In January of 1890 The St. Louis Globe-Democrat said what was on the minds of every baseball executive, writer, and fan: “The great baseball question has been what will Capt. Comiskey do next Season”
For weeks there was speculation about whether Charles Comiskey, captain and manager of the St. Louis Browns, would remain in the American Association or join the Players’ National League of Professional Baseball Clubs (Players League), the league borne out of baseball’s first union the Brotherhood of Professional Base-Ball Players.
Charles Comiskey
On January 15, in a letter to The Sporting News, Comiskey announced his decision:
“During the past few weeks many interviews have appeared with me in different newspapers of the country relative to my having signed a contract with the St. Louis and Chicago Brotherhood clubs. Up to this writing I am mind and fancy free. But before Saturday night, January 18, I will have signed a contract to play at first base for the Chicago Brotherhood team. I take this step for the reason that I am in sympathy with the Brotherhood.
“I believe its aims are for the best welfare and interest of the professional players. I believe that if the players do not this time stand true to their colors and maintain their organization they will from this day forward be at the mercy of the corporations who have been running the game, who drafted the reserve rule and give birth to the obnoxious classification system.
“I have taken all the chances of success and failure into consideration, and I believe that if the players stand true to themselves they will score the grandest success ever achieved in the baseball world.
“But besides having the welfare of the players at heart I have other reasons for wanting to play in Chicago. My parents and all my relatives reside there, and the all the property I own is located in the city. I was raised there and have a natural liking for the place. But, outside of all these reasons, my relations with the management of the St. Louis club have, during the past year been so unpleasant I do not care to renew them. I have many friends in St. Louis, and for their sake I hate to leave here, but the other reasons out-balance this friendship, so I will cast my lines with the Chicago club.
“This is the first letter I have written on the subject which seems to have interested the baseball world throughout the whole of the present winter.
“Yours respectfully, Chas. Comiskey”
A week before the season began The Chicago Tribune said Comiskey’s new club “on paper, is the greatest team ever organized.” Despite the hype, Comiskey’s Chicago Pirates finished in fourth place. The Players League lasted only one season and dissolved in November of 1890.
Comiskey’s backing of the Brotherhood against “the corporations who have been running the game” would probably have come as a surprise to many of those who played for him when he owned the Chicago White Sox. Arnold “Chick” Gandil, banned from baseball for his role in the 1919 Black Sox scandal said of Comiskey in a 1956 article in “Sports Illustrated:”
“ He was a sarcastic, belittling man who was the tightest owner in baseball. If a player objected to his miserly terms, Comiskey told him: “You can take it or leave it.” Under baseball’s slave laws, what could a fellow do but take it? I recall only one act of generosity on Comiskey’s part. After we won the World Series in 1917, he splurged with a case of champagne.”
Chick Gandil
Baseball History Daily 
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