The Covington Blue Sox were a Federal League baseball club in Covington, Kentucky , in 1913. The team was also referred to as the Covington Colonels or Covington Federals in contemporary newspaper reports. The team was moved to Kansas City in July 1913 and became known thereafter as the Kansas City Packers .
69-850: Baseball has been played in Covington since the 1870s, with the Star club a popular amateur side which competed with the top non-professional clubs in Ohio and Kentucky. On September 21, 1875, the Star Baseball Park hosted a National Association game between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Hartford Dark Blues ; the Athletics (not to be confused with the 20th century team of this name) won, 13–9, in front of
138-578: A salary cap in an effort to maintain a level of parity between franchises. Football in England developed a very different system from that in North America, and it has been adopted for football in most other European countries, as well as to many other sports founded in Europe and played across the world. The features of the system are: European football clubs are members both of a league and of
207-534: A "nickname" was often the team name itself, with its base city "understood" and was so listed in the standings; for example the Atlantic Base Ball Club, which was located in Brooklyn. Rather than "Brooklyn Atlantics", the team was simply called "Atlantic", or "Atlantic of Brooklyn" if deemed necessary by the writer. Another common practice was to refer to the team in the plural, hence the "Bostons"
276-400: A closed membership system and do not have promotion and relegation . It is organized in a way that assures the teams' continued existence in the league from year to year. On occasion a league may decide to grow by admitting a new expansion team into the league. Most of the teams in the four major North American leagues were created as part of a planned league expansion or through the merger of
345-651: A club in the top league until a local club plays well enough to be promoted into the Premiership. Famously, the French Ligue 1 lacked a team from Paris, France's capital and largest city, for some years. Likewise, Berlin clubs in the Bundesliga have been rare, due to the richer clubs being all located in the former West Germany. As well as having no right to being in a certain tier, a club also has no territorial rights to its own area. A successful new team in
414-610: A crowd of 800. In 1912 or 1913, Covington city leaders tried to acquire a baseball franchise in the Class D Blue Grass League . The Cincinnati Reds , whose ballpark was just 5 miles (8 km) away across the Ohio River , blocked the move. Instead, after several larger cities backed out, Covington was awarded a franchise in the Federal League , a new "outlaw" circuit. The city raised $ 13,500, with $ 6,000 budgeted to build
483-619: A few differences varying from country to country. A similar situation exists in countries in Central America and the Caribbean, where football and baseball share several close markets. A major factor in the development of the North American closed membership system during the 19th Century was the distances between cities, with some teams separated by half of the North American continent, resulting in high traveling costs. When
552-714: A geographical location can come to dominate the incumbents. In Munich , for example, TSV 1860 München were initially more successful than the city's current biggest team Bayern München . As of the current 2024–25 season, London has 13 teams in the top four league levels , including seven Premier League teams. Clubs may be sold privately to new owners at any time, but this does not happen often where clubs are based on community membership and agreement. Such clubs require agreement from members who, unlike shareholders of corporations, have priorities other than money when it comes to their football club such as tradition or local identity. For similar reasons, relocation of clubs to other cities
621-459: A given season compete in a tournament, with the winner being crowned champion of the league for that season. These have their roots in the long travel distances common in US and Canadian sports; to cut down on travel, leagues are typically divided into geographic divisions and feature unbalanced schedules with teams playing more matches against opponents in the same division. Due to this, not all teams face
690-640: A governing body. In the case of England, all competitive football clubs are members of The Football Association , while the top 20 teams also are members of the Premier League , a separate organization. The 72 teams in the three levels below the Premier League are members of still another body, the English Football League . The FA operates the national football team and tournaments that involve teams from different leagues (except
759-534: A half-holiday for the city, closing city offices at noon and encouraging businesses to follow suit in support the team. Pregame festivities included a parade, bands, and decorations across city along with the mayor tossing out a golden ball for the ceremonial first pitch. Messenger pigeons were released to spread the news of the opening to each city on the Federal League circuit as well as one going to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson . Pitcher Walt Justis shut out
SECTION 10
#1732790449225828-422: A hierarchy of leagues or divisions, and a North American originated model characterized by its use of franchises , closed memberships, and minor leagues . Both these systems remain most common in their area of origin, although both systems are used worldwide. The term league has many different meanings in different areas around the world, and its use for different concepts can make comparisons confusing. Usually
897-493: A high ranked club in their native city must buy a local club as it stands and work it up through the divisions, usually by hiring better talent. There have been some cases where existing owners have chosen to relocate out of a difficult market, to better facilities, or to realize the market value of the land that the current stadium is built upon (A famous example being the Relocation of Wimbledon F.C. to Milton Keynes ). As in
966-504: A league is a group of teams that play each other during the season. It is also often used for the name of the governing body that oversees the league, as in America's Major League Baseball or England's Football League. Because most European football clubs participate in different competitions during a season, regular-season home-and-away games are often referred to as league games and the others as non-league or cup games, even though
1035-481: A major league in 1914; the league folded after the 1915 campaign, with the American and National Leagues essentially buying them out. Federal Park was used for other events over the next few years, including boxing and auto polo, but was torn down in 1919 to make room for a new tobacco warehouse . The warehouse was then later replaced by the present-day Kenton County Circuit Courthouse. Covington has not hosted
1104-545: A major league team, or affiliated with one, and utilized for player development. For example, Major League Baseball operates Minor League Baseball . The minor clubs do not move up or down in the hierarchy by on-field success or failure. Professional ice hockey has a system somewhat similar to baseball's (without as many levels), while the National Basketball Association operates a single NBA G League . The National Football League does not have
1173-501: A minor league system as of 2024 but it has operated or affiliated with minor leagues in the 1930s , 1940s , 1960s , 1990s , and the early 2000s and invested in one in the late 2000s . Men's soccer has multiple minor leagues. The United Soccer League operates two of these, the second-level USL Championship and the third-level USL League One . Major League Soccer operates the third-level MLS Next Pro , consisting primarily of reserve sides of MLS teams. Another third-level league,
1242-467: A playoff tournament of the teams that finished third through sixth. In the 2011–12 season, the teams Wolverhampton Wanderers , Blackburn , and Bolton were relegated to the Championship. They were replaced by Reading , Southampton , and West Ham . The two former teams had won automatic promotion, while the latter occupied the last promotion spot when they defeated Cardiff 5–0 on aggregate in
1311-408: A professional team in any sport since; however, Highland Heights , located 6 miles (9.7 km) from Covington, hosted indoor pro football in the early 2010s. The Blue Sox logo was a line drawing of a batter with the blue initials "BS." National Association of Professional Base Ball Players The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players ( NAPBBP ), often known simply as
1380-667: A rival league. Only one team in the National Hockey League (the Montreal Canadiens ), for example, existed before becoming part of the NHL. The rest of the teams were created ex novo as expansion teams or as charter members of the World Hockey Association , which merged with the NHL in 1979. American and Canadian sports leagues typically have a " playoff " system where the best teams in
1449-442: Is a single business entity, with each team owner-operator being a league shareholder, and all player contracts are held by the league. Also similar to MLS, MLR uses playing rules set by its sport's international governing body. However, MLR teams do not play competitive matches against teams from other leagues, and there is currently no cup competition in U.S. rugby similar to soccer's U.S. Open Cup. The MLR league structure also follows
SECTION 20
#17327904492251518-406: Is generally used to determine membership of leagues. Most commonly, a pre-determined number of teams that finish at the bottom of a league or division are automatically dropped down, or relegated, to a lower level for the next season. They are replaced by teams who are promoted from that lower tier either by finishing with the best records or by winning a playoff. In England, in the 2010–2011 season,
1587-418: Is very rare. This is mostly because virtually all cities and towns in Europe have a football club of some sort, the size and strength of the club usually relative to the town's size and importance. Buying an existing top-flight club and moving it to a new location is problematic, as the supporters of the town's original club are unlikely to switch allegiance to an interloper. This means anyone wanting ownership of
1656-714: Is widely used in football around the world, notably in Africa and Latin America as well as Europe. The most notable variation has developed in Latin America where many countries have two league seasons per year , which scheduling allows because many Latin American nations lack a national cup competition. Another notable variation is the Brazilian system of two parallel league systems each with its own separate promotion and relegation, one national and another on state-level,
1725-923: The 2015 season . Another example of a franchised league in European sport is ice hockey 's Kontinental Hockey League , centered mainly in Russia with teams also located in Belarus , China , and Kazakhstan . Rugby union also has a European-based franchised league in the United Rugby Championship (historically the Celtic League, Pro12, and Pro14). It was founded with teams in the Celtic nations of Ireland , Scotland , and Wales , and later added teams outside those nations, first from Italy and then South Africa . The promotion-relegation system
1794-817: The EFL Cup , operated by the English Football League and open to its own teams and those in the Premier League). In conjunction with FIFA and other countries' governing bodies, it also sets the playing rules and the rules under which teams can sell players' contracts to other clubs. The rules or Laws of the Game are determined by the International Football Association Board . The Premier League negotiates television contracts for its games. However, although
1863-737: The Football Alliance , was then formed in 1889. When the two merged in 1892, it was not on equal terms; rather, most of the Alliance clubs were put in the new Football League Second Division , whose best teams would move up to the First Division in place of its worst teams. Another merger, with the top division of the Southern League in 1920, helped form the Third Division in similar fashion, firmly establishing
1932-637: The National Association ( NA ), was the first fully- professional sports league in baseball . The NA was founded in 1871 and continued through the 1875 season. It succeeded and incorporated several professional clubs from the previous National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) of 1857–1870, sometimes called "the amateur Association". In turn, several NA clubs created the succeeding National League of Professional Baseball Clubs (the National League , founded 1876), which joined with
2001-535: The National Independent Soccer Association , is totally independent. None have a promotion/relegation system, although many teams have moved between levels, either by invitation or by choice. To prevent conflicts of interest , most North American sports leagues that operate on the franchise system do not allow individual owners to hold an interest in more than one franchise at once. Most such leagues also use revenue sharing and
2070-457: The National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs was established in 1876, its founders judged that in order to prosper, they must make baseball's highest level of competition a "closed shop", with a strict limit on the number of teams, and with each member having exclusive local rights. This guarantee of a place in the league year after year would permit each club owner to monopolize fan bases in their respective exclusive territories and give them
2139-634: The Professional Women's Hockey League and its de facto predecessor, the Premier Hockey Federation ) or are forced to operate in the pure single-entity model when investors fail to materialize (such as the Stars Football League ). Many North American systems have a secondary or minor league but without promotion and relegation of teams between them. Often a minor league team is partly or wholly owned by
Covington Blue Sox - Misplaced Pages Continue
2208-571: The St. Louis Brown Stockings from the NA plus independent clubs Louisville and Cincinnati. Several factors limited the lifespan of the National Association including dominance by a single team (Boston) for most of the league's existence, instability of franchises as several were placed in cities too small to financially support professional baseball, lack of central authority, and suspicions of
2277-462: The St. Louis Terriers in a 4–0 victory. However, Covington (which had about 55,000 people at the time) wasn't really a big enough town to support the team, and drew only an average of 650 for the remainder of their initial nine-game home stand. By June, the team was mired in fourth place with a 21–31 record and drawing a few hundred a game; altogether, the Sox had a total attendance of only about 8,000 to
2346-641: The UEFA Champions League , operated by the Union of European Football Associations . A Premier League team might play a league game one week, and an FA Cup game against a team from a lower-level league the next, followed by an EFL Cup game against a team in the EFL, and then a fourth game might be against a team from across Europe in the Champions League. The promotion and relegation system
2415-466: The "Chicagos" or the "Mutuals". Frequently sportswriters would apply a creative pseudonym to call the team by in newspaper articles, often using one with something to do with the team colors, such as the Red Stockings or Red Caps (Boston), White Stockings (Chicago), Green Stockings (Mutual of New York), and Canaries (the yellow-uniformed Lord Baltimore). This practice of using the singular form of
2484-443: The "major leaguers" who define the scope within baseball references such as Retrosheet . In 1969, Major League Baseball's newly formed Special Baseball Records Committee decided that the National Association should be excluded from major league status, citing the association's "erratic schedule and procedures" as well as a history of gambling and "poor newspaper coverage". Thus, when the landmark 1969 Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia
2553-538: The "nickname" as the team name faded with time, although as recently as the early 1900s the team generally known as " Philadelphia Athletics " was shown in the American League standings as the traditional way of "Athletic". That team sported an old-English "A" on its jerseys, as had its nominative predecessors. Later, the Encyclopedia of Baseball attempted to retrofit the names into a modern context. In
2622-571: The American League of Professional Base Ball Clubs (the American League , founded 1901) to form Major League Baseball (MLB) in 1903. In 1869, the previously amateur National Association of Base Ball Players, in response to concerns that some teams were paying players, established a professional category. The Cincinnati Red Stockings were the first team to declare their desire to become fully professional. Other teams quickly followed suit. By 1871, several clubs, wanting to separate fully from
2691-519: The Hall as an "executive", a Hall of Fame category that includes pioneers of the game. Cummings is notable for being the pitcher credited with inventing the curveball . Professional sports league organization Professional sports leagues are organized in numerous ways. The two most significant types are one that developed in Europe, characterized by a tiered structure using promotion and relegation in order to determine participation in
2760-495: The Major League Baseball of its day", but they nevertheless decided not to combine their NA records with later leagues, to avoid confusing conflicts with totals shown in the "official records". Professional baseball clubs in the 19th century were often known by what is now regarded as a "nickname", although it was actually the club's name. This was a practice carried over from the amateur days. The singular form of
2829-682: The NA have been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame : George Wright was the first NA inductee ( 1937 ) and Deacon White is the most recent ( 2013 ). Four of the eight had significant playing careers in the National League or other major leagues after their time in the NA: Anson, Galvin, O'Rourke, and White, each of whom was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a player. The other four—Cummings, Spalding, and brothers George and Harry Wright—were each inducted into
Covington Blue Sox - Misplaced Pages Continue
2898-771: The NA should be included in the major leagues, despite its acknowledged flaws, pointing out the same flaws existed in other leagues as well, and called the Committee's decision "a modern-day value judgment that doesn't hold up". The committee's decision has been criticized for favoring the owner-run National League over the player-dominated National Association. David Nemec 's The Great Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Major League Baseball includes players' National Association statistics in their major league totals; Nemec states that his compendium "is not bound by major league baseball's decision to treat its statistics separately", points out that "the National Association contained most of
2967-420: The National Association are its status as the first fully professional baseball league, the fact that several of its teams continued on as part of the National League when it was founded in 1876, and the much more complete state of National Association records today than they were in 1969, thanks to research efforts by a number of baseball historians. In 1982, Sports Illustrated writer Marc Onigman argued that
3036-495: The North American model of one premier league without promotion and relegation. A more rarely seen business model in North America is the pure single- entity league, typified by the two incarnations of the XFL , where there are no individual owners or investors, with all teams centrally owned and operated by the league. Many upstart leagues begin their existence as pure single-entity leagues before they secure investors for teams (such as
3105-536: The North American system due to American influence on the game. In cricket , the Indian Premier League , launched in 2008, also operates on this system. The Super League , which is the top level of rugby league in the United Kingdom and France (and included a Canadian team for several years), was run on a franchise basis from 2009 to 2014 , but returned to a promotion-relegation model with
3174-641: The Pacific islands as a whole (mainly Samoa and Tonga) but is based in New Zealand. Super Rugby also formerly featured franchises in South Africa, Japan, and Argentina. In east Asia, places such as Japan , China , South Korea and Taiwan have a particular differentiation among leagues: "European" sports such as football and rugby use promotion and relegation, while "American" sports such as baseball and basketball use franchising and minor leagues, with
3243-722: The U.S., team relocations have been controversial as supporters of the club will protest at its loss. Leagues around the world generally follow one or the other of these systems with some variation. Most sport leagues in Australia are similar to the North American model, using post-season playoffs and no relegation, but without geographical divisions, with the most notable examples being the Australian Football League ( Aussie rules ) and National Rugby League ( rugby league ). Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan uses
3312-433: The amateur association, broke away to found the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players. (The remaining amateur clubs founded the National Association of Amateur Base Ball Players, which only lasted two years). In 1876, wanting an even stronger central organization, six clubs from the NA and two independents established the National League : Boston Red Stockings , Hartford , Mutual , Athletic , Chicago , and
3381-480: The asset value of their shares in the club collapse. Some leagues offer a " parachute payment " to its relegated teams for the following years in order to protect them from bankruptcy. If a team is promoted back to the higher tier the following year then the parachute payment for the second season is distributed among the teams of the lower division. There is of course a corresponding bonanza for promoted clubs. The league does not choose which cities are to have teams in
3450-413: The ballpark. Bernard Wisenall, a prominent local architect, designed Federal Park (also called Riverbreeze Park ) with a capacity of 6,000. The ballpark was bounded by East 2nd Street, East 3rd Street, Madison Avenue and Scott Boulevard. Playing in the dead-ball era , the park was built with small dimensions, possibly the smallest ever built for any pro baseball park, with a distance of just 194 feet down
3519-399: The best professional players of its time", and also argues that the National Association is more entitled to major league status than the 1884 Union Association (which has been officially recognized as a major league by Major League Baseball). The editors of The 2007 ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia also registered their disagreement with the NA's exclusion, arguing that the NA "was indisputably
SECTION 50
#17327904492253588-492: The competition only by a vote of current members; typically, a new place is put up for bid by would-be owners. The "franchise system" was introduced in baseball with the formation of the National League in 1876 and later adopted by the other North American leagues. Although member teams are corporate entities separate from their leagues, they operate only under league auspices. North American teams do not play competitive games against outside opponents. The leagues operate in
3657-409: The confidence to invest in infrastructure, such as improved ballparks. This in turn would guarantee the revenues needed to support traveling across the continent. In contrast, the shorter distances between urban areas in England allowed more clubs to develop large fan bases without incurring the same travel costs as in North America. When The Football League, now known as the English Football League ,
3726-459: The following list, the bold names are the names most often used by contemporary newspapers in league standings, and the linked names after them are those typically ascribed to the teams now, using the Encyclopedia of Baseball standard. Before 1883, team order in baseball standings was determined by the number of games a team won, not by winning percentage . For each of the five NA seasons,
3795-473: The influence of gamblers. Whether to cover the NA as a major league is a recurring matter of difference in historical work on American baseball among historians, encyclopedists, database builders, and others. Major League Baseball and the National Baseball Hall of Fame do not recognize it as a major league, but the NA comprised most of the professional clubs and the highest caliber of play then in existence. Its players, managers, and umpires are included among
3864-566: The league champion had both the most games won and the best winning percentage. The placement of other clubs may vary—for example, the 1872 Philadelphia Athletics finished in fourth place (based on their win total), while recording the second-best winning percentage. The NA did not have a postseason; champions were determined by final standings at the end of the season. † Individual statistics from tie games count towards players' career totals, but tie games are excluded when computing winning percentage and games behind . Eight people who played in
3933-444: The national league would be the dominating competition in which a club might participate, there are many non-league fixtures a club might play in a given year. In European football there are national cup competitions, which are single elimination knock-out tournaments, are played every year and all the clubs in the league participate. Also, the best performing clubs from the previous year may participate in pan-European tournaments such as
4002-544: The nineteen home games after the opener. June 21 turned out to be the club's final home game. On June 23, it was announced that the Blue Sox would leaving town; on June 26, the league voted to move the team to Kansas City , where it was renamed the Packers . The owners of the Covington team yielded their rights to their creditors. After spending the 1913 season as an independent circuit, the Federal League declared themselves
4071-612: The pyramid structure normally found in football, but instead follows the tradition of Australian sports having a franchise model and a post-season playoff system. This model better suits a country with a few important central locations where a sport needs to ensure there is a team playing with no risk of relegation. Likewise, the American franchise model is used by rugby union's Super Rugby , which features 12 non-European franchises. Australia and New Zealand have five franchises each; one franchise represents Fiji but currently plays most of its "home" games in Australia; and one franchise represents
4140-599: The right-field line, 267 feet to dead center, and 218 feet down the left-field line, more akin to a modern Little League ball field than a pro ballpark, which have a required minimum of 325 feet down the foul lines. Construction did not begin until a month before opening day. The Blue Sox started their season on a long road trip, with a game against Cleveland on May 3. The game ended in a 6–6 tie, called after ten innings due to darkness. The Blue Sox managed to sell out their first home game on May 9, with thousands of fans turned away. Covington's mayor George "Pat" Phillips declared
4209-445: The same opponents, and some teams may not meet during a regular season at all. This results in teams with identical records that have faced different opponents differing numbers of times, making team records alone an imperfect measure of league supremacy. Major League Rugby , which began play in 2018 as the second attempt to launch a professional rugby union competition in the U.S., has a business structure identical to that of MLS. It
SECTION 60
#17327904492254278-469: The same teams play both leagues each year. The European model is also used in Europe even when the sports were founded in America, showing that the league system adopted is not determined by the sport itself, but more on the tradition of sports organization in that region. Sports such as basketball in Spain and Lithuania use promotion and relegation . In the same vein, Australia's A-League Men does not use
4347-466: The semifinals, and defeated Blackpool 2–1 at the final in Wembley Stadium. The system originated in England in 1888 when twelve clubs decided to create a professional Football League . It then expanded by merging with the Football Alliance in 1892, with the majority of the Alliance teams occupying the lower Second Division , due to the divergent strengths of the teams. As this differential
4416-484: The separate competitions may be organized by the same governing body. Also, there is a rugby football code called rugby league , which is distinct from rugby union . Professional sports leagues in North America comprise a stipulated number of teams, known as franchises, which field one team each. The franchises have territorial rights, usually exclusive territories large enough to cover major metropolitan areas, so that they have no local rivals. New teams may enter
4485-544: The teams Birmingham City , Blackpool and West Ham United were relegated from the Premier League to the Football League Championship , the second level of English football. They were replaced by the top two teams from the second level, Queens Park Rangers and Norwich City , both of which won automatic promotion, as well as Swansea City (a Welsh club that plays in the English system), which won
4554-499: The top division. For example, Leeds , the fourth-biggest city in England, saw their team, Leeds United , relegated from the Premier League to the Championship in 2004, and went without top-flight football for 16 seasons before United returned to the Premier League in 2020. During this period, United were relegated again to the third-tier League One in 2007 and returned to the Championship in 2010. Any city that loses all of its Premier League clubs to relegation will continue to be without
4623-431: Was founded in 1888, it was not intended to be a rival of The Football Association but rather the top competition within it. The new league was not universally accepted as England's top-calibre competition right away. To help win fans of clubs outside The Football League, a system was established in which the worst teams at the end of each season would need to win re-election against any clubs wishing to join. A rival league,
4692-508: Was overcome over the next five years, the winners of the Second Division went into a playoff with the worst placed team in the First Division , and if they won, were promoted into the top tier. The first club to achieve promotion was Sheffield United , which replaced the relegated Accrington F.C. Relegation often has devastating financial consequences for club owners who not only lose TV, sponsorship and gate income but may also see
4761-527: Was published, National Association records were not included in totals for such early stars as Cap Anson . Arguments against including the NA as a major league generally revolve around the league's quality of play, significant differences in the sport's rules during the era, and the instability of the league (as many teams lasted only one season or part of a season), and the poor state of the NA records. The Special Baseball Records Committee's decision has faced continuing criticism. Oft-cited arguments in favor of
#224775