The June game underscored the umpiring problems in the Association during the 1889 season. While some teams (most notably St. Louis) were experimenting with using two umpires per game in 1889, the Association only maintained a staff of four umpires for the season, with one umpire assigned to each game. (This in itself was an improvement over previous systems, where the home team supplied an umpire for the game who had to be approved by the visiting club.) When the regular umpire scheduled for the Brooklyn-Columbus game failed to show up, Brooklyn (the home club) choose a substitue. Columbus refused to accept him, and then refused to take the field when the substitute ump called for play to begin. The umpire awarded Brooklyn the game by forfeit, setting off a dispute as to whether he even had the authority to do so. The league Board of Directors upheld the decision, and Brooklyn had what would prove to be a crucial win.
In early September, the Browns traveled to Brooklyn for a showdown with the Bridegrooms. The first game was played on Saturday, September 7 in Brooklyn. The Browns took a 3-2 in the sixth and then began pressuring the umpire to call the game because of darkness. In the bottom of the ninth, with the Browns up 4-2, the leadoff batter reached first on a passed third strike which Browns catcher Jocko Milligan complained he couldn't see in the dark. After the runner stole second, Comiskey argued that the throw beat him down there, and then pulled the club off the field in protest over the lighting (or rather the lack thereof). The game was awarded to Brooklyn by forfeit. The following day, Von der Ahe and the Browns refused to start the game unless the previous forfeit was either overruled or the game was rescheduled; the second game was also forfeited to Brooklyn. The third game was rained out, preventing a possible crowd riot. A meeting was set up for late September to rule on the dispute. At that meeting, the league Board of Directors split the two games down the middle, overruling the umpire and awarding one game to each club. They went so far as to dismiss the umpire who had ruled the first game a forfeit. The third game was to be rescheduled if both clubs so opted.
Brooklyn declined to schedule another game with the Browns (or to reschedule any of their other rainouts). The Browns won 18 of their final 22 games, but Brooklyn won 17 of 23 over the same span, and their final margin of victory at the end of the season was just two games over the Browns. Bob Caruthers won 40 games for Brooklyn and Dave Foutz drove in 113 runs for the Bridegrooms to help dethrone thier former club. Brooklyn went to the World Series for the first time to play the cross-town Giants. The two clubs split the first six games before the Giants won the next three to take the Series 6-3.
The 1889 season was the last true hurrah for the American Association, although the league lasted two more years. The foundation had started chipping as early as 1886, when Pittsburgh departed to join the National League; they were replaced by Cleveland. The New York Mets were bought out by Brooklyn and disbanded after the 1887 season. Kansas City was given a temporary membership for 1888 to replace them, and it was made permanent for the 1889 season when it became obvious that the National League would not allow another club to be placed in New York. Before the 1889 season, Cleveland purchased the Detroit club in the National League and jumped leagues; Columbus returned to the Association after a five year absence to fill the void for the 1889 season. In three years the Association had lost two strong franchises to the National League and a club in the nation's largest city for weaker clubs in lesser markets. After the 1889 season, the bottom dropped out as the rivalry bewteen Von der Ahe and Brooklyn owner Charlie Byrne split the league apart.
The latest problems could be traced back to the aborted attempt by Von der Ahe and his allies to oust president Wheeler Wyckoff as league president during the 1887 season. After the first two games of a series between Brooklyn and St. Louis were disrupted by arguements between Von der Ahe and Byrne, Wyckoff had assigned Baltimore manager Billy Barnie to umpire the third game of the series to calm things down. Von der Ahe perceived this as one more move against the Browns by Wyckoff, and shortly afterwards he called a meeting of several owners with the aim of ousting Wyckoff, nominally for managing the umpires poorly. Representatives of Cincinnati and Brooklyn, Von der Ahe's biggest rivals and suporters of Wyckoff, were not invited. The coup attempt failed, but it outlined clearly the factions at work in the Association. New York, Cleveland, and Louisville showed up at the meeting to support Von der Ahe, while Barnie, voting for both Baltimore and Philadelphia (by proxy) skipped the meeting. The feud between Brooklyn and St. Louis accelerated during the 1888 season, when Von der Ahe accused Byrne of trying to get several St. Louis players to throw the games in a critical mid-season series between the clubs. The disputed series in 1889 was just more fuel on the fire between the two franchises and their owners.
Other forces at work in baseball also served to destabilize the uneasy peace bewteen the two major leagues which had been established in the National Agreement. In October 1885, nine members of the New York Gothams formed the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players, the first union of ballplayers. The organization went public late in 1886 with chapters in most of the National League cities. (For the most part, the Brootherhood did not seem to actively recruit Association players, so the Association was not initially threatened by the existance of the Brootherhood.) In 1887, the Brotherhood sought to negotiate with the National League on behalf of all players, and they did gain some concessions from the National League owners for the 1888 season. However, after the 1888 season, Monte Ward, the leader of the the Brotherhood, left the country on a world tour to promote baseball. During his absence, the National League institued a salary plan, the Brush plan, to limit player salaries by classifying all players according to ability and pay them based on their classification. The Association choose not to adopt the plan, while the Brotherhood prepared to form their own league for the 1890 season. The 1889 season started for both leagues with storm clouds on the horizon, and less than a week after the World Series ended, the Player's Revolt began. The Player's Revolt was unsuccessful, but it led to the demise of the alliance between the American Association and the National League and reshaped professional baseball forever.
Just days after the World Series victory, Giants shortstop Monte Ward, one of the heroes of the Series, announced that the Brotherhood was severing ties with the National League. In a closed meeting on November 4, 1889, the Brotherhood formed the Players League for the 1890 season, owned and operated by players in conjunction with outside financial backers. No formal Brotherhood chapter had been formed by Association players prior to the 1889 season. However, members of the Louisville and St. Louis clubs formed a chapter in June during a series in St. Louis. The Louisville players were upset over constant fines by the club owner for various dubious infractions, while the Browns players were upset at Von der Ahe's interference with the team, which increased in 1889 after the two straight World Series losses. Because of the minimal involvement by Association players, the National League lost far more players to the new league after the Brotherhood broke away, and the Association took the veiw that the problem was primarily one between the National League and the Brotherhood.
When the Association gathered for its November meeting a week after the Brotherhood announcement, they focused on electing a new league president to replace Wheeler Wyckoff. Very rapidly, the league split into two factions, with St. Louis, Philadelphia, Columbus and Louisville backing one candidate against Brooklyn, Cincinnati, Kansas City and Baltimore. On the second day of the deadlock, Charlie Byrne and Cincinnati president Aaron Stern met secretly with representatives from the National League, and in a stunning move returned to the meeting and resigned from the Association for berths in the older league. In addition to both owners mutual dislike of Von der Ahe, both clubs had lost the battle over Sunday baseball to the Sabbatarians, negating one advantage of remaining in the Association. Both also knew that the League clubs were weakened by the loss of players to the Revolt, while their own clubs remained relatively intact. Kansas City resigned the next day and joined the Western League (a minor league which formed from some of the remnents of Lucas' old Union Association). Baltimore resigned a week later with plans to also secure a spot in the National League, but found itself the odd team out and instead settled for a place in the Atlantic Association. The four clubs which remained in the Association scrambled to fill the void, accepting bids from three minor league clubs - Syracuse, Rochester, and Toledo - and issuing a charter to a new club based in Brooklyn. The new club was called Kennedy's Kids after its twenty-two year old owner and manager Jim Kennedy. The Association headed into the 1890 season much weaker and with a radically new alignment.
Part 4: The glory years, Act II (1887-1888)
Part 6: The Player's Revolt (1890)