Many MLB players have played in four different leagues.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Have any appeared for the NA, NL, AA, UA & PL? How about the AL too (or instead of the NA)?

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Posted By: john/z28jd

There werent many good players in the UA so chances are most of them werent even around long enough to appear in 5 leagues.It would either be from 75-90 or 84-01 and thats a pretty long career especially back then.

Guys who played in the AL and UA-Joe Quinn,Frank Foreman
Guys who played in the NA and UA-Orator Shaffer,Grin Bradley,Bill Harbridge,Joe Ellick,Henry Luff,Lou Say,Lou Weaver,Fergy Malone,Levi Meyerle,Warren White,Ed McKenna,Joe Battin,Will Foley,Tim Murnane and Ned Cuthbert


Teh 2nd list is pretty long but almost all of them were hanging on the a baseball career in the UA and didnt play a game in the majors after 1884.Quinn never played in the AA,Foreman never played in the PL and Shaffer missed out on the PL too but he did last till 1890.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

John/z28jd - although I am only about two thirds finished with this assessment, it certainly appears that you are correct regarding the quality of many of the players in the Union Association. I was initially surprised that so few UA players joined the PL - and wondered why Ward got little support from the "oldtimers". However, the oldtimers who were still in baseball when the Players League was formed may be of far less population than some would have thought.

But from the response thus far to this thread, I conclude that there are not many interested in this subject.

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Posted By: jay behrens

It's a question many of us ahve probably thought about, but ar ejust too lazy to do the leg work. That's what SABR is for

Jay

Wow upside down is Mom. Mom upside down is what dad wants to see.

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Posted By: Glen V

This link lists the players that played for 4 teams in a season. (You can click on the players to get their stats) http://www.baseball-almanac.com/recbooks/rb_ten1.shtml

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Its not really a secret Gilbert as to why alot of UA players didnt play in the PL,most of them werent legit major leaguers and wouldnt have made the majors if there were only 2 leagues and the UA didnt exist for a season.A good number of UA players were at the end of their career and just hanging on for one last season.

The only Hall of Famer to play in the UA is Tommy McCarthy and he was a rookie that year.That alone should tell you how little the talent was in the league when 3 just years later the Old Judge set came out and theres 27 hall of famers included in it

Jim McCormick is the only other legit hall of fame candidate that played in the league and he went 21-3 in half a season after going 19-21 for Cleveland in the first half. Bill Sweeney should be your biggest clue to how good the league really was,he went 40-21 in the UA and couldnt get a job the season before 1884 or any season after

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

If one of the thrusts of the UA was a challenge to the reserve clause, I wonder why Monte Ward did not join them.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

According to my first pass inspection, no one has played MLB in five different leagues; and only one has played in four - with the AL being his last.

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Posted By: john/z28jd

You inspected too quick then Gilbert.Like i mentioned above in that list of players,both Joe Quinn and Frank Foreman played in 4 leagues and both of them finished their careers in the AL.Quinn in 1901 and Foreman in 1902

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Yes, you are correct about Quinn and Foreman. It is true that I was scanning rapidly and probably missed (at least) one of these. But it is also true that my objective was to identify if any player participated in five leagues.

I do not believe that I missed that on my first pass inspection.