A New Project!

A New Project!

 

Yeah, I started a new project: a Federal League All-Star Team card set.

The WHY.

I’ve always been curious about the Federals since the early 1980s, when I opened one of those Dover Publications books of classic baseball cards and gazed upon the reprints of the 1914-15 Cracker Jack cards. Along with Ty Cobb and Joe Jackson of the American League, and Christy Mathewson and Honus Wagner of the National League, there were Russ Ford and Hal Chase of the FEDERAL LEAGUE. My curiosity led me to seek out the story of the “third” major league of 1914-1915.

For those unfamiliar with the story of the Federal League, here’s a brief, incomplete synopsis: In 1913, a group of organizers decided to start a new minor league. While this wasn’t a new idea by any stretch, the Federal League was meant to be separate from the leagues governed by the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, usually just called “organized baseball.” Being outside organized baseball meant that the Federal League teams did not have to recognize contracts and by-laws of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues. This put the Federals in the “outlaw” category.

The Federal League played a semi-successful season in 1913 and, in the winter, decided to call itself the third major league. The National and American leagues were, of course, angered and scared by the prospect of an upstart league that did not hold players to the same reserve clause that bound players to a specific team in perpetuity.

The NL and AL became downright petrified when the Federals began poaching major league players. This sparked two years of court battles and a trifecta of dueling major leagues, which ended abruptly at the end of the 1915 season, when the new league imploded in a cacophony of bankruptcies, lawsuits, and reshuffling of the existing MLB.

Many former MLB players rejoined their old teams, and the new discoveries spread across the NL and AL clubs. The one lasting relic of the old Federal League is Wrigley Field, the Cubs’ home ballpark. It was originally built in 1914 for the Chicago Whales of the Federal League and was called Weeghman Field after the owner of the Chicago Federal League team, Charles Weeghman. When the Whales foundered, Weeghman was allowed to buy an interest in the Chicago Cubs, and since the Whales’ stadium was brand new, the Cubbies had themselves a new home.

Despite its short life and talent level, which was probably somewhere between today’s AAA and MLB, many established stars donned Federal League uniforms, and some players who got their start in the new league became big names after the Feds went bust.

So, when I wanted a new project, I figured why do another Chicago Cubs player when I could do one from the Chicago Whales? What’s another Brooklyn Dodger when one can choose a Brooklyn Tip-Top? And aint a St. Louis Terrier more interesting than a St. Louis Cardinal?

The IDEA.

What would an “all-star team” of Federal League players look like? There were eight teams in both seasons, so there were a bunch of eligible players to choose from. I cracked open the three main go-to books I have in my library on the Feds and started putting together a list of worthy players. This soon became too overwhelming due to two reasons.

The first was that the 1914 season featured many unknowns who put up nice numbers, only to drop 40 or 50 points in batting average in 1915. This was because, in the second Federal League campaign, many more “star” players from the National and American leagues made their appearance. Whereas in 1914 each of the eight Federal League clubs had one, maybe two, pitchers of legit MLB quality, in 1915 more of those big-league guys were around throwing their big-league smoke. This meant most of the 1915 offensive leaders were veterans with many seasons of NL and AL ball.

The second reason an easy all-star selection was out of the question was that most all-star-caliber players were pitchers and outfielders. Most of the players you know today who spent time with the Feds, such as Edd Roush, Eddie Plank, and Benny Kauff, were pitchers and outfielders. Catchers and infielders, except first basemen, were largely absent from most leader lists. This meant I had to really open the hood and do a deep dive into the other parts that made the 1914-1915 Federal League run.

The RESEARCH.

Before I started my work on individual cards, I wanted to gather the latest information I could find on Federal League uniforms.

Back in 1991, Marc Okkonen created his seminal work, Baseball Uniforms of The 20th Century. This tome unlocked the murky and confusing world of major league duds. In addition to every National and American League team from 1901 to 1990, Okkonen included the 1914 and 1915 Federal League. As far as I know, this was the first attempt to document the Federal League uniforms, and Okkonen should be congratulated on his groundbreaking work. However, in the 35 years since, more newspapers and other media featuring images have become available. But to my knowledge, no one has used them to update Okkonen’s work. Now I had in front of me a formidable side project to conquer before I even started the card set.

Using many resources, I assembled as many contemporary texts and photos as I could find that related to the Feds’ uniforms. Using a simple player template I created years ago for uniform discoveries, I set to work recreating the 1914 and 1915 seasons of Fed fashion.

This sidetrack led to a couple of very interesting finds. One big one was that the Pittsburgh Rebels’ 1915 uniforms were trimmed in a color the Newark Star-Ledger described as “crushed raspberry,” prompting their manager, Rebel Oakes, to proclaim they were “the only ‘tango’ uniforms in baseball.” My biggest discovery was the 1914 Kansas City Packers home uniforms. Marc Okkonen left those blank in his book, but I found a few newspaper photos showing a big “K” on one side and a big “C” on the other. What I was REALLY excited about was that these were probably modified from the home jersey of the Covington Blue Sox, the 1913 iteration of the team before it relocated to Kansas City. A check of the 1913 Covington uniforms shows a blue “C” of the same type style as the 1914 Packers home jersey! It isn’t rewriting major history, but I get a kick out of little things like that.

The SET.

When I create my limited-edition card sets, I print them on a 12” x 18” sheet of card stock. This size fits twenty 2 ¼” x 3 ¾” cards. To keep things simple, I use this to limit my set size to twenty cards. Twenty is a good number for most rosters, and I figured it would be the same for an all-star team. While limiting, it does help me weed out redundant or borderline players, as well as those who aren’t very interesting, story-wise. It also means I would probably have to drop a few well-known or often-depicted players if I wanted to include a few guys who never had a real card.

As of today, I have the portraits and backstory of eight players finished:

Including those eight, I have identified three other “must-haves” that will definitely be included:

That brings us to 11 of the 20 roster slots filled. I left room for two more pitchers and four position players. One thing to think about is that I want to have at least one player from each of the nine cities. This means there needs to be players from Baltimore and Kansas City. By all means, if anyone has suggestions, please write your player in the comments below along with a brief reason why he should make the cut.

The ART.

If you follow me on Facebook, you have likely seen the progress of the artwork over the past week. If you haven’t, here are the eight cards I’ve finished so far:

 

You may be thinking, “Gee, why isn’t there a background?”

I intentionally left these unfinished because I was going to try something new (for me). Instead of individual backgrounds for each card, I was thinking of attempting to create a continuous background of maybe a stadium and advertising. In other words, like the 1955 Topps Double Headers card set, if you lay out all the cards in the correct sequence, they tile together to form a unified ballpark with grandstands, a dugout, and a batting cage.

If I were to do this, I would probably play up the advertising on the outfield walls because I like commercial art from that era. I could also slip in the names of some of the friends of The Infinite Baseball Card Set, too. Here’s a simple mockup of what I’m talking about:

 

The walls would be covered with different-colored ads, and there would be ballpark scenes, the sky, trees, maybe a scoreboard, etc., so it won’t look as basic as this, but you get the gist, right?

Neat idea, but I still have to think about how exactly I’m going to make all that work…

The WRAP.

So, while I’m almost halfway through the drawings and player selections, I still have a ways to go. As with all of my sets, there HAS to be a special wrapper. Then there is my other work and commissions that take precedence over this Federal sideshow.

I’ll keep you posted on the progress and provide a place to pre-order if you’d like an actual, real-life card set.