After Jim Creighton's retirement as a player to become both manager and team president of the Cleveland Forest City club, news came out of the Union Association that they weren't dead yet.
Despite the AA and NA's vow to "crush" their loop, the UA announced that they were more solvent than ever, out-drawing National teams in Detroit and Pittsburgh; even the self-proclaimed "Giants" had a higher attendance than the AA Unions, playing in their tiny park in Morrisania. So, the UA asked if they could be part of the AA-NA agreement to swap teams, to create a "baseball pyramid". This was firmly rejected, as the big boys called the Union "a tiny little minor league, with only twelve clubs!"
So...the Union looked to remedy this by adding four new clubs. One was in Philadelphia, which raised eyebrows; the others were in
Canada, which made shocked the established leagues to the core. "This is the All-
American game, not a game for
foreigners!" thundered one owner. Still the new clubs were added to the UA lineup: the
Philadelphia Phillies, the
Toronto Maple Leafs, the
Montreal Royals and the
London Tecumsehs of London, Ontario.
[
Editor's note: While London, Ontario seems an unlikely place for a big-league baseball team, the real Tecumsehs go back to 1868 and played at what is now called Labatt Park: the oldest ballpark in continuous use in North America.]