BALTIMORE — More than a dozen men gathered for a banquet at Baltimore’s Belvedere Hotel in March 1914, and though they were set to embark into challenging, uncharted territory, they were brash and confident. The men were the stakeholders of the new Federal League — a rival to the established American and National Leagues — and every speech and statement was soaked in conviction.
“You can’t lose,” one said, and many invoked war: This new baseball league, already purloining star players, would triumph.
“If there is not room enough for three big leagues in this country,” another said, “you may paste it in your hat that the Feds will not be the ones to go to the wall.”
