The Big Inning
Senators at Athletics, April 27, 1908
The Big Inning
April 27, 1908 was a historic day in baseball history.
What do you mean you don’t know why? Don’t you remember the Union League?
Okay, okay, so maybe this temporary third major league that folded in early June is a little bit obscure. I’ll give you that. However, it does have its own (mostly incomplete) Wikipedia page.
Sure, I’ll grant you that headlines like this weren’t exactly confidence inspiring:
And, as you can guess, that spelled the end of the experiment:
There’s not much information out there about this league. As you can see, there are a number of very interesting stories with direct ties to the 1908 American and National Leagues. It might be interesting to do some in-depth research into original newspaper articles about this experiment.
If you know of any research that has already taken place into the 1908 Union League, please let me know. I haven’t been able to find much through conventional Google searches. True to form, Baseball Reference doesn’t even have the correct name for the league. There’s a lot of work to be done here.
The Game
Of course, all of this is a big delaying tactic on my part to excuse me for not having any good highlights saved of this game.
We’ll just go straight to the boxscore this time around.
Simon Nicholls was the hero for the Athletics this time around, hitting a triple with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 6th to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 advantage.
Eddie Plank pitched well, which should be no surprise. This Atheltics team actually isn’t all that bad, though it could use a power hitter or two.
You’ll also notice that there were only 2 errors combined between the two teams, which is a nice relief. Most of my 1908 games recently have featured 5 or more errors. It’s nice to see the boys field the ball correctly for a change.