The competition of another, better paying league caused players' salaries to skyrocket, demonstrating the bargaining potential of free agency for the first time since the war between the AL and NL.

However, the withdrawal of one of the organization's primary investors caused the league to fail before ever playing a game.

Undaunted, Powers tried again the following year, creating a new league with teams in Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Covington, Kentucky.

The other four teams were placed in areas without a current major league club (Baltimore, Buffalo, Indianapolis and Kansas City).

[7] Major League players that jumped to the Federal League included Bill McKechnie, Claude Hendrix, Jack Quinn, Russell Ford, Tom Seaton, Doc Crandall, Al Bridwell, and Hal Chase.

[10] Upon these news reports, some of the founding members of the Colonial League resigned, fearing banishment by the National Baseball Commission.

1915 witnessed the tightest pennant race in Major League history, as three teams (Chicago, St. Louis and Pittsburgh) fought into the last weekend of the season.

On the season's final day, Sunday, October 3, Chicago split a doubleheader with Pittsburgh, winning the darkness-shortened seven-inning nightcap, 3-0; this combined with St. Louis' 6-2 win over Kansas City, knocked Pittsburgh back to third (albeit just a half-game behind), with Chicago and St. Louis in a virtual tie for first.

But since the Whales (86-66) played two fewer games than the St. Louis Terriers (87-67), they were awarded the pennant based on their slightly better winning percentage (.566 to .565).

The lawsuit ended up in the court of Federal Judge (and future Commissioner of Baseball) Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who allowed the case to languish while he urged both sides to negotiate.

Swift action might have made a difference, but without the lawsuit going forward, the Federals found themselves in deepening financial straits.

The Kansas City franchise had been declared bankrupt and taken over by the league office after the close of the regular season, and the Baltimore owners rejected the offer made to them.

It was used for various sports until the end of 1917 and then for storage until Brooklyn Edison Electric bought the property in 1925 and shortly thereafter tore it down.

[18][19] Though significantly weakened in the 1970s, this exemption remains intact 103 years later; however, it has been eroded by subsequent court rulings and legislation regarding issues specific to Major League Baseball.

(The major league Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958, although the New York Mets, the Cyclones' parent club, have been located in the adjacent borough of Queens since 1964.)

The Federal League features prominently in Ring Lardner's sports humor book You Know Me Al (1916), in which the protagonist pitches for the Chicago White Sox and repeatedly threatens to jump to the Federal League whenever he feels underappreciated or underpaid.