On November 10, 1920, the chance for a settlement of the differences among the major league clubs comes in dramatic fashion:
The agreement to make a desperate last-minute attempt to avert a baseball war came at a meeting of the directors of the American League to-day, and was one of the results of conferences between owners of the rival major league factions. The peace news was announced in dramatic fashion in the middle of an address Garry Herrmann, owner of the Cincinnati Nationals , was delivering to the minor league meeting.
Mr. Herrmann, former chairman of the National Commission, was interrupted by a messenger, who handed him a note which he opened and slowly read. Then he announced that the conference of the club owners had been agreed upon for Friday.
New York Tribune
The conference will be among the sixteen owners only; no lawyers nor stenographers, and no league presidents. It turns out the owners don’t want a twelve team league.
The National Leaguers frankly admit that they do not want a twelve-club league unless it is forced upon them to organize it, and that it would be a joke. Mr. Herrmann said that it would be ridiculous to form a league with two clubs in three cities.
The minor leagues express their skepticism about the invitation to share power:
After hearing the pleas of the National League representatives, the minor leaguers went into executive session and voiced their suspicion of the professed “affection” expressed for the by the two forces involved in the major league fight. they warned their associates, from among whom a committee will be appointed to confer with the majaor leagues, not to cede any of the rights of the minors in working out a reorganization plan. They took the position that, while they might act as bearers of the olive branch in the threatened baseball war, they would not go so far as to scorch their own wings.
In a second article on the sports page, the owners of the Giants, Red Sox, and Yankees talk about the negotiations, and how it is their belief the five AL holdouts have surrendered to the Lasker plan. This still calls for a committee of three, with Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the chair, but:
If the five “loyalists” come in under the Lasker plan there will be no war. The other eleven will then be prepared to go on as before with two eight-club major leagues and with Judge Landis head of the board of control. The second man of the board will be elected by majority vote of the sixteen club owners and the third by the minor leagues. However, Messrs. Stoneham, Ruppert and Frazee believe Judge Landis quite big enough to handle this job all alone, and would be willing to have him act as a board of one of the minors and the opposing five if they were agreeable.
New York Tribune
So much for the committee.