SABR Digital Library: Baseball’s Business: The Winter Meetings: 1901-1957

 

Baseball’s Business: The Winter Meetings: 1901-1957 (Volume One)
Edited by Steve Weingarden and Bill Nowlin
Associate editors: Marshall Adesman and Len Levin
Foreword by Roland Hemond
Publication: December 5, 2016
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-9438-1637-8
ISBN (e-book) 978-1-9438-1636-1
8.5″ x 11″, 390 pages

“I treasured going to the Winter Meetings. You don’t see people for a whole year and then here you are, face to face, and trying to make a deal.”  — Roland Hemond (Winter Meetings attendee since 1952)

This new SABR book about the history of the Winter Meetings contains stories and hidden treasures that may help resolve moments of wonder that have periodically crossed your mind as a baseball fan or as a scholar.

So much of baseball history happened at the Winter Meetings. This book provides you with a historical answer to the business of baseball over many of the early years of the minor leagues, the National League, and the American League, and even features a chapter on the Eastern Colored League Winter Meetings. Important philosophies regarding chosen identity, reactions to societal trends, agreements on how to operate, approval of new members, and player transactions emerged from the discussions and decisions made at the winter meetings.

This book represents the first of three volumes to cover the history of Baseball’s Winter Meetings. Volume One covers the years 1901 through 1957; Volume Two covers the years 1958 through 2016; and Volume Three covers the 19th century. The first volume covers the years of twentieth century baseball from the first year there were two “major leagues” — the American League having begun as a major league in 1901 — and running through the final year before expansion to the West Coast. The second volume brings coverage of the Winter Meetings through the 2016 gathering in Washington, D.C.

Volume One comprises the collective work of a team of 38 SABR researchers and editors. The overall project was initiated by SABR’s Business of Baseball Committee, the brainchild of editor Steve Weingarden. Volume Two will comprise the work of a number of the same authors and editors, but more than two dozen others. All in all, well over 60 SABR members will have contributed to this effort.

Related link: Learn more about Volume 2 and Volume 3 of our Winter Meetings history book series.

SABR members, get this e-book for FREE!

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Below: Find essays from Baseball’s Business: The Winter Meetings: 1901-1957

Essays

1901 Winter Meetings: Firsts, Foibles, and Failures

1902 Winter Meetings: A Peace Accord

1903 Winter Meetings: Married Life Begins For American, National Leagues

1904 Winter Meetings: Power Play

1905 Winter Meetings: Controversy Over League Presidents Take Center Stage

1906 Winter Meetings: Gradual Détente, Growing Pains

1907 Winter Meetings: The New Cooperation: The Manifest Desire to Elevate the Game

1908 Winter Meetings: Major Issues in the Minors, Bribery Charges, and World Series Ticket Scandal

1909 Winter Meetings: If It Takes All Winter

1910 Winter Meetings: Ho-Hum Affairs

1911 Winter Meetings: Scandal? What Scandal?

1912 Winter Meetings: Discussing Interleague Play and the Slow Pace of the Game

1913 Winter Meetings: Preparing for the Fights Ahead

1914 Winter Meetings: Wars at Home and Abroad

1915 Winter Meetings: Peace Time for the National Pastime

1916 Winter Meetings: The Minors and Players are Restless

1917 Winter Meetings: War? What War?

1918 Winter Meetings: Baseball Returns from the Great War

1919 Winter Meetings: The End of the Deadball Era

1920 Winter Meetings: The Year that Rocked Baseball and Changed it Forever

1921 Winter Meetings: Baseball’s First With Judge Landis

1922 Winter Meetings: To Meet or Not to Meet

1923 Winter Meetings: The Battle of Avalon

1923-29 Winter Meetings: The Negro Leagues Come East

1924 Winter Meetings: Big Drama in the Big Apple

1925 Winter Meetings: Different Script, Same Cast

1926 Winter Meetings: Changing of the Guard

1927 Winter Meetings: A Little on the Drafty Side

1928 Winter Meetings: The Draft Mess and Glimpses into the Future

1929 Winter Meetings: Let’s All Play by the Same Rules

1930 Winter Meetings: The Judge and the Mahatma Debate the Chain Store System

1931 Winter Meetings: Baseball Gets a Taste of Depression

1932 Winter Meetings: Wealth of Changes Revitalizes Baseball in Poor Times

1933 Winter Meetings: The Sell-Off

1934 Winter Meetings: The Reds Go Under the Lights While the Braves Go to the Dogs

1935 Winter Meetings: Inspirational Delegates Churn Cream Into Butter

1936 Winter Meetings: Home Plate and Hurlers

1937 Winter Meetings: More Business Than Baseball

1938 Winter Meetings: Out of the Hat

1939 Winter Meetings:  Tie Goes To The Commissioner

1940 Winter Meetings: Judge Landis’ Final Reign

1941 Winter Meetings: War and Uncertainty

1942 Winter Meetings: Green Light Matters of Manpower and the Military

1943 Winter Meetings: War on the Home Front

1944 Winter Meetings: A New Era Without Landis

1945 Winter Meetings: Resuming Peacetime Baseball

1946 Winter Meetings: Tranquility and Turbulence

1947 Winter Meetings: Latin America, Leo the Lip, and High School Hijinks

1948 Winter Meetings: Concerns and Conflicts Regarding Televised Baseball Grow Stronger

1949 Winter Meetings: Bonuses, Bargains, and Broadcasts

1950 Winter Meetings: The Happy Dagger

1951 Winter Meetings: Open Classification

1952 Winter Meetings: Changing Demographics and Broadcast Challenges

1953 Winter Meetings: Pension Collision

1954 Winter Meetings: Looking West

1955 Winter Meetings: Majors and Minors Clash Over Money

1956 Winter Meetings: A Love-Fest

1957 Winter Meetings: Sunday Night Fight


Contributors: Abigail Miskowiec, Aimee Gonzalez, Andy Bokser, Bill Felber, Bill Nowlin, Bob LeMoine, Chris Jones, Christopher Matthews, Dale Voiss, Dennis Pajot, Ely Sussman, Eric Frost, Frederick C. Bush, Gary Levy, Gregory H. Wolf, Jacob Pomrenke, Jason C. Long, Jeremy Green, Jerry Nechal, Jim Howlenhaus, Jim Overmyer, Joe Marren, Marshall Adesman, Mike Lynch, Nick Klopsis, Nick Waddell, Paul Hensler, R.J. Lesch, Rich Bogovich, Roland Hemond, Silvio Sansano, Stephen R. Keeney, Steve Weingarden, Steven Bryant, Ted Leavengood, Travis Stern, and Zak Schmoll.

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