American League

Western League and American League of 1900

By Wikipedia

The Western League of Professional Baseball Clubs, simply called the Western League, was a minor league baseball league founded in 1893, and focused in the Midwest. In 1900, the league was renamed the American League, and declared itself a major league in 1901.

As described in Lee Allen's books, the Western League had been around in various forms since 1879, but had gone bankrupt. In a meeting in Detroit, on November 20, 1893, the league reorganized. This is the point from which the eventual American League can effectively date itself.

See also: AL of 1900, American League, National League

At that meeting, Ban Johnson was elected President, and would remain so until his retirement nearly 35 years later. Johnson, a Cincinnati-based newspaper reporter, had been recommended by his friend Charles Comiskey, former major league star with the St. Louis Browns in the 1880s, who was then managing the Cincinnati Reds. After the 1894 season, when Comiskey's contract with the Reds was up, he decided to take his chances at ownership. He bought the Sioux City team and transferred it to Saint Paul, Minnesota. These two men would be among the cornerstones of the American League.

After the 1899 season, the National League announced it was dropping Baltimore, Cleveland, Louisville and Washington. This afforded an opportunity for the Western circuit to expand into those vacated cities. In a meeting in Chicago on October 11, the WL renamed itself the American League. It was still officially a minor league, subject to the National Agreement and generally subordinate to the National League. The NL actually gave permission to the AL to put a team in Chicago that year, and Comiskey moved his St. Paul club to the South Side. The AL also transferred the Grand Rapids team to Cleveland.

The way Lee Allen characterizes it in his book on the American League, the National was too absorbed in its own infighting to see what was afoot. After the 1900 season, the American League declined to renew its membership in the National Agreement, declared itself a major league, and began raiding National League rosters...and cities.

In addition to the original Western League, several 20th century minor league circuits used the same name. Its franchises were located west of the Mississippi River, and in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains states. Foremost among these was the WL that existed from 1902-37 and 1947-58. The WL was then classified as an "A" league, but in today's minor league structure it would be a Class AA loop. In its post-World War II incarnation, the Western League included clubs in Denver, Colorado (now in the National League), Des Moines, Iowa, Omaha, Nebraska and Colorado Springs, Colorado, now all members of the AAA Pacific Coast League.

American League sources/bibliography:
American League Story, The by Lee Allen
American League: The Early Years (Images of Sports) by David Lee Poremba
The Formation, Sometimes Absorption and Mostly Inevitable Demise of 18 Professional Baseball Organizations, 1871 to Present by David Pietrusza.
May the Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public Policy by Andrew Zimbalist.
Total Baseball: The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia by John Thorn, et al.