Editing Union Association

{{short description|Defunct American baseball league}}
{{for|the minor league that operated from 1911 through 1914|Union Association (minor league)}}
{{Use American English|date=October 2024}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2013}}
{{Infobox sports league
|sport=[[Baseball]]
|president=[[Henry Lucas (baseball)|Henry Lucas]]
|founded=1884
|folded=1884
|teams=12
|country=United States
|champion=[[1884 St. Louis Maroons season|St. Louis Maroons]] (1884)
}}
The '''Union Association''' was an American professional [[baseball]] league which competed with [[Major League Baseball]], lasting for just the 1884 season. St. Louis won the pennant and joined the [[National League (baseball)|National League]] the following season. 

Seven of the twelve teams who were in the Association at some point during the season did not play a full schedule: four teams folded during the season and were replaced, while  Chicago moved to Pittsburgh in late August.

==History==
The league was founded in September 1883<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.baseballlibrary.com/chronology/byyear.php?year=1883&previous=yes|title=The Chronology - 1883 - BaseballLibrary.com<!-- Bot generated title -->|website=baseballlibrary.com|access-date=May 4, 2018|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121020025125/http://www.baseballlibrary.com/chronology/byyear.php?year=1883&previous=yes|archive-date=October 20, 2012|df=mdy-all}}</ref> by the young St. Louis millionaire [[Henry Lucas (baseball)|Henry Lucas]], who was eventually named the league's president, with owner [[Tom Pratt (baseball)|Tom Pratt]] of the [[Philadelphia Keystones|Philadelphia franchise]] serving as vice-president and [[Warren White (baseball)|Warren W. White]] of the [[Washington Nationals (UA)|Washington franchise]] as secretary.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Richter|first=Francis C.|title=Two Big Wars Interrupted the Progress of the National Game|journal=Sporting Life|date=March 14, 1908|volume=51|issue=1|pages=6|url=http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/SportingLife/1908/VOL_51_NO_01/SL5101006.pdf|access-date=September 21, 2011|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110508015538/http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/SportingLife/1908/VOL_51_NO_01/SL5101006.pdf|archive-date=May 8, 2011|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

After being appointed president, Lucas bought the best available players for his [[St. Louis Maroons|St. Louis franchise]] at the expense of the rest of the league, which represented an obvious conflict-of-interest situation: the Maroons subsequently opened the season with 20 straight wins, and finished with a record of 94–19 (.832 winning percentage), winning the pennant by 21 games after having clinched it with five weeks to play.

The league not only suffered from lopsided talent distribution, but also instability - four franchises folded during the season, forcing the league to scramble to replace them with three teams from lower leagues and one new team, while Chicago moved to Pittsburgh mid-season - and a poorly drafted schedule, which saw the league derisively dubbed "The Onion League" by its detractors in the two established leagues. The list of franchise movements is as follows:

* '''April 17''': Season opens with the following franchises:  [[Altoona Mountain Citys]], [[Baltimore Monumentals]], [[Boston Reds (1884)|Boston Reds]], [[Chicago Browns/Pittsburgh Stogies|Chicago Browns]], [[Cincinnati Outlaw Reds]], [[Philadelphia Keystones]], [[St. Louis Maroons]], and [[Washington Nationals (Union Association)|Washington Nationals]]
* '''May 31''': [[Altoona Mountain Citys]] folded.
* '''June 7''': [[Kansas City Cowboys (Union Association)|Kansas City Cowboys]] were formed to take over Altoona's games starting on this date.
* '''August 7''': [[Philadelphia Keystones]] folded.
* '''August 18''': [[Wilmington Quicksteps]] recruited from [[Eastern League (1884–1887)|Eastern League]] to take over Philadelphia's games, starting on this date.
* '''August 21''': Chicago Browns played their last game before the franchise moved to Pittsburgh.
* '''September 15''': Wilmington Quicksteps fold, having played their final game on September 12: at this point of the season, the St. Louis Maroons have already clinched the pennant, even though there are still five weeks of games left to play.
* '''September 18''': Pittsburgh Stogies (formerly the Chicago Browns) folded.
* '''September 27''': [[St. Paul Saints (Union Association)|St. Paul Saints]] and [[Milwaukee Brewers (1884–1885)|Milwaukee Brewers]] were recruited from the [[Northwestern League]] to finish the Chicago/Pittsburgh and the Philadelphia/Wilmington schedules respectively. 
* '''October 19''': Season concludes.

On January 15, 1885, at a scheduled UA meeting in Milwaukee, only the Milwaukee and Kansas City franchises showed up, and the league was promptly disbanded.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.baseballlibrary.com/chronology/byyear.php?year=1885|title=The Chronology - 1885 - BaseballLibrary.com<!-- Bot generated title -->|website=baseballlibrary.com|access-date=May 4, 2018|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080101103130/http://www.baseballlibrary.com/chronology/byyear.php?year=1885|archive-date=January 1, 2008|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

The St. Louis franchise itself was deemed to be strong enough to enter the National League in 1885, but it faced heavy competition within the city, as the [[St. Louis Browns (NL)|St. Louis Browns]] were a power in the [[American Association (19th century)|American Association]]. 

The lone survivor of the Union moved to Indianapolis and became the Hoosiers after 1886, having compiled records of 36–72 and 43–79 in St. Louis, and they played another three seasons before folding, with records of 37–89, 50–85 and 59–75 for a .360 win percentage in the NL, and an all-time franchise winning percentage of .432. These figures, perhaps, reveal the gulf in class between the UA and the established major leagues.

Perhaps the most obvious impact of the short-lived league was on the career of a player who did ''not'' jump to the new league: [[Charles Radbourn]]. With a schedule of a little over 100 games, most teams employed two regular pitchers, and the [[Providence Grays]] in the [[National League (baseball)|National League]] featured Radbourn and [[Charlie Sweeney]]. According to the 1991 book ''Glory Fades Away'' by Jerry Lansche, Sweeney fell out of grace with the Providence team in late July after he refused to be replaced in a game while drunk, and was expelled. Rather than come crawling back, Sweeney signed with Lucas' team, leaving Radbourn by himself. 

Leveraging his situation, Radbourn pledged to stay with the club and be the sole primary pitcher if he would be given a raise and granted free agency at season's end. Radbourn, who already had 24 wins at that point to Sweeney's 17, pitched nearly every game after that, and went on to win an astounding 59 games (a record) during the regular season; he has since been credited with another win for 60 that season. For an encore, he also won all three games of 1884's version of the [[World Series]], pitching every inning of a sweep of the [[New York Metropolitans]] of the [[American Association (19th century)|American Association]]. His performance in 1884, along with a generally strong career and an overall record of 309-194 (.614), assured Radbourn his place in the [[Baseball Hall of Fame]].

===Timeline===
<timeline>
DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy
ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:25
PlotArea = left:20 right:50 bottom:20 top:20

Colors =
 id:majorGridColor value:rgb(0.9,0.9,0.9)
 id:lineColor   value:gray(0.6)
 id:nl1         value:gray(0.9)
 id:inactive    value:gray(0.5)
 id:purple      value:rgb(0.55,0   ,0.55)
 id:gray        value:gray(0.5)
 id:darkred     value:rgb(0.70,0   ,0.04) 
 id:brown       value:rgb(0.60,0.40,0.13)
 id:yellow      value:rgb(1   ,0.84,0.20)
 id:red         value:rgb(1   ,0   ,0.11)
 id:darkbrown   value:rgb(0.40,0.26,0.14)
 id:lightbrown  value:rgb(0.83,0.55,0.17)
 id:navy        value:rgb(0.04,0.15,0.40)
 id:darkred2    value:rgb(0.50,0   ,0.03)
 id:purple2     value:rgb(0.67,0   ,0.67)
 id:navy2       value:rgb(0.02,0   ,0.49) 
 id:blue        value:rgb(0.06,0   ,0.98)

Period = from:01/04/1884 till:31/10/1884
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:dd/mm/yyyy
ScaleMajor = start:01/04/1884 unit:month increment:1 gridcolor:majorGridColor

LineData = 
 at:17/04/1884 color:lineColor #Formation of UA
 at:19/10/1884 color:lineColor #Season conclusion

BarData =
 bar:ALT      #Altoona Mountain Citys (Apr 17–May 31)
 bar:BAL      #Baltimore Orioles (Apr 17–Oct 19)
 bar:BOS      #Boston Reds (Apr 17–Oct 19)
 bar:CHPI     #Chiacgo Browns/Pittsburgh Stogies (Apr 17–Sep 18)
 bar:CIN      #Cincinnati Outlaw Reds (Apr 17–Oct 19)
 bar:PHI      #Philadelphia Keystones (Apr 17–Aug 7)
 bar:STL      #St. Louis Maroons (Apr 17–Oct 19)
 bar:WSH      #Washington Nationals (Apr 17–Oct 19)
 bar:KCC      #Kansas City Cowboys (June 7–Oct 19)
 bar:WIL      #Wilmington Quicksteps (Aug 18–Sep 15)
 bar:MIL      #Milwaukee Brewers (Sep 27–Oct 19)
 bar:STP      #St. Paul Saints (Sep 27–Oct 19)

Define $Up = shift:(,1)
Define $Left = anchor:from align:right shift:(-1,)
Define $Right = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,)
Define $Down = shift:(,-10)
Define $UpLeft = anchor:from align:right shift:(-1,1)
Define $UpRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,1)
Define $DownRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,-10)

PlotData = 
 color:inactive
 textcolor:black
 width:20
 fontsize:S
 mark:(line,black)
 anchor:middle # other options are anchor:from anchor:till
 align:center  # other options are align:left  align:right
 shift:(0,-5)

#---1884
 bar:ALT  from:17/04/1884 till:31/05/1884 color:purple     text:"Altoona Mountain Citys"  textcolor:white
 bar:BAL  from:17/04/1884 till:19/10/1884 color:gray       text:"Baltimore Monumentals"   textcolor:white
 bar:BOS  from:17/04/1884 till:19/10/1884 color:darkred    text:"Boston Reds"             textcolor:white
 bar:CHPI from:17/04/1884 till:21/08/1884 color:brown      text:"Chicago Browns"          textcolor:white
 bar:CHPI from:21/08/1884 till:18/09/1884 color:yellow     text:"Pittsburgh Stogies"
 bar:CIN  from:17/04/1884 till:19/10/1884 color:red        text:"Cincinnati Outlaw Reds"  textcolor:white
 bar:KCC  from:07/06/1884 till:19/10/1884 color:darkbrown  text:"Kansas City Cowboys"     textcolor:white
 bar:MIL  from:27/09/1884 till:19/10/1884 color:lightbrown text:"Milwaukee~Brewers"                       $Up
 bar:PHI  from:17/04/1884 till:07/08/1884 color:navy       text:"Philadelphia Keystones"  textcolor:white
 bar:STL  from:17/04/1884 till:19/10/1884 color:darkred2   text:"St. Louis Maroons"       textcolor:white
 bar:STP  from:27/09/1884 till:19/10/1884 color:purple2    text:"St. Paul Saints"         textcolor:white
 bar:WSH  from:17/04/1884 till:19/10/1884 color:navy2      text:"Washington Nationals"    textcolor:white
 bar:WIL  from:18/08/1884 till:15/09/1884 color:blue       text:"Wilmington~Quicksteps"   textcolor:white $Up
</timeline>

==Notable players==
The best hitter of the 1884 Union Association was [[Fred Dunlap]] of the Maroons, while star pitchers for the UA included [[Jim McCormick (pitcher)|Jim McCormick]], [[Charlie Sweeney]], [[Dupee Shaw]] and [[Hugh Daily]].

Notable players that made their debut in the Union Association included [[Tommy McCarthy (baseball)|Tommy McCarthy]], who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1946, and [[Jack Clements]], the only man in baseball history to play a full career as a left-handed catcher.<ref>[http://63.99.108.117/yearly/debut.php?y=1884&l=UA 1884 Union Association Baseball Debuts / Rookies by Baseball Almanac<!-- Bot generated title -->]{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Switch-pitcher [[Tony Mullane]] attempted to sign with the Maroons, but the Browns had a [[reserve clause]] on Mullane, and he relented after he was threatened with [[List of people banned from Major League Baseball|banishment from the NL]] if he signed.

==Highlights==
The Union Association saw two no-hitters in its brief existence: one by [[Dick Burns]] of the Outlaw Reds on August 26 and one by [[Ed Cushman]] of the Brewers on September 28.  On July 7, Hugh Daily struck out 19 Boston Reds in a nine-inning game, a major league record that would stand for 102 years, until [[Roger Clemens]] struck out 20 batters in a game in 1986.  [[Henry Porter (baseball)|Henry Porter]] and Dupee Shaw got 18-strikeout games.  The Chicago Browns executed a [[triple play]] on June 19.

==Standings==
{{Union Association Team Maps (1884)}}
As teams dissolved and were replaced by others, taking over their games on the schedule, Union Association standings were printed in contemporary newspapers with a total of eight teams. 

Under this system, Altoona and Kansas City were counted as one team, as were Chicago/Pittsburgh/St. Paul and Philadelphia/Wilmington/Milwaukee.  In fact, the Chicago team had moved to Pittsburgh mid-way through the season, maintaining the same team ownership and player roster; the league's other team changes involved entirely new teams taking over the scheduled games for a team that folded.  

The final standings for the Union Association's 1884 season, when regarded as an eight-team league, were:

{| class="wikitable MLBStandingsTable"
|+Union Association eight-team standings
! width="51%" | Team
! width="6%" | [[Win (baseball)|W]]
! width="6%" | [[Loss (baseball)|L]]
! width="9%" | [[Winning percentage|Pct.]]
! width="8%" | [[Games behind|GB]]
! width="10%" | [[Home (sports)|Home]]
! width="10%" | [[Road (sports)|Road]]
|-
|[[1884 St. Louis Maroons season|St. Louis Maroons]]
|94
|19
|{{winpct|94|19}}
|—
|{{nowrap|49–6}}
|{{nowrap|45–13}}
|-
|[[1884 Cincinnati Outlaw Reds season|Cincinnati Outlaw Reds]]
|69
|36
|{{winpct|69|36}}
|21
|{{nowrap|35–17}}
|{{nowrap|34–19}}
|-
|[[1884 Baltimore Monumentals season|Baltimore Monumentals]]
|58
|47
|{{winpct|58|47}}
|32
|{{nowrap|29–21}}
|{{nowrap|29–26}}
|-
|[[1884 Boston Reds season|Boston Reds]]
|58
|51
|{{winpct|58|51}}
|34
|{{nowrap|34–22}}
|{{nowrap|24–29}}
|-
|[[1884 Chicago Browns/Pittsburgh Stogies season|Chicago Browns/Pittsburgh Stogies]] / [[1884 St. Paul Saints season|St. Paul Saints]]
|43
|56
|{{winpct|43|56}}
|43
|{{nowrap|21–19}}
|{{nowrap|22–37}}
|-
|[[1884 Washington Nationals (UA) season|Washington Nationals (UA)]]
|47
|65
|{{winpct|47|65}}
|46½
|{{nowrap|36–27}}
|{{nowrap|11–38}}
|-
|[[1884 Philadelphia Keystones season|Philadelphia Keystones]] / [[1884 Wilmington Quicksteps season|Wilmington Quicksteps]] / [[1884 Milwaukee Brewers season|Milwaukee Brewers]]
|31
|66
|{{winpct|31|66}}
|55
|{{nowrap|23–31}}
|{{nowrap|8–35}}
|-
|[[1884 Altoona Mountain Citys season|Altoona Mountain Citys]] / [[1884 Kansas City Cowboys season|Kansas City Cowboys]]
|22
|82
|{{winpct|22|82}}
|67½
|{{nowrap|17–35}}
|{{nowrap|5–47}}
|}

When each individual team is considered separately (a situation that was not in force in 1884), the Union Association standings look like this:
{{1884 Union Association standings}}

==Status as a major league==
Although the league is currently conventionally listed as a major league, this status has been questioned<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=324 |title=NerdFight: League Quality Adjustments |first=Nate |last=Silver |author-link=Nate Silver |date=April 13, 2007 |website=baseballprospectus.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071001153251/http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=324 |archive-date=October 1, 2007 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref> by a number of modern baseball historians, most notably [[Bill James]] in ''[[The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract]]'', who found that the contemporary [[baseball guides]] did not consider the Union Association to be a major league: the earliest record James found of the Union Association being referred to as a major league was [[Ernest Lanigan]]'s ''[[The Baseball Cyclopedia]]'', published in 1922.

While the league had a number of major league players (on the St. Louis franchise, at least), the league's overall talent and organization was notably inferior to that of the two established major leagues. Of the 272 players in the Association, 107 (39.34%) never played in another major league, while 72 (26.47%) played [[Cup of coffee (sports idiom)|very briefly]] (less than 300 at bats and/or 50 hits) in other major leagues, and 79 (29.04%) had longer careers but little success in other major leagues.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3uSbqUm8hSAC&q=union+association+major+league&pg=PA24|title=The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract|first=Bill|last=James|date=May 11, 2010|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=9781439106938|access-date=May 4, 2018|via=Google Books|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180504233518/https://books.google.com/books?id=3uSbqUm8hSAC&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=union+association+major+league&source=bl&ots=1lp8m8-Dvm&sig=IbdfjiL4EcJaC5G05j1TDlMNcl4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hkTqUKbKLKHNmQXDwYDgBw&ved=0CGsQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=union+association+major+league&f=false|archive-date=May 4, 2018|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

The league's only star player, [[Fred Dunlap]], led the league in batting average with .412 (86 points higher than his second-best season, and 120 points higher than his career average), and also led the league in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, runs scored, hits, total bases, and home runs (with 13, typical for the era). 

After the Association folded, Dunlap never hit higher than .274 or more than seven home runs in a season until he retired in 1891, another measure of the inferior quality of the Union Association. In point of fact, if the 1884 UA season is excluded from his career totals, Dunlap's career batting average was .276 (a drop of sixteen points), and he hit 28 career home runs (a loss of nearly one-third of his career total).

However, Richard Hershberger, responding to James in the ''Baseball Research Journal'', has argued that the UA should be considered a major league because the then-existing major leagues, the [[National League (baseball)|National League]] (NL) and the [[American Association (1882–1891)|American Association]] (AA), treated it as a significant competitor: "The AA added teams to block the UA. The established leagues changed their own rules via the Day resolutions [to enforce the [[reserve clause]] to ban players who played in the UA]. They were forced to pay higher salaries. The [[Washington Nationals (American Association)|AA Washingtons]] were run out of town by the UA. The [[Cleveland Blues (National League)|NL Clevelands]] were brought to the brink and forced to sell out. Finally, the NL paid Lucas off by bringing him into the league, risking renewed war with the AA. In short, we should regard the Union Association as a major league because the National League and American Association regarded it as a major threat. They were in a position to know."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hershberger |first1=Richard |title=Was the Union Association a Major League? |journal=Baseball Research Journal |date=Spring 2024 |url=https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-union-association-war-of-1884/#sidebar}}</ref>

==Further reading==
*David Pietrusza. ''Major Leagues: The Formation, Sometimes Absorption and Mostly Inevitable Demise of 18 Professional Baseball Organizations, 1871 to Present''. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 1991. {{ISBN|0-89950-590-2}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*Union Association at [https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/UA.shtml baseball-reference.com].
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070324223117/http://www.baseballlibrary.com/chronology/byyear.php?year=1884&previous=yes 1884 in baseball] at baseballlibrary.com

{{Union Association}}
{{Major League Baseball}}
{{Professional Baseball}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Union Association| ]]
[[Category:1884 establishments in the United States]]
[[Category:1884 disestablishments in the United States]]
[[Category:Defunct major baseball leagues in the United States]]
[[Category:Sports leagues established in 1884]]