Born in Philadelphia on January 26, 1854, Francis Richter was a journalist since his youth. Because of his former career as an amateur baseball player, he understood all of the integral aspects of baseball and sought to elevate the game to a National Pastime. His former career as a noted amateur baseball player was an invaluable tool, which provided him with a rich supply of insight into the game and player's lives (Reach Guide, 1926).
In the early 1870s, Richter began his journalism career working for several newspapers in his hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1872, he began his career with the Philadelphia Day, and when the paper folded eight years later, he had already established his reputation as a successful managing editor in the journalistic world. He began writing for the Sunday Worldand started the nation's first sports department of the era while working at the Public Ledger. From this post, he influenced prominent leaders of the National League and American Association to create clubs in Philadelphia. From the outset, Richter made known his profound distaste of Sunday games, which were implemented in 1881 by the American Association, a new league competing with the National League for players and prestige. Richter was not an advocate of Sunday games because “the public sentiment (wa)s against” it in his area of the country (Sporting Life, 1901, p.1). He stated that the “cleanest and most honorable professional sport on earth” would be hurt for the “purely commercial reasons” employed by the American Association's brewery clubs (Sporting Life, 1901, p.1; Reach Guide, 1926).
In 1883, Richter founded the Sporting Life, a weekly magazine devoted to the coverage of all sports with an emphasis on baseball, and began editing the journal, which became the mouthpiece of the national game. Within the first year of publication, his journal boasted a circulation of 20,000; three years later, the publication swelled to 40,000. By 1890, the Sporting Life had sixteen pages, cost ten cents per copy, and boasted “the largest circulation of any sporting or baseball newspaper” (Seymour,1960, p. 350). The motto for the Sporting Life, taken from Abraham Lincoln's creed, for which he lived and worked by was: “devoted to base ball men and measures, with malice towards none and charity for all” (Reach Guide, 1926, p. 351).
Throughout his early journalistic career, Richter wrote in an elevated manner that served as model for many sports journalists of the day. Unlike his predecessor Henry Chadwick, his writing style encompassed amusing language and colorful metaphors. Richter introduced expressions such as “tried to embezzle home plate,” “died an easy death,” and “slapped out a dandy single.” These slang terms and phrases were so widely used that many became part of baseball terminology and the English language. Baseball historian Warren Goldstein asserted that reviews of dramatic performances such as the theatre may have caused “the critical climate that helped give rise to the involved often vehement style” of baseball journalism such as exhibited by Richter (Oriard, 1993, p. 102). The language provided a common bond between Middle America. Through his inventive language and narrative, he brought the game to those who could not enter the stands. In all activities, Richter “mediated between the athletic contest and its audience” thus interpreting the game for the reader (p.17). He, along with his successors, “spread the cult of baseball among the masses” and contributed to the establishment of “the business as a commercialized entertainment” converting it “into an integral part of the American social scene (Seymour, 1960, p. 351).
The writing and promotion endeavors of Richter made the game of baseball profitable. Early baseball managers had a practically free mouthpiece, supplying journalists with meager press boxes to view the game. All of the publicity cost the owners nothing other than the upkeep of their press boxes. Baseball began gaining immense popularity in the 1880s due to the increasing coverage by sportswriters, like Richter. The growing interest in baseball due to the newspaper coverage and written narrative created swelled baseball audiences, resulting in an increased interest in newly formed sports pages. “Day in and day out, baseball got the lion's share of this increase coverage” (Seymour, 1960, p. 349). This interest, in turn, positively affected newspaper fortunes, which resulted in more prominent coverage of baseball (Voigt, 1983).
Straying from the opinion of his mentor and protégé Henry Chadwick, Richter advocated for player's rights and criticized the reserve clause. He unabashedly announced his position on player's rights and the flaws of the reserve clause, which he had once favored, time and again. He impacted baseball through his role as a players advocate in player wars and his role as a financial backer in the Union Association War, among others (Seymour, 1960).
After the acknowledgement of the American Association in 1883, delegates of both leagues formed a National Agreement, which extended the reserve clause to eleven players and promised the mutual respect of all rosters. Both leagues promised to pay their players a salary of $1,000, while they reaped the disproportionate monetary rewards. Richter asserted that both leagues effectively sold their players into slavery. In September 1883, the Sporting Life reported that the publication would not "recognize any agreement whereby any number of ball players may be reserved for anytime beyond the terms of their contacts with such a club" (Voigt, 1966, p. 130). He "berated greedy owners for conspiring to hold down their (player) salaries ( p. 128).
Thus, according to Richter, the restrictive measures of the reserve clause threatened to halt the leagues' prosperous times. He encouraged players to fight with “the caprice of men who have not one-tenth of the ability, brains, or heart of their victims” (Voigt, 1966, p.128). Emboldened by Richter, disgruntled players sought to remove themselves from the tyranny of the major leagues, forming the Union Association of Baseball Clubs in Pittsburgh and seeking recognition from the two leagues. So enthralled behind the position of the players, Richter himself backed the Philadelphia club financially in 1884. Acting as the “Abraham Lincoln” of baseball, he declared the warring league to be "the emancipator of enslaved players and the enemy of the reserve clause" (p. 130). Richter even facilitated the support of other newspapers in the area. The Philadelphia Times said the Union personnel were “fully equal to that of the League and Association in brains, intellect, and financial strength” (p. 150). The league ultimately failed and only served to strengthen the National League's agenda-setting capabilities, yet Richter remained a player's advocate.
In concert with his colleagues, Richter sought to develop esprit de corps amongst writers through the formation of an association. On December 12, 1887, Richter and other baseball journalist formed the Base Ball Reporters Association of America at Cincinnati, also referred to as the National Base Ball Reporters' Association. Founded after the success of the first local baseball writers' organization formed in Philadelphia in 1885, the Base Ball Reporters Association sought to increase the success of baseball through the press, as well as find a standard method of scoring the game. George Munson was elected president, and Chadwick was elected vice-president to the association, charging dues of one dollar per year. According to the Reach Guide (1899): “The time has come when the National Game and the scores and the base ball reporters of America look to each other for support and assistance. All sides now recognize that their interests are identical. The reporters have found in the game a thing of beauty and a source of actual employment. The game has found in the reporters its best ally and most powerful supporter” (p. 351). Primarily as a result of the association, the Joint Playing Rules Committee of the National League and American Association was formed and exacted a great impact upon baseball. The association was also partially responsible for the improved conditions in press boxes and informative press kits. In the midst of derisive baseball wars that threatened to tear the National Pastime apart at the seams, even dividing sportswriters across the nation, Richter sought to unite sports journalists (Seymour, 1960; Richter, 1914).
Elite baseball journalist such as Richter and Chadwick “who stood high in league councils” were often called in to advise owners and prominent league officials (Seymour, 1960, p. 351). Richter most likely gained much of his clout with key officials and owners by participating in banquets hosted by men, such as Albert Goodwill Spalding. Spalding was the prominent president of the Chicago White Stockings and the owner of a thriving sporting goods business. Richter attended one such event after Spalding and a touring team completed a world tour in the late 1880s. Richter hosted and spoke at the banquet with three hundred guests in attendance.
The creation of the National Base Ball Reporters Association and Richter serving as an advisor to major league owners coincided with the rise of the Players Revolt of 1890. Responding to the owners’ abuse of the reserve clause, thoughtful players sought measures that would balance the power between themselves and the owners. New York Giants infielder and captain John Montgomery Ward was the most outspoken critic of the reserve clause. In 1885, Ward, along with Giants pitcher Tim Keefe, formed the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players, a “union” designed to protect the players’ interests. Although he praised the general stability the reserve clause provided, Ward condemned the magnates’ abuse of it, developing business practices such as buying, selling, and lending of players. In November 1889, the Brotherhood formed the Players League to compete against the National League and the American Association (Voigt, 1966).
Richter remained loyal to the players’ cause, and even allowed Ward to publish his attacks against the reserve clause on the pages of the Sporting Life. Supporting the players dismayed Richter’s friend National League President Abraham G. Mills. When Mills entertained him at dinner, he always tried to dissuade Richter from his views. Richter, no doubt, advocated his “Millennium Plan” at these meetings.
He attempted to elevate his “Millennium Plan” as a solution to major league exploitation of the minors. When the minor leagues became members of the National Agreement under the “Articles of Qualified Admission” in the early 1880s, they were subjected to exploitation by the majors by not receiving the protection and benefit of the reserved clause. As a result, players could be taken legally by major league clubs when their contracts expired at the end of each season. Thus, without property rights, many minor leagues folded due to lack of players. The plan sought to change the reservation and drafting system employed in the minors, advocating “the extension to all of the minor leagues the reservation privilege” through a “long and hard fight” (Richter, 1914, p. 156). The measure was finally considered and granted in 1888 by the National League and American Association, no doubt to placate and befriend the powerful journalist Richter (Seymour, 1960; Voigt, 1966).