[legendsport]

As the 19th century entered its final year, the National League stood unchallenged as the top-level of base ball competition. But the big league, now slightly less big after cutting four teams and returning to an eight-team circuit, had its full impact limited mainly to the large cities it occupied. The rest of the country, picking up news of the National League via telegraph, found their base ball enjoyment mainly in their own local teams, competing in what were finally becoming known as "minor" leagues.

One of these minor leagues had been wildly successful in the 1890s. It was called the Western League and it had risen to success despite the wreckage left after the Players League and American Association had failed in 1891-92, with the monopoly feeling no real need to heed past agreements with the minor leagues. The Western League featured clubs in Indianapolis, Detroit, Columbus, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Paul and Buffalo - all cities which had, at one time or another, been "big league" cities.

In 1894, the Western League acquired a new president, a newspaperman from Cincinnati named Byron Standish. Standish had numerous acquaintances inside the National League from his days as a baseball writer, especially the owner of the Cincinnati club James K. Thistle, who had little love for the opinionated and strong-willed Standish. One prominent National Leaguer who did have a good relationship with Standish was Tom Ewart of Cleveland on whom Standish had lavished much praise in print.

After the big league dropped four cities - including Cleveland - from its ranks following the 1899 season, Standish wasted no time in moving a team into Cleveland - with Ewart agreeing to not only play for the team, but also to act as both owner and manager. In addition to this coup, Standish pulled off a seemingly impossible feat when he convinced the National League to allow the Western League to put a club in Chicago. The White Stockings, so-called in honor of the very first professional club in the Windy City, was the former St. Paul club (Cleveland got the Grand Rapids club, which had begun the 1899 season in Columbus).

Standish also renamed his league the "American League" after brushing off overtures from a group of men interested in resurrecting the American Association. Standish would do things his own way. He made sure to quell National League concerns by vowing his league would not break the player agreement with the big league (a contract stating such would expire in December of 1900) and would honor NL contracts while still allowing the older league to purchase players from AL clubs.

Therefore as the 1900 season approached, Byron Standish's American League had a decidedly "big league" look to go along with its new moniker: seven of the eight clubs were in former (or in Chicago's case, current) National League cities.

And though still centered in the midwest, Standish was a man with a grand vision and that vision now had his eyes trained on Eastern cities as well, with both Baltimore and Washington now vacated by the National League.