For years now, the top teams in the American Association -- the Eureka club of Newark and the Atlantic club of Brooklyn -- have claimed they could beat any team in the "senior" National Association. The NA has long been unimpressed with this argument: what "junior league" club could possibly compete with the likes of Forest City (
either of them), Olympic or the Red Stockings? Calls for the AA champions to meet the NA's top teams has always fallen on deaf ears.
So...if Newark and Brooklyn couldn't beat the NA, they would
join them!
Needless to say, the Americans were shocked and threatened legal action, claiming that the NA was in breach of contract, saying that the Base Ball Agreement forbid either league from "poaching" the other league's players. Nonsense, said the National owners: players, yes, but there was no rule that said entire
teams couldn't switch sides!
The AA had already announced a twelve-team schedule, so they had to come up with two more clubs...fast. None of the big independent teams on the east coast (such as Star of Brooklyn or Syracuse BBC) wanted to rock the boat, so the AA had to look farther afield. Finally, the Americans managed to entice the
Hoosiers of Indianapolis, and the
Western club of...Keokuk.
Keokuk? Yes, indeed. Despite having only 12,000 citizens, they were apparently all base ball-mad, and the Western club was four times champion of Iowa. Having no better options, pro ball had extended to two new states in Indiana and Iowa.
