IN THE NEWS: After a formal meeting of reps from all National League chapters, the Brotherhood issues a "Manifesto" in which it claims that "players have been bought, sold and exchanged as though they were sheep instead of American citizens." This bold statement constitutes a declaration of war between the Brotherhood and ML officials which will soon explode.
IN THE NEWS: The Brotherhood and its backers meet to begin preliminary work on the organization of a Players' League. The players believe "that the game can be played more fairly and its business conducted more intelligently under a plan which excludes everything arbitrary and un-American."
IN THE NEWS: The Joint Rules Committee of the National League and AA makes only minor changes in the playing rules, the most important of which is to allow two substitutes per team, up from one in 1889.
IN THE NEWS: Disgusted by the conduct of the Association and especially the perceived dominance of St. Louis president Von der Ahe, Brooklyn president Charles Byrne and Cincinnati owner Aaron Stern withdraw from the AA and join the National League. Indianapolis and Washington refuse to resign from the league, and that organization decides to go as a 10-club circuit.
IN THE NEWS: The National League issues its reply to the PL manifesto. Claiming that the League saved baseball in 1876 and that under the reserve rules players' salaries had "more than trebled," the NL denounces the Brotherhood movement as "the efforts of certain overpaid players to again control [baseball] for their own aggrandizement. . . to its ultimate dishonor and disintegration."
IN THE NEWS: Before what one writer claims is "the largest gathering in California history" (15,000 - 20,000), Oakland wins the California League pennant by beating San Francisco amid much confusion on the final day of the season. San Francisco tied for the pennant by winning three in a row, so for the final game Oakland hires ringers Willard Brown, George Van Haltran, and Cliff Carroll. San Francisco refuses to play so the ump awards the game to Oakland. To appease the crowd, the clubs play a game with their regular nines. Oakland wins, 5–4, behind 32-game winner Bill Coughlan.
IN THE NEWS: Jack Glasscock, claiming that his pledge to the Brotherhood does not constitute a binding contract, signs with the Indianapolis National League club, thus becoming the first "double jumper."