LOS ANGELES – In 1876, a group of owners and team officials gathered at a New York hotel to draft and sign the constitution that created baseball's National League and would ultimately have ramifications far beyond the diamond.
The principles the document laid out, largely the work of Chicago White Stockings owner William Hulbert, would provide the basic model for every major team sports league in the world that followed.
The constitution will getting a public airing for the first time in more than a century when it's put up for sale by SCP Auctions of Laguna Niguel, Cal., starting Wednesday.
It offers a glimpse into a time when nearly half the teams in the league had "stockings" in their names, 50 cents for a ticket was considered a steep price, and getting paid to play sports was deemed dirty.
"The idea that grown men would pick up a bat and ball and put on costumes was suspicious," said John Thorn, the official historian of Major League Baseball. Not to mention the "residue and foul odor of drunkenness" thought to permeate the game.
Many fans were convinced games were fixed. Occasionally they were correct, Thorn said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
