Talk:American League

Bobby Brown
I am interested in determining the years that Bobby Brown was president of the American League. I have a Rawlings baseball signed by Ted Williams, and am trying to determine approximately when the ball was signed. Please reply to acehardware@hot.rr.com. My name is Bud Thank You —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.153.233.129 (talk • contribs).

Salary cap
When the article mentions a salary cap of $2,400 it needs to clarify an individual or team cap.Tallrichard2 07:24, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Timeline
I went ahead and created a timeline for the evolution of franchises in the Western League/American League. It might be a good addition to this page. shaggy (talk) 00:49, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Enfranchised?
Is this even a word? Perhaps established or founded should repalce it. 24.2.254.110 (talk) 18:34, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It is, but it means "given the right to vote", so maybe "established" would be better, since that's what teams tend to put on their souvenir T-shirts and such. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 18:39, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

1901
Specifically what happened 1901 Jan 28 (date "Founded" in the infobox)? The league wasn't new that day. Did it metaphorically declare war? --P64 (talk) 18:46, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Number of teams shown in infobox
Regarding this edit, I believe the "Number of teams" field in the Infobox sports league template as described on Template talk:Infobox sports league is intended just to have the number of teams in the league, and not break the total down into categories. Accordingly, I do not believe the field should list the number of teams per country. What does everyone think? isaacl (talk) 06:15, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * No need for that at all. only 1 team from another country in the whole history of the American League.Spanneraol (talk) 13:19, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I also meant to say that if this information is deemed sufficiently important as part of a concise summary of the key characteristics of the American League, then it may fit better under the "Country" field (similar to what is done in the National Hockey League article). isaacl (talk) 23:33, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If there are no further comments, I will proceed with restoring the "Number of teams" field to just having the total number, without any breakdown into categories. isaacl (talk) 17:29, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Y Done I, too, agree and have gone ahead and reverted back to a borderless 15 teams. Rgrds. --64.85.216.143 (talk) 13:15, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Orioles/Yankees connection.
The article has been edited taking as gospel the position taken by one website (and Yankees management) that the New York AL franchise (Highlanders/Hilltoppers) was a new franchise established to replace the bankrupt 1901-02 Orioles. But there is plenty of counter-evidence against that interpretation, beginning with the fact that New York investors Bill Devery and Frank Farrel paid $18,000 expressly to purchase the Baltimore franchise. This was in keeping with the league announcement made on August 25 that the Baltimore club would be moved to New York. See, e.g., http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2012/02/29/the-house-that-mcgraw-built/

While it is true that the Baltimore club went into bankruptcy, and was taken over by the league, the same is also true of the Expos/Nationals franchise and nobody claims that that is two different teams! Solicitr (talk) 23:04, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

There is also this, from the 1903 Reach Baseball Guide: “By far the most serious situation that faced the American League during the [1902] campaign was a mid-season sell-out of the Baltimore Club to the National League to [sic, read "by"] the club’s controlling stockholders, {John] McGraw, [Joe] Kelley and the latter’s father-in-law, Samuel Mahon. All season long Manager McGraw and Captain Kelley had clashed with the umpires, which resulted in frequent suspensions of the pair by President Johnson. On July 8th McGraw resigned as manager of the Baltimore Club, exchanged his interest in ‘The Diamond’ saloon for his partner [Wilbert] Robinson’s club stock, sold the latter to Kelley and Mahon, and then signed as manager of the New York [National] League Club. This surprising move was followed on July 16th by the announcement that the controlling interest in the Baltimore Club had been sold by Mahon and Kelley to John T. Brush, chairman of the National League Executive, for $15,000, for which all [National] League clubs were assessed pro rata.”

“As the controlling interest carried with it the control of the American League Baltimore franchise and the team, the American League would have been in a frightful predicament, had Chairman Brush not blundered so egregiously that his coup became a boomerang. Six of the star Baltimore players were at once released – [Joe] McGinnity, [Jack] Cronin, [Dan] McGann and [Roger] Bresnahan to New York, and Kelley and [J. Bentley 'Cy'] Seymour to Cincinnati. It was designed to peddle the other players out and to put a phony team into Baltimore to represent the American League. But the remaining players and the minority stockholders refused to lend themselves to the scheme. Moreover, fortunately, the lease of the ball park had been assigned to President Johnson. The latter was in Washington when the blow fell. He at once went to Baltimore, assumed possession of the ball park, and arranged with the minority stockholders to run the club for the American League. The conspirators also blundered in not leaving enough players to make up a team to play a scheduled championship game with the visiting St. Louis team.” [The Browns.] “The latter presented itself at the ball park on July 17th, was awarded the game by default, no complete Baltimore team appearing, and the franchise was thereupon legally forfeited, according to the constitution, by President Johnson. The latter then arranged to run the Baltimore team for the rest of the season at American League expense, and the various clubs contributed enough players to make up a team. Under this arrangement Baltimore played out the season without the loss of a dollar to the American League, which thus cheaply got rid of a disturbing element and had the way opened for the invasion of New York. At a special meeting of the American League held in Chicago, December 22d, the Baltimore Club was officially declared out of the American League, the franchise being formally transferred to New York.” Solicitr (talk) 23:10, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Yankees franchise
The article goes back and forth whether the 1901 Baltimore franchise is the Yankees. Under "expansion, renaming and relocation summary" it's a new franchise; under "charter franchises" it's a new franchise, except the paragraph states "these franchises constituted the league for 52 seasons," which implies the same 8 franchises. Under "current teams" Yankees are enfranchised in 1901 as Baltimore.

The article should stay consistent. Either every entry should say the Yankees are from 1903, or they should all imply from 1901 (Baltimore). Personally, I think it should mention that it's only a recent construct to consider the Yankees a ninth AL franchise. Regardless, the article as it's written now is misleading and contradictory. 50.187.211.34 (talk) 21:04, 30 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Ban Johnson intended from the beginning to put the team in New York, but the NL clubs were able to keep it out for two years using their political muscle. Baltimore was its temporary holding cell, as it were; and when the league took over the franchise after the 1902 season and McGraw's rebellion, it awarded it, the franchise, to the New York investment group.  No different from the Expos becoming the Nationals. (incidentally,  the AL took it over on the grounds that McGraw and his allies had ownership interests in a National League team and thus were disqualified, but as a pretext had to arrange for Baltimore to forfeit a game by failing to field a team; that voided the franchise agreement)Solicitr (talk) 02:58, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Wild Card Qualifiers
If a thid place team in one division, has a better record then the second place teams in the 2 other divisions? Does that third place team get a Wild Card? GoodDay (talk) 02:20, 3 October 2015 (UTC)


 * How did the second-place team in that division not win the wildcard? Only one wildcard team was selected under the 1994 system, so that team would be second place in whatever division it was in, as only 4 teams made the playoffs. - BilCat (talk) 02:29, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Was thinking of the current system, sorry. GoodDay (talk) 02:38, 3 October 2015 (UTC)


 * No problem, it's confusing enough to try to keep track ofall the changes. - BilCat (talk) 02:48, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Twins has the Blues?
"Minnesota Twins enfranchised 1894 as the Kansas City Blues, moved to Washington (1901), and to Minneapolis-St. Paul (1961)" Where else is it stated they moved to Washington in 1901? The Twins page and the Senators page has no mention of this, nor does the Blues page. In fact, the Blues pages states "When the American League Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City in 1955, the Blues moved to Denver, Colorado." There is only Redirected from Kansas City Blues (Western League) to the Twins.

External links modified
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removed source
removed source "Gleeman, Aaron. "10 Years of the American League Central". The Hardball Times. Retrieved August 25, 2013." as page had nothing to do with what it was associated with "Minnesota Twins enfranchised 1894 as the Kansas City Blues, moved to Washington (1901), and to Minneapolis-St. Paul (1961)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by SansMoins (talk • contribs) 19:36, 23 July 2018 (UTC)