities where they were not prohibited by law. Not all ABBA clubs took advantage of the lax rules immediately, but Louisville and St. Louis scheduled Sunday games from the beginning.
If Williams would have been appalled by the rival circuit’s boldness, he didn’t live long enough to witness it in action, dying unexpectedly of a heart attack at age 49 just a few weeks prior to both leagues’ 1882 openers. Prior to that he had authorized NBBL franchises for Syracuse and Worcester to maintain the 8-team setup his league had used since its inception.
Neither league had a particularly exciting pennant race. In the NBBL, Chicago stayed within five games of New York for most of the summer but the Knicks never lost the lead, winning the flag by three games with a 58-26 record; Cincinnati dominated the ABBA, going 57-23 and besting Baltimore by eight games and St. Louis by nine. The divide between the haves and the have-nots was significant; the NBBL’s new entries, Worcester and Syracuse, finished 35 and 36 games out of first place, respectively, while the bottom two teams in the ABBA, Louisville and Pittsburgh, also finished 30 or more games out.
Batting averages were way down in the NBBL, as evidenced by Chicago’s Hugh Woods, whose .309 clip was good enough to earn him the batting championship. Eli Taylor of Buffalo won the ERA crown with a 1.57 mark, while New York’s Tom Sanders earned the most victories with 35. In the ABBA, Cincinnati’s Frank Fry hit .338 to win the batting title as teammate Hiram Ballard won the pitching Triple Crown with a 1.31 ERA, 41 wins, and 209 strikeouts.
Syracuse’s .262 winning percentage was the worst in either league, and the Nationals, as they were known for their brief existence, called it a day after their inaugural season.
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