A Complete Success

At 11 o'clock this morning the Union Base Ball Association held an adjourned session in the Bingham House. All persons not members of the association were rigidly excluded from the meeting-room. President Lucas called the meeting to order, and after roll-call the association discussed at length the admission of certain clubs into membership, the arrangement of finance and other questions. It was decided to leave the matter of uniforms with each individual club, with an arrangement that no two clubs should wear the same kind of uniform. Thomas Gunning was not expelled from membership in the association, as was erroneously stated yesterday. Letters of explanation were received from him, and no action will be taken in the matter until the next meeting of the association, in Baltimore, on the third Tuesday of December next. In the meanwhile he will be held to his contract with the Chicago Club. It was arranged that the Schedule Committee should meet at Cincinnati some time between March 5th and 20th next. An extended discussion on the newly adopted Standard Ball engaged the attention of the Association for some time. After a long debate on the matter of official umpires it was decided that they should be appointed at the meeting of the Schedule Committee at Cincinnati. About two dozen applications for the position of umpires were received and placed on file...

Two applications were also received from gentlemen in two prominent cities who wish to organize clubs as members of the association. Several prominent ballplayers of Philadelphia were busy effecting negotiations for membership with the various Union Association clubs. It was rumored that George W. Bradley has completed a contract to play with the Cincinnati Club. At 1 o'clock the meeting adjourned. This first annual meeting of the Union Association has been a marked success. Fifty-five players from all portions of the United States have rallied around the new organization and have effected membership with the various clubs, while about a dozen others are negotiating for contracts.

Six Strong Clubs

are now in the Union Association, and the full complement of membership will be made when two more clubs are admitted. Then the Association will probably have a membership of about 100 players.

Secretary William Warren White, in a conversation, said: "The status of our association is established beyond a doubt, and it is the firm determination of each individual club to weather the season of 1884. I have been a base ball player for twenty years, and during all that time no association has launched out under more favorable circumstances than the Union. The individual members are gentlemen of well-known business integrity and ability. Then, too, we guarantee security that all players who sign with this association shall have their salaries forthwith upon demand. Overtures are also being made by the Union League for co-operation, interchanges of games and recognition of contracts with the Union Association."

-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, December 20, 1883