The Federal League Signs a Peace Treaty and Folds

On December 22, 1915, Organized Baseball and the Federal League signed a peace treaty in Cincinnati, ending a two-year war that had inflated player salaries, produced lawsuits, and threatened the established order of the game. The Federal League agreed to dissolve. The price of peace was steep.

The Federal League had launched in 1914 as a third major league, placing franchises in eight cities and raiding the American and National League rosters for talent. Stars like Joe Tinker, Mordecai Brown, and Eddie Plank jumped to the new circuit. The FL built new stadiums, including Weeghman Park in Chicago, which still stands today as Wrigley Field.

The settlement gave the major leagues what they wanted: the elimination of a competitor. But the FL owners extracted significant concessions. The two established leagues paid $600,000 to be distributed among Federal League owners. Charles Weeghman, who owned the Chicago Whales, was allowed to purchase the Chicago Cubs and move them into his ballpark. Phil Ball, owner of the St. Louis Terriers, bought the St. Louis Browns. Federal League players were declared eligible and auctioned back to major league clubs.

One FL owner was left out of the settlement: the Baltimore Terrapins. Their exclusion led directly to the 1922 Supreme Court case Federal Baseball Club v. National League, in which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes ruled that baseball was not interstate commerce and therefore exempt from antitrust law. That decision, widely criticized by legal scholars, stood for a century and gave baseball's owners extraordinary power over the sport's labor market.