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APBL EXPANSION FINALIZED; LEAGUE NOW HAS 16 TEAMS
FOUR TEAMS ADDED FROM THE NBBO, INCLUDING ONE UNLIKELY NEWCOMER

NEW YORK CITY (Nov. 10-13, 1877) - The second week of November means it’s time for baseball’s annual Autumn Meetings at the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York City, and the main point of discussion for the week’s business was what, exactly, the three competitions would look like in 1878 given the A.P.B.L. had announced intentions to expand at the beginning of the summer.

Of course, the first order of business was going to be the American Professional Baseball League’s expansion announcement. League executives had already sent out a plan to add four teams in their June announcement, and at the Autumn Meetings it was that four-team amount that the A.P.B.L. revealed it would be adding for 1878.

The original twelve members of the A.P.B.L. were a mix of teams from the different regions of the N.B.B.O…

• Two from Brooklyn (Excelsior & Kings Co.)
• Three from N.Y.C. (Gotham, Knickerbocker, & Orange)
• Two from Upstate N.Y. (Flour City & Niagara)
• Three from Coastal (American, Mass. Bay, & Shamrock)
• One from Inland (Alleghany)
• One from New England (St. John’s)

…but the expansion announcement amounted to a “coastal” raid, with all four teams coming from the Coastal Championship. There were candidates from four of the N.B.B.O.’s six regions that had the potential to make the move up to baseball highest-tier competition, but in the end it was a combination of baseball and market concerns that led to four Coastal teams being added to the A.P.B.L.

The four teams chosen to make the move, and others involved in the process:

QUAKER STATE B.C. – The one obvious choice when it came to A.P.B.L. expansion, Quaker St. was the last club left out at the creation of the league in 1870, and they responded by having the best season in N.B.B.O. history in 1871: a 58-12 campaign with a +290 Run Differential and a Round Robin triumph in the Tucker-Wheaton Cup. That proved to be their only cup win, but the team’s body of work after the league split was still extremely impressive:

• 1871: 58-12 (N.B.B.O. record), won Tucker-Wheaton Cup
• 1872: 43-27, lost to Portland in N.E.L. Championship Series
• 1873: 41-29, lost to Portland in N.E.L. Semifinals
• 1874: 48-22, lost to Portland in N.E.L. Semifinals
• 1875: 44-26, 2nd in Coastal Championship (4 GB)
• 1876: 39-31, 3rd in Coastal Championship (7 GB)
• 1877: 37-33 4th in Coastal Championship (16 GB)
• TOTAL: 310-180 (.632), 1x cup winners, 4x Coastal champs

Quaker St. took the Coastal title in each of the first four seasons after the league split, and had it not been for the boogeymen of Portland B.C. there would likely be multiple cups in the club’s trophy display instead of just the one. Also, while the 1877 season appeared to be a big fall-off on paper, in reality they were 35-20 with three weeks left to play before injuries caused the team to crash to a 2-13 finish. They were very good whilst healthy and had an A.P.B.L.-quality outfield.

Quaker St.’s addition to the A.P.B.L., in addition to being a deserved one on baseball standards, would give 4x champs American a Philadelphia rival to play against after the two had competed against each other 140 times over fourteen seasons in the N.B.B.O. Adding Quaker St. made all the sense in the world.

NEWARK BASE BALL CLUB – New Jersey’s biggest club would have been seen as a stunning addition had expansion taken place just a year or two ago, but after completing a 53-17 season that featured the best pitcher outside the A.P.B.L. Newark was given the invitation. It was easy to see why, as aside from star P John Ratican they had at least three batsmen who rated at average or near it when compared to A.P.B.L. counterparts, and all three were in their primes. With a full winter to improve elsewhere this could easily be a competitive team. Furthermore, Newark was the U.S.A.’s fifteenth-largest city (NOTE: 136,508 at the 1880 Census) and had a venue, Ironbound Park, with a capacity of just a bit over 7,000 spectators that could easily be expanded.

PORT JERSEY B.B.C. – While the club’s best seasons came during their back-to-back Coastal championships in 1863 & ’64, Pt. Jersey had quietly rebuilt itself into a quality baseball outfit during the 1870s. For each of the past five seasons they had finished in the top half of the Coastal Championship, in four of those seasons they had at least sixty percent of their games, and in three of those seasons were the Coastal runners-up. Pt. Jersey was also based in a rapidly growing city: Jersey City, which had blossomed from roughly 25,000 people at the foundation of the N.B.B.O. in 1857 to over 100,000 (NOTE: 120,722 at the 1880 Census) in the second half of the 1870s. It was a city that was now of proper size to support a professional baseball team, in addition to one that already had a quality outfit in it. The main worry: their 53-17 team was defense-heavy and would likely need a major overhaul to be competitive in the A.P.B.L.

TIGER SOCIAL CLUB – This was a very controversial choice, for reasons discussed below. There were other teams more deserving of the expansion invite in either a sporting or market sense, but in the end the Executive Committee decided that if the New York metropolitan area could have five teams in the A.P.B.L. then Philadelphia was big enough, and now liked baseball enough, to have three. Tiger S.C. only had a .443 Win% (217-273) in the N.B.B.O., but the Broad Street Diamond already held over 11,000 people and thus was pro-sized. The potential was there for Philadelphia to have three competitive professional teams, but did Tiger have the organizational capability to make it so?

With the above in mind, why was Tiger S.C. the fourth club picked to make the move up to the A.P.B.L.? There were a number of other clubs considered, but different factors kept them from receiving an invitation.

A SIXTH N.Y. METRO TEAM – There were three clubs from Brooklyn & New York City heavily considered for an approach: Atlantic, Eckford of Greenpoint, & New York Athletic Club. Atlantic & Eckford had combined to split the last eight Brooklyn pennants, and both had fine facilities with acceptable and upgradable capacity. New York Athletic Club only joined the N.B.B.O. in 1871, but the facilities they were able use thanks to their namesake organization were second to none in the N.B.B.O., and after early struggles they had enjoyed an 88-52 (.629) record over the past two seasons while making the Tucker-Wheaton Cup final in 1877.

All three were worthy, but there was one major problem: could the first professional sporting league truly call itself “American” if 6/16 teams were based in one metropolitan area while only one other – Philadelphia – had as many as two? It made the Executive Committee hesitant to add any of the three, and they ultimately decided on other options.

A THIRD UPSTATE TEAM – If six N.Y. metro teams were too many, then perhaps a third from Upstate New York would do. There were three with the baseball pedigree: Minuteman, Syracuse, & Utica. The main issue there: the only one of the three was based in a city with more than 50,000 people and thus had a venue of suitable size was Minuteman (Albany), but after winning the cup in 1876 they lost three regulars and fell down the standings, which spoke ill of either their organization’s ability or ambition. The most successful Upstate team of the 70’s, Utica, had a venue that only held 2,250, which wouldn’t work. Syracuse had a similar problem, a venue that held 2,800, so the possibility of a third Upstate team in the pro ranks was passed up.

LITTLE MARKETS, BIG SUCCESS – Two teams based in smaller cities had managed to become dominant when larger clubs left for the A.P.B.L. in 1871: Portland B.C. (Portland, ME) & Susquehanna B.C. (Wilkes-Barre, PA). After mighty St. John’s left for the A.P.B.L. Portland went straight to the top of the New England standings and stayed there for four years, going to the cup final twice. They then took another pennant in 1877 and in total had two 50-Win seasons after the split. Susquehanna was even more successful: five Inland pennants, three 50-Win seasons in four years, two cup wins (1874, ’77), and a stunning 1877 in which they went 54-16 and won the cup while setting N.B.B.O. records for Runs Per Game (11.0) and Run Differential (+326, +4.7 R/G).

However, Portland’s venue, William King Field, held 2,600 and Susquehna’s home, River View Field, could fit just 1,775 or so. Both clubs were based in cities of 30,000 or fewer, so adding five thousand seats to make for a proper pro baseball house in either case would be questionable. In a league where teams average as much as four thousand in attendance per home game, such small parks would mean teams like the above would be at a major financial disadvantage even if they were to sell out every home date. So, the Executive Committee just couldn’t pick either of the two.

BIG MARKETS, LITTLE SUCCESS – Maryland & National had the two biggest markets available, with Maryland the only N.B.B.O. team in a city of over 300,000 (NOTE: Baltimore had 332,313 people at the 1880 Census) and National the only representative of the nation’s capital (NOTE: D.C. had 147,293 at the 1880 Census). However, both teams had very poor results on the field. Maryland had a .484 Win% since joining the N.B.B.O. in 1871, and their last three finishes in the Coastal Championship were 6th, 6th, & 5th out of eight. National had fared worse: a .384 Win% with records of 22-48 in 1875 and 24-46 in 1877, second-worst in the N.E.L.

If either of those two clubs had been above or even just near .500 then the Executive Committed would’ve gladly added the pair, likely at the expense of Pt. Jersey & Tiger. As it stood, their struggles in semi-pro baseball would make them cannon fodder in the A.P.B.L., and thus less desirable candidates, ESPECIALLY Tiger, were chosen.




Along with the A.P.B.L. expanding to sixteen teams, the Executive Committee announced the other major change that was hinted at in the June announcement: that the schedule would be rebalanced starting next season.

• Schedule remains 90 games in length
• Series remain three games in length
• Each team plays the other fifteen teams six times (three home, three away)

The competition would no longer be split entirely in half, with the idea being that having the teams face a larger variety of opponents would lead to more competitive baseball and giving the fans a larger variety of teams to see would be good for box office receipts.

In addition, it was decreed that A.P.B.L. members needed to have their home venues built up to a capacity of 10,000, or as close to it as possible, by the start of play in 1878. Some venues, most obviously The Elysian Fields (Knickerbocker) & Recreation Park (Alleghany), easily passed that prerequisite, but it meant others would be adding to the stands:

• Excelsior: Carroll Park from 6,626 to 11,626 (+5,000)
• Flour City: Riverside Park from 6,237 to 8,737 (+2,500)
• Gotham: St. George Cricket Grounds from 7,885 to 12,885 (+5,000)
• Mass. Bay: Oceanside Park from 9,485 to 14,485 (+5,000)
• Newark: Ironbound Park from 7,194 to 12,194 (+5,000)
• Niagara: Greater N.Y. Grounds from 8,113 to 10,613 (+2,500)
• Orange: Upper Manhattan Grounds from 7,412 to 12,412 (+5,000)
• Pt. Jersey: Hoboken & Oakland Park from 2,926 to 12,926 (+10,000)
• Shamrock: South End Grounds from 9,513 to 14,513 (+5,000)
• St. John’s: Olneyville Field from 8,469 to 10,969 (+2,500)

Finally, the four newest members of the A.P.B.L. were each given low-interest loans of $5,000 by the Bank of the Metropolis to be paid back over ten years, with the idea that the up-front cash would give each a winter war chest that more closely resembled those of the twelve original members, given that the N.B.B.O. season was shorter and tickets were cheaper.

With A.P.B.L. expansion officially in the books, it was time to see how the N.B.B.O. responded.