A statement like that says a lot about the players in the Negro Leagues. It certainly carries more weight than it would coming from a former white big leaguer. The differences between the white and black leagues were great, but not in the way that most people think. The most common mistake that people make in their perception of the two leagues is the level of talent in each. Too many people tend to go to the extreme in their view of the Negro Leagues. They either think that the level of play was grossly inferior to the majors, or far superior.

Both of these assumptions are incorrect. Truth be told, the level of talent in both the leagues were comparable. Any established star in the Negro Leagues would have been able to play on any major league team and continue to perform at his usual level. Chances are, the Negro League player, for a time, would do better in the white majors than he did in the Negro Leagues, just as his white counterpart’s performance would most likely fall off for a time in the Negro Leagues. The reason for the changes, however, has nothing to do with talent, but rather that the business of the game differed so greatly in the two leagues.

In the white majors, teams had a safe haven in their home fields. At the beginning of each year they knew that they would be at that stadium for 77 games, and play 11 games in each of seven stadiums during the season. They would, at the very most, play two games in the same day only once every few weeks. White major leaguers traveled in comfort and were secure in the knowledge that once they reached a city, they would play there for two or three days before hitting the road again. The traveling done by major leagues was planned so that it would be easy on the players. And that’s exactly what it was. Some former major league players may deny that and claim that the traveling was tough on them, but in comparison to the schedules of the major Negro League teams, traveling in the white majors was a cakewalk.

There was no preset number of games that a Negro League team would play each year. On the other hand, in major league baseball, the number of games played in an official season was set in stone: 154. In comparison, official league games in the Negro Leagues never totaled more than 99. That was the high-water mark reached by the Detroit Stars of the Negro National League in 1927; several other teams played nearly as many league games during the 1920s seasons.

By the 1930s, however, the number of league games had dropped. In the Negro National League, the Pittsburgh Crawfords of 1935, considered by some to be one of the greatest teams ever, played only 72 games in a split-season schedule. The drop in the number of league games for Negro National League (NNL) teams continued at such a pace that by 1945, the NNL pennant-winning Homestead Grays played just 45 league games, while the pennant-winning Cleveland Buckeyes of the Negro American League played 69 league games.

These numbers refer only to league games, not the total number of games played. It was rare if a major Negro League team played less than two hundred games in a single season. The reason that such a small percentage were leagues games is simple. In order for black baseball to be able to operate at anything close to a break-even level, the teams had to make all of America their home field. At any time during the era of the black baseball leagues, the population of those of African American descent was approximately 9% of the United States. In 1940, to pick a random year, the population of the United States was 131 million people, making the total black population in the area of 12 million people spread across the country. Fans of the Negro Leagues were overwhelmingly black, and black baseball had a much smaller consumer base from which to draw.

In the Northeast, Newark was one of the cities with largest percentages of blacks. In 1940, the overall population was around 430,000 people, with blacks making up nearly 11% of the city. It was the home of the Negro National League Newark Eagles. If the Eagles could pull every black living in Newark to a game, as well as entice 1% of the white population of the city to also attend, it would result in a crowd of less than 50,000 people. Needless to say, no Negro league team was ever able to attract every person of African American descent in their city to a game. On Opening Day in 1942, at Ruppert Stadium in Newark, the Eagles did draw a crowd of around 13,000 fans, or just under 29% of the city’s black population. And that was in the 1940s, the heyday of black baseball.

During the years of World War II, the Negro Leagues rivaled the major leagues as a business. In 1942 and 1943 attendance declined at major league games, while it steadily increased at Negro League contests. The reasons behind this are simple.

The United States’ need for men for the armed forces and to produce war materiel resulted in the country facing a shortage of manpower. In order to fill this gap, the job market was suddenly opened to individuals previously excluded. One of these groups that benefited was African Americans.

As a result, the second great migration of African Americans took place, with hundreds of thousands of blacks leaving the South. Of this number, roughly half of them moved to the Midwest and East Coast, areas which were the traditional homes of the major Negro League franchises.

By 1944, nearly 8% of the jobs in war industries were held by African Americans. These workers’ salaries would rank them among the highest-paid African Americans in the United States, making, on average, the same as a white female worker, another group used to fill wartime industry positions.

Before the war, the average African American worker had an annual income of about $457 a year, while the average white worker made $1,064 per annum. By 1944, the average African American defense worker was making $1,976 annually. Workers in urban areas had more money but faced the same situation that all Americans faced; due to wartime restrictions, there was less on which to spend their money. While African Americans had wages that had quadrupled during the war years, production of consumer goods had dropped drastically.

For example, there were no civilian cars produced, bicycles were rationed, no civilian production of toasters, percolators, or other such household appliances. Rationing of leather resulted in women’s shoes available in six colors only, full skirts and knife pleats were banned, lace was limited, and there was a general shortage of men’s clothes. In addition cigarettes, coffee, tea, butter, eggs, meat, and other foodstuffs, as well as gasoline, was rationed and restrictions were placed on travel by everyone, including major league teams.

More money in the pockets of its fan base was not the only advantage the Negro Leagues had during the war years. While stars like Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Bob Feller, and countless other major league drawing cards were off serving Uncle Sam, the major Negro Leagues stars of the day, Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, Jud Wilson, and a plethora of others were still to be found plying their trade at the local ball yards.

This was not because African American ballplayers did not help in the war effort. Scores of Negro League players’ careers, including future Hall of Famers Monte Irvin and Leon Day, were interrupted by the war, There were other reasons that the Negro Leagues’ biggest drawing cards were not called up for military service. While still a dazzling pitcher, Paige was too old to serve. Gibson, who was still knocking mammoth home runs, was declared medically unfit for military service due to bad knees. Various other reasons kept other top Negro League players from trading in their baseball flannels for Army khakis.

The old adage that all good things must come to an end proved true in the case of Negro League baseball. With the end of the war, Negro League baseball once again fell on hard times. Not, as some people believe, solely as a result of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ signing of Jackie Robinson. The signing of Robinson of course played a big role in the ultimate demise of the Negro Leagues, but so did something else which ended when the fighting in Europe and the Pacific did: wartime jobs.

A prime example of this was the shipbuilding industry, which flourished on the East Coast during the war and employed 200,000 African Americans during the war. But in 1946 it employed only 10,000 African Americans. Even the boom in the construction field that followed the end of the war did not increase the job market of blacks all that much. While there were countless new jobs available there were also countless new people in need of jobs returning to the country. In addition, individuals who had made their living in the lumber and oil towns that underwent a financial boom during the war now needed jobs, since that boom had ended. African Americans, for the most part, were returning to the financial straits they were in before the war.

The Negro Leagues could not continue as they had during the war years. In addition to less money in the pockets of its fan base, much of that would be spent on tickets to major league games to see Jackie Robinson play. Just a year or two away from selling out Yankee Stadium or Ebbets Field for Negro Leagues games, it was back to the prewar style of operation.

In 1939, according to James Overmyer in Queen of the Negro Leagues: Efta Manley and the Newark Eagles, the Eagles averaged 3,480 paid attendance on Sundays and 2,176 paid attendance on other dates at their home field of Ruppert Stadium, where they played 22 games on 15 different dates.

The Eagles did not get to keep all of the money that was made at these games. The stadium owners, the booking agent, and the visiting team each got a percentage of the gate, the amount made by ticket sales. Therefore, by taking into account the smaller crowds plus the division of the profits among three or four different entities, one can see that Negro League baseball home games were far from a cash cow. As a result Negro league teams owners had to find ways to make money and at the same time keep it in the coffers of black American and out of the pockets of the white stadium owners and white booking agents. A few owners took the next logical step.

Encased in the pages of Negro League history, hidden among the names of over 400 different ballparks that Negro League games were played in, there are only a handful that shared a common trait. These six parks were not grand or majestic. But these parks were special. They were the only home fields of major league-level teams that were owned by African Americans. Hilldale Park in Philadelphia, Martin Park in Memphis, Wilson Park in Nashville, Greenlee Field in Pittsburgh, Tate Park in Cleveland, and Dyckman Oval in New York City are names that mean little to most people today. But at one time they were traces of equality in a landscape of bigotry.

By playing in a black-owned ballpark, the team owners automatically cut down on the number of hands reaching for a piece of the gate. Also, public opinion could be swayed to the favor of the owner by allowing the park to be used by civic organizations when his team was out of town. The Martin Brothers, owners of Martin Park in Memphis, Tennessee, and the Memphis Red Sox, did just this. Thrice every year the park was turned over to local musicians for the Starlite Review, a concert used to raise money to send black handicapped children to school.

Such endeavors apparently helped the Red Sox and their standing in the city. Despite the fact that the only title the team ever won was the first-half Negro American League title in 1938, the team always had a solid fan base. It was one of the most stable franchises in the Negro Leagues, lasting from 1923 to 1960. But even with such solid fan backing and a rent-free park, the Red Sox proved an already well-known point, that league games alone did not generate the profits necessary to maintain a team in the Negro Leagues. Besides league games, Negro League teams had to find another way to supplement their income. This was done by barnstorming.

Barnstorming was the practice of traveling across the country, playing all comers, for either a guarantee or a percentage of the gate. A guarantee was an agreed-upon figure that would be paid by the sponsor of the game to a team. It has been stated by several former players that the best way to sure make a Negro League team got the highest amount available was to take the opposite of what was offered. The teams reasoned that if a sponsor offered a guarantee, then that person was sure that a large crowd would come to the game and so he would make back the guarantee plus a hefty profit. In such cases teams would reportedly demand a percentage of the gate.

At the same time, if a sponsor offered a percentage of the gate, the team owners would figure the sponsor was unsure how many fans would show up, and so they would demand a guarantee. If the game was to be played between two Negro Leagues teams rather than a local team, the gate was usually split into a winner’s and loser’s share, with as much as 60% going to the winner.

Negro League teams met outside their home parks for league games on a somewhat regular basis. The Yankees in the 1940s were making a reported $100,000 a year off Negro League games from renting out the team’s minor league stadiums and Yankee Stadium. Other teams, like the Washington Senators, depended on the rental fees to make ends meet. League games were also played in such out-of-the-way places as Springfield, Ohio’s Municipal Stadium or Oklahoma City, Oklahoma’s Holland Park. But the majority of the games played on tours were against local, semi-pro, or minor league teams.

Practically all of the traveling done by Negro League teams was by car or bus, not by train. The reasons were financial. Games that were played on these tours were no more lucrative than league games, and in a lot of cases less so. Therefore, the only hope of showing a profit was to play as many games as you could in as many towns as possible. An example of this is a 1939 tour made by the Newark Eagles in which the team, in 16 days, traveled to 17 cities and played 17 games. The tour, however, did not take place during any of the big summer holidays. If it had, the team might have played up to four games in three or four different cities in a single day. This was not an uncommon occurrence on the Fourth of July for some teams.

These teams managed to keep such demanding schedules by spending most of their time on the bus. It was a Negro League player’s home. Once a game was over, the team might not even take time to change clothes. If the next game was going to be played later in the day the players might just walk off the field and on to the bus and go on their way. If the players were given the time to change, then the uniforms, wet with perspiration, would be hung in the back of the bus or out the bus windows to dry.

Where the players ate on the road depended on where they were and how much time they had. If they were in one of the league cities, then there were black-owned restaurants that over the years gained popularity with the ballplayers. Two were the Crawford Grill in Pittsburgh and the Sky Rocket Grill in Homestead, Pennsylvania. If the team was on the road, however, getting food could be a problem.

While the South was better known for its segregation, stores and restaurants that would not serve blacks could be found all over the country. The annals of black baseball, as told by the men that played in them, are filled with stories of places that refused them service or would serve them only through a window in the back of the store or restaurant. When it came to places that the teams knew would just flat-out refuse them service, there were two options. The first was the one that was practiced by most teams, and that was to keep driving until they found a place that would sell them, for example, some bologna and crackers, and maybe some sodas. That was dinner.

The second approach to food on the road worked if the team had a light-skinned player. The team would send him into an establishment to buy food for the entire team. This exercise proved successful, unless something happened to make the owner of the restaurant or store suspicious. If the rest of the team stayed out of sight, however, it usually worked well.

When it came to staying overnight, many of the same problems teams faced when looking for a restaurant came back to haunt them. Once again, league cities did not cause a problem. In every major city in the United States there were actually two cities, one black and one white, with each offering everything the other did, from hotels to nightclubs. If a Negro League team was spending the night in a league city, everyone was happy. That night promised a real bed and a meal in a fine restaurant. Once you left the big cities, however, that all changed.

The chances of finding a place that would put up an entire baseball at the time was difficult enough, but if the team was made up of all black players, then the chances declined even further. In some towns where the teams appeared regularly, there were black boardinghouses that would take them in, or the team might divide up among the local black families. Most of the time, though, when away from the major cities, Negro Leaguers spent their nights on the bus.

Traveling for weeks at a time, sleeping, eating, basically living in a car or on a bus, and being able to play at least one game every day and do it at a major league level seems incredible. It is remarkable that despite the hardships of traveling, the level of their play didn’t suffer to any great extent.

While it could be argued that traveling continuously and playing seven to ten games a week would take a toll on a player, there are countless examples from the black baseball leagues that prove this argument wrong. The first to come to mind is Satchel Paige, who at times would pitch every day for a month. Catcher Larry Brown would also go a long way to dispel such an argument. Brown spent 30 years behind the plate in the Negro Leagues, including 1930 when he caught 234 games but could only muster a lifetime .260 batting average. Baseball has seen many that were the equal of him as a defensive catcher but probably none were better.

There were costs to be paid with that lifestyle, sometimes the ultimate price. Three Negro League players paid that while traveling with their respective teams, two in a car accident and one as the result of mechanical problems with a bus.

Catcher Ulysses “Buster” Brown and pitcher Raymond “Smokey” Owens, both with the Cincinnati Buckeyes, were traveling in a car with three other members of the team and team owner Wilbur Hayes on September 7, 1942. They were heading home from a series of games against the New York Black Yankees when one of the car’s tires went flat. The men stopped and changed the tire outside Geneva, Ohio. At around 3:00 A.M. as Owens, who was driving, pulled back onto the road, the car was struck from behind by another car. Both Brown and Owens were killed instantly. Two pitchers, Eugene Bremmer and Herman “Lefty” Watts, had to be hospitalized because of their injuries. Hayes and pitcher Alonzo Boone received only minor injuries.

In the summer of 1944, while the Memphis Red Sox were traveling home from a tour of the eastern states, the team’s bus developed mechanical problems and left the team stranded in the northern part of the state. It was a Friday night and the team had to be in back Memphis for a doubleheader on the following Sunday. The team left the bus and boarded a train. Reports vary as to what happened next, but the end result was that an intoxicated man, angered by some occurrence—some say over a dice game—drew a gun and fired one shot. The shot struck Memphis pitcher Porter Moss, an innocent bystander, just below the heart. The doctor at the next station refused to treat Moss, and so the injured man continued on the train for another hour to Jackson, Tennessee. There he underwent an operation, but died the next day. The shooter was later caught and sentenced to ten years.

While these were the only three deaths that occurred while teams were on the road, there were a great number of accidents. In the 1930s, the Newark Eagles bus crashed due to brake failure; the Philadelphia Stars’ team bus collided with an automobile; and the pair of cars in which the Homestead Grays was traveling both wound up in the ditch. September 1944 saw five players from the Birmingham Black Barons injured after the team bus collided with a car and then flipped over.

In the 1950s, after some clothing caught fire on the Monarchs team bus, the players stood and watched while the bus burned on the side of a Florida highway. Police radio reports, according to Buck O’Neil, were “Don’t worry, it’s just some niggers broke down.”

Problems faced by traveling teams were not restricted to traffic accidents or racism on the road. Name any major league ballpark of the era and chances are, Negro League games were played there. The same can be said for most minor league parks as well. At times, however, the diamonds on which Negro League teams played while on the road left much to be desired. It was not uncommon for local fields to have rocks in the infield or the occasional tree stump in the outfield. There were even times when there was no actual ball field at all, and a large farm field or open area was marked off and used for the game. That was just part of barnstorming, as were biased local umpires, threats on what would happen if the visitors beat a local team, and black teams being run out of town for winning.

The reason was that’s the way things were in the country at that time. Segregation was the reason for nearly every major problem associated with Negro League baseball.

One question regarding the Negro Leagues would be: Why did the players put up with hard schedules, the terrible traveling conditions, the dangers, and the racism? According to the Negro Leaguers themselves, they did it for the sheer love of the game.

SAMMY J. MILLER has co-authored four books on the Negro Leagues and is currently the editor of The Negro Leagues Courier, the newsletter of SABR’s Negro Leagues Committee.

Al Reach was a pioneering second baseman for the original Philadelphia Athletics of the 1860s, and was possibly the game’s first professional ballplayer. Later, he became a successful maker of sporting equipment and the founding president of the National League Phillies. Ben Shibe took another avenue to prominence. Never active in sports because of an injured leg, he managed the family’s leather and harness company into a sports manufacturing enterprise. Shibe was most noted for his automatic baseball-winding machine. Beginning in the 1880s, Shibe and his sporting goods partner, A. J. Reach, made balls for all the major leagues. Both men were also innovative stadium builders and founders of the new Athletics of Philadelphia.

Al Reach was born in London, England on May 28, 1840, the son of Benjamin Reach, “a trading agent.” His parents emmigrated to Brooklyn, New York when he was almost a year old. Raised with strong work and ethical values, the young Reach sold newspapers on Broadway, worked as a ship caulker and became an iron molder, working twelve hours a day in a foundry.

Following in his father’s cricket-ball playing tradition, Reach discovered he had a talent for the popular “New York” style game of baseball. On the sandlots of Brooklyn he gained notoriety as a catcher for the Jackson Juniors of Williamsburg. His move to the famous Eckford baseball club of Brooklyn in 1861 brought him to the attention of prominent east coast teams. Impressed with the integrity and business acumen of Colonel Thomas Fitzgerald, the president of the original Philadelphia Athletics, Reach in the summer of 1864 started playing ball in the Quaker City. He was one of the first ballplayers to compete for pay. Al earned $25 a week and commuted to Brooklyn between games. At the start of the 1866 season Fitzgerald set him up with a center city cigar and tobacco store above Fourth and Chestnut Streets. The site quickly became a popular gathering spot for the city’s sportsmen, and before the year was out, Reach was brokering tickets and merchandising baseball gear. After the season he married and moved to Philadelphia.

For most of the next decade, “Pops” Reach was one of the sport’s most popular and respected ballplayers. Fast and sure-handed, Reach set the standard for playing second base. He was said to be the first to play his position mid-way between the bases. He also stationed himself very deep, about twenty feet behind the infield line. Reach was known as the “Scratcher” for his ability of digging up hard-hit balls. At five-foot-six-inches and 155 pounds, Al Reach hit left-handed with skill and power. His feats and gentlemanly behavior for the renowned Athletics were lauded by the sporting press. In 1874, Reach became the playing manager of the Athletics and led them to England on baseball’s first European tour. Three years later, after the National League was formed, Reach retired to devote his attention to his expanding business ventures.

The year of the English tour, Al Reach, anticipating an increased demand for baseball and sporting equipment, established a large retail store on south Eighth Street. His commercial successes were due to his athletic reputation and his “sterling integrity … [and] Steady industry.” But with the advent of the new decade, he was ready to get into the manufacturing side of sports supplies, thus his relationship with Benjamin Franklin Shibe.

Ben Shibe was born on January 28, 1838, in the Kensington section of Philadelphia known as “Fishtown.” He had little formal education, but had a great interest in things mechanical. Eventually, Shibe adapted these skills to his father’s small harness-making business, and with his brother John, produced leather sporting goods. By 1881, his ingenious machinery and many patents made it difficult for Reach to compete with Shibe’s company. It did not take long for both men to realize it would be mutually advantageous if they merged their businesses. The result was a co-partnership. The new wholesale company was named for Reach and run by Shibe as president. They also moved to larger quarters across the street from Reach’s old store site. The hottest merchandise for the expanded Reach Company was the Shibe baseball, considered to be the best on the market. The merger was perfectly timed because Reach was about to invest in a new National League franchise that was being relocated from Worcester, Massachusetts.

The Philadelphia Phillies ball club was incorporated in November 1882 with Reach heading a group of prominent investors. A critical member of this association was John Ignatius Rogers. Born in Philadelphia on May 27, 1844, Rogers got a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in corporation and real estate law. Active in politics, Rogers served a term in the state legislature and was appointed Judge-Advocate of the state national guard, with the rank of colonel. It was these political contacts that made the would-be colonel a logical choice to help Al Reach bring a National League team back to Philadelphia.

Ownership was composed of four investors, who divided 150 shares at $100 apiece. Reach, with twenty shares, and Rogers with ten were minority partners. Nevertheless, Reach was named president, and Rogers became the club’s secretary. And though both men assumed majority ownership by the end of the decade, Rogers initially deferred to his more experienced colleague when the ball club was being established. Years later, the colonel’s role changed when the litigious, self-promoting attorney became the league’s spokesman in baseball’s burgeoning labor-management disputes.

With nothing more than a “right to franchise,” Reach renovated an old, oddly shaped ballpark at 24th and Columbia Avenue (Recreation Park), and hastily assembled a team. To commemorate the inaugural season, Reach also began publishing the Reach Official Baseball Guide. But Al Reach was accustomed to success, and after a dismal first year, he signed the sport’s leading manager, Harry Wright. The team showed immediate improvement and within a few years their little ballpark proved to be inadequate. In 1887, Reach and Rogers built a spacious state-of-the-art wooden baseball stadium at Broad and Lehigh for the unprecedented cost of $80,000.

Despite good attendance and the growth of the sporting goods market place, Al Reach was alarmed by the rising operational costs of a major-league franchise. His biggest concern was the threatening troubles over players’ salaries and the infamous reserve clause contracts. By 1889, the ballplayers’ new union, the Brotherhood, was suggesting a strike and a rival players league. The anticipated litigation and feuding alarmed the business-conscious Al Reach.

Compounding the pending costs of a baseball war was the increased pressure from the A.G. Spalding sporting goods empire. The Reach Company could not bankroll the expansion necessary to meet the new demands, particularly the subletting contracts to produce more baseballs for Spalding. Unwilling to go into debt with a baseball strike on the horizon, Reach and Shibe in December 1889 sold all of their retail outlets to the enterprising A.G. Spalding for $100,000. Reach retained the company’s name and the production side of the business. In the new corporate agreement, Reach got 600 shares of full-paid, non-assessable stock, and Shibe received half that number. The critical part of the transaction was that Reach and Shibe held on to the wholesaling business of baseballs. Under the watchful direction of Shibe and Robert Reach, Al’s brother, a large factory was set up in the Frankford section of Philadelphia. They even had a training school for their workers. When the new American League was founded in 1901, Shibe’s winding machines were outfitting balls under a variety of brand names. It was estimated that the Reach Company was producing 1,200 dozen baseballs a day.

The Spalding transaction and Reach’s sale of center-city properties helped the Phillies president survive the disruptive strike year of 1890. But the prospect of greater post-strike expenses strained his deteriorating relationship with John Rogers.

Colonel Rogers’ role as a litigator allowed him to assume a greater presence in league and franchise affairs. The colonel, however, was a long-winded meddler, whose grudges and grievances were legendary. Suspicious and manipulative by nature, Rogers wanted the kind of recognition and admiration reserved for his partner. Determined to assert himself in team business, Rogers blindsided Reach.

Both men held equal shares of the Phillies restructured stock, and agreed that neither would disturb the balance by pursuing the remaining shares. Rogers did not abide by his promise, and under the guise of helping Harry Wright’s widow, he purchased the old manager’s stock. Rogers now became the majority owner with 53% to Rogers’ 43%. From this point forward, Colonel Rogers, not Al Reach, made the major decisions affecting the running of the franchise and its facilities. Reach became a figurehead president as Rogers made himself the new secretary-treasurer with a substantial raise in salary. In addition, Rogers spent large sums of money on unnecessary refurbishing and alienated ballplayers with his mean-spirited bargaining. The source of much of this discontent derived from the financial crisis of rebuilding the Phillies fire-vanquished Ballpark.

When an August 1894 fire destroyed the Broad and Lehigh wooden stadium, the insurance covered only $20,000 of the $150,000 replacement costs. Before the reconstruction started, Reach and Rogers agreed that the new facility would be a model for new ballpark construction, the emphasis being on viewing and safety. Wood was covered by galvanized iron and soaked in asbestos paint. Obstructive posts were eliminated and relegated to the rear of the pavilions. In its place was an innovative cantilever construction of hanging steel platforms (roofs and double decks) from vertical gravity-bearing piers. Reach also installed a new water main pipe system that could “deluge every portion” of the grandstands. The structure was a forerunner of the steel and concrete stadiums of the next century.

But the hastily built ballpark had many serious layout faults that required constant attention. These renovations, together with Rogers’s obsession of making the stadium a multi-purpose moneymaking facility, undid the relationship with his partner. By the end of the 1899 season, Reach allegedly offered Colonel Rogers around $150,000 for his shares.

The Reach-Rogers schism fully erupted when the new American League threatened the old league’s status quo. This strain also exposed the instability of the Rogers-run Phillies, and brought Al Reach’s sporting goods partner, Ben Shibe, directly into the fray. The underlying cause was Ban Johnson’s desire to move his Western League teams into the cities abandoned by the National League. These ventures soon expanded to existing old league cities like Philadelphia. The new league’s point man in the Quaker City was Connie Mack, a manager in Johnson’s old organization. While looking for suitable stadium sites, Mack made inquiries about possible backers. After many closeted meetings, Mack and his investors announced that Ben Shibe would be the principal owner and president of the new Athletics ball club.

Shibe had always been interested in Philadelphia baseball. In the late 1870s he was the main stockholder in a prominent semi-pro Shibe Ball Club. He later became a minority partner in the American Association Athletics, a position he held until the franchise collapsed in the wake of the players’ strike. At the end of the decade, Shibe resurrected the Athletics name for an Eastern League team. But his jump to the American League was a puzzling one, given his close ties with Phillies president A. J. Reach.

Shibe and Reach were a lot more than old business associates. Ben Shibe’s only daughter, Mary, in 1894 married Al Reach’s only son, George. But the marriage was a product, not a factor in the families being close. It was said that the partners were like brothers and did nothing without consulting the other. They even invested money together and spent most of their social hours in each other’s company. The conclusion was that Ben Shibe would not make a decision to invest in a competing league without Al Reach’s input.

To understand their decision, one must take into consideration the role of Colonel John Rogers. Reach believed Rogers had violated his trust, and rather than go through another costly league war with Rogers, he preferred to divest himself of his interest in the Phillies. Another factor was the status of the Reach-Shibe baseball. It had been the official ball of Ban Johnson’s Western League and was now adopted by his new baseball association. Reach also was put off by Rogers’ corrosive relationship with his players that drove Napoleon Lajoie and three starting pitchers in 1901 to the first-year Athletics. Therefore, Reach had both motive and incentives to abandon John Rogers and support Ben Shibe.

The Shibe-run Athletics played their games at 29th and Columbia Avenue. They finished fourth while the Phillies came in second with a dissent-ridden ball club. In 1902, Ed Delahanty and eight of his Phillies teammates joined other American League clubs. The Phillies’ decline, coupled with failing attendance, contrasted with the success of Shibe’s Athletics. In March 1903, John Rogers, disgusted with the disintegration of his franchise, joined Reach and sold the team for $170,000 to a syndicate led by socialite, James Potter.

In contrast, Shibe’s Athletics were very successful and in 1909 they opened the season in a new ball park, the first steel and concrete stadium, five blocks west of Reach’s cantilever ball field, soon to be known as the Baker Bowl. The new ball yard, Shibe Park, retained its name until 1953 when it was renamed Connie Mack Stadium, for the man who guided the Athletics for over fifty years.

Soon after Shibe Park was erected, “Uncle Ben,” with the same humility that marked his career, turned the daily management of the franchise over to Connie Mack and Shibe’s two sons, Tom and John. Ben Shibe died on January 14, 1922. “Pop” Reach, the grand old man of baseball retired to Atlantic City, New Jersey, leaving the Reach Company in the hands of his son George, Ben Shibe’s son-in-law. Al Reach died in 1928 on the same day as his long-time partner. Both men and their families were even interred within a few hundred yards of each other at West Laurel Hill Cemetery, just outside of Philadelphia.

Connie Mack carried on the baseball legacy begun by these two founding Philadelphia sportsmen. The city and major league baseball would forever bear the influence of these two patriarchs. Although neither man graces baseball’s Hall of Fame, their mark on the national pastime is unmistakable every time a baseball is put into play.

JERROLD CASWAY is a professor of History and the Social Sciences Division Chair at Howard Community College in Columbia Maryland. His book on Ed Delahanty will be published this spring.

Nevertheless, on October 29, 1940, capsules were drawn from a fishbowl to determine draft order. Those men whose numbers were picked first were about to be asked for twelve months’ service, though men over 28 could be released after 180 days of service. Hank Greenberg, 29-year-old Detroit outfielder, for instance, had one of the low—that is, sure to be called—numbers.

Now that men were called to duty in large numbers, President Roosevelt asked six organizations to band together to handle the recreation needs for the armed forces. The six—the YMCA, YWCA, National Catholic Community Service, National Jewish Welfare Board, Traveler’s Aid, and the Salvation Army—were confederated as the United Services Organization (USO) on February 4, 1941, in New York. Soon after incorporation, according to the USO, “entertainment industry professionals helped the USO to begin ‘Camp Shows’ with the entertainers waiving pay and working conditions to bring live entertainment to the troops at bases within the United States.”

This is one of the stories of one of six groups of men, all baseball men, who were willing to put themselves in the kind of danger that soldiers had to endure. These baseballers sailed on the Bering Sea, rode half-tracks across the Sahara, sat on coral in the jungles of New Guinea; they traveled into the Battle of the Bulge, climbed the mountains of Burma, and bounced through the ruts of the frozen mud of Italy.

Most of them were not scheduled to serve in the Army for many different reasons, age, for most of them, being the primary reason. They did their USO work quietly, they did it bravely, they did it unselfishly. They did not have to do it, but they did anyway.

Pirates manager Frankie Frisch, after his return from the first USO tour, a 1943 trip to the Aleutians, was called to the office of the commissioner, and the Pirates manager suggested more trips by baseball men. Frisch believed the trips were very effective in raising the morale of servicemen. Landis agreed.

So in early summer of 1944, Commissioner Landis’s office in Chicago again asked for volunteers from baseball to travel overseas after the World Series, this time under the aegis of the USO.

*****

The last USO group to leave, the Medwick group bound for Italy, finally got their alert when a sergeant came up the stairs and called the four names very early on Thanksgiving Day in 1944. The group dressed in their uniforms and excitedly finished packing their bags.

Driven to headquarters, their bags were weighed and Joe Medwick, Leo Durocher, Nick Etten and Tom Meany were shown to the bus that took the unit the seven miles to LaGuardia Airport. Once they passed through customs, they moved quickly to a final briefing room, for the lectures of water landings, the use of Mae West inflatable life vests and the use of a raft and a signal generator. A giant plane awaited them on the LaGuardia runway.

The plane often used for these sorts of trips was a Skymaster. This DC-4 passenger plane in wartime became a Douglas C-54/ R5D Skymaster just as the DC-3 became a C-47 Skytrain. The plane held space for around thirty passengers and a crew of six. With cruising speed of 239 mph at a ceiling of 20,000 feet, the big plane had a range of 3,900 miles.

Getting into the plane, Medwick’s troupe was sure to have aboard with them two hundred dozen autographed baseballs and the twenty-two minute movie of the 1944 World Series. The USO unit called “Here’s the Pitch” was airborne. Stockton’s column later said that “Flying the ocean in years to come may be a commonplace week end lark. It was a thrill to us.”

Once out over the ocean, they ate their Thanksgiving meal—baloney sandwiches—in the noisy chilly compartment of the plane. They probably landed once in Bermuda to refuel. For the most part, the plane ride was spent napping, going to the cockpit for a smoke, signing the “short snorters,” the taped-together collection of currency from countries visited, sort of autograph pads that air crews favored so much. Out over the Atlantic, the men must have realized that their uniforms that looked so good in Manhattan might not be all that comfortable, or that serviceable, or that warm. They were clearly worried, as Tom Meany wrote, “how able-bodied men such as themselves would be welcomed—or vice versa—by a bunch of guys fighting for their lives,” particularly since both Etten and Medwick were under thirty-five.

Joe told no one, though Durocher knew, about his punctured eardrum, a puncture that probably happened when he was beaned in June 1940. It was that punctured eardrum that led to his 4-F classification, lower than the 2-B he had been classified for a while, a slot for men over thirty and with two children.

Roy Stockton remembered the particular frustration of the newspapermen: “We were told we couldn’t keep diaries or any record showing places we had visited, army units or individuals. We couldn’t carry cameras. We couldn’t carry written messages.” (This prohibition, combined with sensitivity to military secrets, led to the kind of disjointed narratives that appeared in newspapers when the men returned.)

But these men were doing what they considered to be their patriotic duty and accepted the hardships as they know all the service men and women must accept their hardships.

As the plane droned through the November skies, Medwick’s thoughts might have drifted back to his family’s war map, pinned up in the home. It was a practice among many Americans to keep track of the war on newspaper maps.

In this way Medwick would know of the invasion at Salerno, with 9,000 Allied casualties, in September of 1943, and know about the fall of Naples to the Allies a month later. He would know about the successive defensive lines the Germans had set up as they retreated north: the Winter Line, The Gustav Line. He would be horrified to read about the five month stalemate developed on the beaches at Anzio in murderous trench warfare. Equally terrible was the murderous fire the British and Americans and their Allies took from the Germans who seemed to be dug in on every mountaintop and hill surrounding the many Italian valleys. By the end of 1943, the American Fifth Army in Italy had 40,000 casualties and 50,000 sick.

Yet Rome fell on June 4, 1944 and from that point on it was the landings in France that received most of the attention and most of the manpower, including most of the veteran troops in Italy.

As the veteran units were withdrawn, the British Lady Astor, stupidly even for her, called the British Eighth Army, carrying much of the burden in the Italian campaign, “D-Day Dodgers.” It was unlikely the American Fifth Army in Italy liked her label either. The fighting had been muddy and murderous, with Nazis often having the high ground. Whatever successes were gained in Italy were due largely to the individual soldier’s valor, resilience, and determination.

This determination and valor prevented the Nazis from sending units to France, and even though fighting on the Gothic line north of Florence has caused there to be 29,000 Allied causalities between September 10 and October 26 of 1944, still that terrible sacrifice went undervalued it seemed. Losses were so heavy that Churchill requested that the United States send at least two additional divisions to the Italian front, but he was turned down. The U.S. Army preferred to send new U.S. combat units to France rather than to Italy for “an increasingly bloody and stalemated campaign in a secondary theater.”

A secondary theater. Like much of Medwick’s career. Though Joe, in Ted Williams’ phrase, “owned the National League for five years,” yet he was not in the American League, the clouting league, the league of the World Series winners. Unlike his rival Joe DiMaggio, Medwick had played on but two pennant winners since 1932. Now he was a soldier in greasepaint.

Nick Etten, the American League leader in both homers and walks in 1944, was the thirty-one year old first baseman for the Yankees. Leo Durocher was the smooth-fielding shortstop for the Gas House Gang Cardinals and current Dodger manager.

At the end of a twenty-four hour flight, the group landed, probably in Naples.

Once greeted by their special services officer and off the runway, the mud on their dress shoes made Joe and the rest find out quickly about field shoes and canvas leggings, items they quickly purchased at a Post Exchange. After that shopping, their Special Services officer introduced them to their driver who showed them to their vehicle, a converted weapons carrier towing a trailer, to carry their supplied. They were reminded, yet again, about wearing their steel helmets.

Soon they learned how exhausting this trip would be and they learned that they would pretty much live in the clothes that they had on. Too, they began to learn the new slang, chiefly the phrase “sweating it out.” Italy, since D-Day called the Forgotten Front, still means “Jerry was always looking down your throat” whether it’s at Monte Cassino or Luxembourg. Another phrase of the time to describe talking to GIs was to call the chats Walkie-Talkie Fanning Bees. The servicemen had been alerted only that some players might come to Europe but as was usual the various papers— Yank, Army Talks as well as local unit papers and the daily Stars and Stripes—kept silent about exactly where the shows would be. (Twice in December in the Naples edition of Stars and Stripes there were interviews with Durocher. But the questions were very general, very vague.)

For the USO troupe traveling first around the Amalfi Coast area, the show really started as soon as the weapons carrier pulled into the unit area. Soldiers swarmed around the truck, tossing questions at each of the group. Manager Durocher was the most well-known, having been on radio shows and having some dialogue in the movie Whistling in Brooklyn.

For Medwick’s group, the rehearsals proved that the shows ought to work like this: Tom Meany served as the Master of Ceremonies, first introducing the ballplayers. Next, the World Series film of 22 minutes was shown and then each player would talk a bit and answer questions. Sometimes the audiences would be unusual for the movie. British soldiers, for example, hearing that an American movie was about to be shown, would arrive, and then quickly groan and leave, finding out the movie was not cowboys and Indians. A ten-minute quiz program served as the show’s finale. Ten or twelve GIs would be asked up to the front of the building (often a tent or barn) and Meany would ask true or false questions until there would be three winners left, all of whom would be given autographed baseballs.

That would have been the end of the show for Medwick and the others except afterwards, many soldiers, hungry for baseball news, hungry for life back home, would come up to the stage and ask for autographs and ask about their favorite players and how their favorite teams might do in 1945. They might ask about a favorite bar in Brooklyn, too. In this way, the group might do four shows a day, traveling some distances over rough terrain between shows, terrain strewn with destroyed German armor.

The shows, Tom Meany wrote later in his New York City newspaper PM, were “most unusual. Any time four guys with a twenty-five minute film can hold a soldier audience for two hours just by talking. …it was a defiance of all theatrical theories and the law of gravity. Neither Etten, Medwick nor I hold any illusion about our talent…but the stories of Medwick and Etten always were well-received and in the bull sessions afterward they were quite as well received as Leo” who often spoke for forty five minutes of the one hundred twenty.

Traveling north from Naples, they performed, for one, in the Aldorado Playhouse in Caserta, and the troupe acted in a radio show, with Medwick taking the role of an umpire. By Christmas they “entertained on a hill north of Rome and fell to, with all the others, on a real turkey dinner with all the trimmings.” The troupe also filled the Red Cross theater in Rome, the Barbarini, which no other entertaining group had been able to do.

As the troupe traveled to perform at another unit, the group certainly saw enough of blown-out buildings, wrecked railroad yards, bomb craters. They learned there were three signs you needed to pay close attention to: “Road and ditches cleared of mines.” Then “Road to ditches cleared of mines.” Lastly, “This road not swept for mines.” They learned to remember and to give passwords and they did not hesitate to show their dog tags to sentries. They learned to eat and like powdered eggs and grapefruit juice, a G.I. staple, as well as lots of Spam and canned chocolate pudding. The troupe members all learned to live by candlelight, and learned, too, not to break down at the sight of terribly wounded soldiers in hospitals but to try to cheer them up. As the draft regulations were changing as the war was winding down, Medwick learned to talk to GIs interested in the proposed work or fight policy.

The days of their shows frequently lasted from 5 AM to 11 PM. Performing more than those four shows a day and often to small groups, the majority of their shows were so close to the front lines that their audiences were limited to small groups, the officers not wanting to risk larger units within range of enemy artillery.

Once they set up for a show but the scheduled audience was mud bound and there was no show, not with a crowd of zero. At the end of the day’s work, “Here’s The Pitch” was billeted with some unit and was expected to talk to all hours there as well. They were glad to do so, seeing how happy all the GIs were to see them there. Before television, few fans had ever seen the players this close and Joe’s group had players and managers from the Giants, the Phillies, the Yankees, the Pirates and the Dodgers.

Tom Meany told the story of being asked by one soldier, “‘How’s Smitty,'” referring to a fanatical Brooklyn fan, an undertaker who closed down his shop so the could travel on the road trips. Joe has solved the question he and Durocher knew would be asked. Tom Meany wrote about it this way: “One of the questions invariably asked of Joe Medwick was why he was traded from Brooklyn to the Giants. …it was really an attempt to embarrass Leo Durocher. Joe finally came up with an answer that pleased everybody, ‘Rickey came and I went.'”

The baseball entertainers worried about how they as healthy men not in service might be treated was dispelled early in their tour. During a show at the Fifth Army Rest Center, Durocher spotted forty-one year old former Cubs outfielder Mule Haas, now a $60 a month corporal. Haas told Meany that “morale was an overworked word. Every civilian enterprise from manufacturers to night clubs professes to be maintained for the purpose of the serviceman’s morale [but] I know that the kids tonight got a kick out of the show. They were talking about it for days in advance. …’ I asked Haas how he felt about ball players who were not in the Army. ‘Being in the Army or being in baseball was a matter of luck. There was nothing more democratic than the draft. When your number was called you go.'”

While the Third Army of Patton rapidly advanced through southern Europe, the Fifth Army in Italy was still slowly slugging it out and taking a pounding. But, as Meany pointed out, war doesn’t have to be spectacular to be dangerous. So “Here’s the Pitch” was greatly appreciated simply because the soldiers in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations knew what they were doing wasn’t glamorous.

One of those soldiers, a soon-to-be-named Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Red Shea, so selected because of his capture of three German machine gun emplacements in one battle, was riding in the weapons carrier with the troupe. The hero asked Meany “if I could spare one of the autographed baseballs signed by Durocher, Etten and Medwick. When I gave him the ball, Red thanked me profusely and said, ‘This was the biggest thrill I ever had—getting a baseball and riding in the same vehicle with Durocher, Etten and Medwick.’ There was nothing for us to do but look out the window and pretend we hadn’t heard.” Meany claimed that “Shea’s reactions were like those of practically all the soldiers. …The war went out the window when they had a chance to talk about home life. It wasn’t just baseball, although that was the principal medium in our case. It was anything about home.”

One thing about home and baseball was the bright colors. Here the colors were either white or brown. Brown was the mud everyone in Italy dealt with—mud on the lines before the mess tents and barracks; mud in waves as you traveled or mud frozen into hard ruts and frozen into waves; mud caught up in the wheels of trucks and the treads of tanks; mud to have to yank each foot out of. Brown too was the color of everyone’s clothing. Medwick, like the others in “Here’s the Pitch,” wore a brown top thigh coat over a brown vest over a brown shirt and light brown tie, the whole uniform being splattered and caked over with brown mud. White in some of the hospitals; white too of the snow that winter in Italy as the troupe moved up the Italian peninsula.

In the cold there, Durocher talked to Yank Magazine about Beans Reardon, the umpire on tour in the Pacific. “’My only regret,’ he told GIs, ‘was that I can’t see how Beans Reardon, the umpire, was taking it on his trip. …No self-respecting foxhole would take him.’”

At one performance the troupe was told there would be no film because the Germans had recently captured the Special Services projector and the generator. Once they did a show for 9,500 at a Naples race track. Along the way they met Herman Besse, Phils pitcher, among the wounded in Italy and Shirley Cobb, daughter of Ty Cobb, now a nurse in Italy. They kept moving north toward the Gothic Line, a line at which the Allied offensive had stalled due to the rain and even more mud. That German defensive line proved to be a killer.

By New Year’s Day 1945, after being in Italy a month, the troupe had moved south again and from Naples, Medwick’s unit flew north to Peretola airfield in Florence and were billeted on the Arno River in the Hotel Excelsior, liberated four months earlier. “The Excelsior has been taken over by the British but it was also used by war correspondents, visiting USO Camp Shows units and ENSA troupes…the British equivalent of USO. The resulting welter of uniforms in the lobby gives it the appearance of a cafeteria on an MGM lot during the filming of a war picture—Scotsmen in plaids and kilts, British officers with swagger sticks and monocles, turbaned and bearded Sikhs from India and Americans.” The claim was that there were twenty-six nations fighting in Italy.

Nick Etten, making history he said, lobbed a baseball from the fourth balcony to a military policeman below. Medwick ate in the opulent dining room, part of the twenty-five lira a day charge. While a string ensemble played, cups of consommé were served onto fine linen, the hot broth sipped with fine silver. The main course was served on a covered dish, and after the cover was removed with flourishes by one of the many waiters, what Medwick saw on his plate was Spam.

Up in his room, Joe listened to Armed Forces Radio as well as Berlin Sally. In Florence, the unit played the Apollo and watched the Spaghetti Bowl, a football game in the Stadio Communale between teams from the 5th Army and the 12th Air Force, before 25,000 soldiers and airmen, as well as WAC cheerleaders and seven generals.

Meany reported that “We were up and down [ Route 65] every day…and in the general direction of Bologna but not quite to Bologna because there was a guy named Von Kesserling and some of his associates between us and Bologna,” as they visited soldiers in Empoli and Sesto. It was in Sesto that someone not only slept but also snored through Medwick’s talk. “Backstage, Joe complained about the visitor’s manners” till he was told that the snorer was “an Eyetie who was supposed to be working for Capt. Tracy.” Many of the troupe’s performances were, in fact, north of Florence, in places very close to the Gothic Line. They were now doing many of the shows in tents, in the cold rains of January. Even when “Here’s The Pitch” played to combat units as in Fano to the east or in Via Reggio to the west, everyone in the audience carried his rifle, since Nazi soldiers from the Russian Front were reinforcing the German side of the Gothic line. In Gagliano and Monghidora and Loiano, all north of the Hotel Excelsior, everyone was well-armed. Medwick’s USO unit went to Porretta, inside the province of Bologna, where they were told that they were “within 700 yards of the front.”

As in many other places, a question heard there was repeated: “Was it true about the cigarette shortage at home?” When the answer was yes, “the boys seemed pleased.”

At another site, too close to combat to show the movie, the troupe found

itself performing in a tent’s semi-darkness. They could see, however, that the entire audience wore their steel helmets and carried their weapons. “All we had,” said Meany, “were those funny looking USO caps.” As Durocher was telling yet another umpire Magerkurth story, he was about to imitate the umpire’s boisterous “Yer out!” but as he did, he heard “CRR-UMP” as a giant artillery shell landed, then shook the canvas tent and showered it with dirt. Durocher looked at the officer in charge, whose holster was unbuckled.

“’Go right ahead,’ said the officer. ‘You don’t have to worry about a thing until you see the boys running out on you. Then you better follow ’em.’”

“’Follow ’em hell,’ said Leo. ‘I’ll be right behind the first guy that goes out the door.’”

That show ended in near darkness with the players signing autographs, many times on baseballs, and the darkness was so profound that even faces weren’t distinct. On their way back to their sleeping quarters, Nick Etten said, “You know Leo, I’m not sure but I think the last guy I handed out a ball to was Field Marshal Kesserling.”

One of the last places they did a show was Pistoia, at an evacuation hospital twenty-two miles northwest of Florence. There the troupe could see the armed partisans, including the gun-laden women, bandoleers hung around their necks.

After forty-two days in the Mediterranean, after playing to 70,000 men, after 20,000 miles, Joe and the rest of the troupe arrived back in the United States on January 15.

When they were in Rome, Medwick and Durocher were taken in an audience to visit the Pope. The Pope blessed a rosary for Leo, which he would bring to his mother. The Pope, the story goes, asked about Joe’s pre-war occupation. Joe answered, “Your Holiness, I’m Joseph Medwick. I, too, used to be a Cardinal.”

Author’s note

This revised and updated version of “Ducky and the Lip” appeared in Baseball Men Visit WWII Combat Areas: Walkie-Talkie Fanning Bees, 1943-1945, self-published by Thomas Barthel in 2019.

This new policy has stirred considerable debate among baseball commentators, fans, and players. In most other professional sports, the team with the better regular season record is awarded home-field advantage in the post-season. Since the advent of divisional play in 1969, baseball too has followed this practice during the American and National League playoffs. However, home field advantage in the World Series has continued to alternate each year between the National League representative and the American League representative.

Some critics of the new policy feel that it is inappropriate to give one of the World Series teams an advantage based on the outcome of what is essentially an exhibition game. But before considering the appropriateness of deciding the home field advantage based on the results of the All-Star Game, a prior question must be addressed: Is there really a home field advantage in the World Series? Does the team that plays games one and two and, if necessary, games six and seven on its home field really have an advantage over its opponent?

The answer to this question is not obvious. After all, the team that opens the Series at home only plays more games on its home field if the Series goes the full seven games. In a four- or six-game series, the two teams play an equal number of games on their home field. In a five-game series, the team that begins play on the road actually ends up playing more home games than the team that begins play at home.

A total of 76 World Series have been played under the current 2-3-2 home-away-home format that was adopted in 1924. (Because of travel restrictions during World War II, the 2-3-2 format was not used for the 1943 or 1945 Series and no World Series was played in 1994.) Of the 445 games played in these Series, the home team has won 254, or 57%. However, of these 76 Series, 14 went only four games, 14 went five games, and 17 went six games. Only 31 Series went the full seven games. As a result, teams playing games one and two at home have played only 52% of all games on their home field.

Despite playing only slightly more than half of all games on their home field, however, teams playing the first two games at home have won 44 of the 76 World Series played under the 2-3-2 format, or 58%. So there does seem to be a significant advantage to starting the World Series at home. But why is this?

Among both critics and supporters of Selig’s decision, it has generally been assumed that the home field advantage in the World Series is based mainly on the fact that if the Series goes the full seven games, the team starting the series on its home field also gets to play game seven on its home field. Surprisingly, however, playing game seven at home is not a significant advantage in the World Series. Of the 31 Series that have gone the full seven games, the home team has won only 16 while losing 15 (52%). We have to look elsewhere in order to explain why teams that begin the World Series at home have won the Series 58% of the time.

It appears that the home field advantage in the World Series is due almost entirely to the momentum gained by playing the first two games of the Series at home. Teams beginning the World Series at home have won game one 47 of 76 times (62%) and game two 44 of 76 times (58%). Even after losing game one, the home team has come back to win 17 of 29 times (59%) in game two.

Altogether, the home team has swept the first two games 27 times, split the first two games 37 times, and been swept at home only 12 times. Not surprisingly, when the home team won the first two games, they went on to win the Series 20 out of 27 times (76%). Also not surprisingly, when the home team lost the first two games, they went on to lose the Series 9 out of 12 times (75%).

Even when the home team split the first two games, they went on to win the World Series 21 out of 37 times (57%). However, when a split occurred, it made a difference which game the home team won. Home teams that won game one but lost game two went on to win only 9 out of 20 Series (45%). In contrast, home teams that lost game one but won game two went on to win 12 out of 17 Series (71%). In fact, these teams were almost as successful as those that swept the first two games at home.

The conclusion that emerges from this analysis is that in the World Series, momentum matters. Winning the first two games at home, or even losing game one but winning game two, usually provides the home team with enough momentum to carry it to victory in the Series. So there is a significant advantage to beginning the World Series on your home field. Whether the All-Star game is an appropriate means of determining which team enjoys that advantage is another question.

ALAN I. ABRAMOWITZ is the Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University He received his BA from the University of Rochester in 1969 and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1976.

In 1941, Williams knocked out 185 hits in 456 at-bats, including 33 doubles, 3 triples, and a league-leading 37 homers. He also walked 147 times, giving him an incredible .553 on-base percentage. Up until Barry Bonds’ 2002 campaign, this was the highest on-base percentage ever recorded in one season. Williams also led baseball in slugging percentage with a .735 mark and struck out only 27 times, a career low.

Ted led the AL with 135 runs scored and finished second to Joe DiMaggio in RBI with 120. DiMaggio hit .357 with 125 RBI and set an all-time record by hitting in 56 consecutive games. During the summer of 1941, America’s last summer before its entrance into the Second World War, Williams and DiMaggio took turns grabbing the headlines in the sports pages of newspapers across the nation. Their names have been forever linked together in baseball lore since 1941, and countless comparisons have been made between the two giants of the sport.

Under today’s rules and the rules common to most of baseball history, Williams would actually have been credited with a .412 batting average in 1941. At that time a fly ball that drove in a runner from third base counted as a time at bat and not as a sacrifice fly. Williams was charged with a time at bat for six such fly balls in 1941 that would have been scored sacrifice flies today.

It is not surprising that Ted was baseball’s last .400 hitter. His career batting average of .344 is sixth all-time and the highest since Rogers Hornsby retired in 1937 at .358. Williams also holds the highest career on-base percentage at .483. Babe Ruth is second at .474. Williams’ career .634 slugging percentage is second only to Ruth’s .690. Probably the best statistical measure of a player’s offensive value is total average. This is derived by dividing a player’s bases made (total bases + stolen bases + walks + times hit by pitches – number of times caught stealing) by his outs made (at-bats – hits + times caught stealing + times grounded into double play). Williams owns the second-highest all-time total average at 1.320. Ruth is first at 1.399.

Williams knocked out these fabulous stats despite losing more time to military service than any other player in baseball history. He missed all of the 1943, 1944, and 1945 seasons, when he served his country as a Marine fighter pilot in World War II. He then missed all but 43 games to the Korean War in 1952 and 1953 for the same reason. All totaled, he missed 727 games during his peak years due to wars. Consider the number of games he missed, plus the difficulty of hitting major league pitching at so high a level after returning from such long periods of absence, and the magnitude of Williams’ statistical greatness becomes staggering.

By the time he reached the Red Sox in 1939, Ted’s 6’4″ frame had filled out to 175 pounds, and he was hitting many balls over 400 feet. He gave the Fenway Park faithful an inkling of things to come when he batted .327 with 31 homers and led the league in RBI with 145, still a rookie record. At age 20, he also began to be known for his boyish cockiness. In one game in Detroit he blasted a homer off Bob Harris that landed on top of the right-field pavilion at Briggs Stadium. As he crossed home plate, he told Tiger catcher Birdie Tebbetts, “I hope that guy is still pitching the next time I come up. I’ll knock it clear over the roof.” This is exactly what Ted did.

Sometimes he practiced his swing while standing in the outfield. He did not fare well playing right field, the sun field, at Fenway Park. The next season he would be shifted to left field, where he would eventually become a good if somewhat underrated fly chaser. There were times that he sulked after tapping an easy ground ball and did not run hard to first base. If he had a bad day at the plate, it might noticeably affect his fielding adversely. The Boston writers, led by Dave Egan of the Boston Daily Record, often magnified his mistakes. In 1939, Ted’s father and mother separated, and he decided not to go home during that winter. He sent money to his mother, but home was not a happy place for him.

In 1940, Ted’s relationship with the writers worsened. The first time Williams did something to displease sports reporter Harold Kaese, he wrote, “Well, what do you expect from a guy who won’t even go see his mother in the off season.” It was comments like this that turned Williams against the writers. He explained in his autobiography, “Before this, I was willing to believe a writer was my friend until he proved otherwise. Now my guard’s up all the time, always watching for critical stuff. If I saw something, I’d read it twenty times, and I’d burn without knowing how to fight it. How could I fight it?”

In 1940, Ted’s batting average improved to .344, but his power numbers fell off to 23 homers and 113 RBI. Only seven of his homers came at Fenway. Some of Fenway’s fans started to boo him. After being booed one day after striking out and following it up with an error in left field, Williams vowed never to tip his cap again. He never did tip it during his playing days, even after hitting a home run in his final at-bat in Fenway in 1960.

The 1941 season, however, was probably Ted’s most enjoyable. Even his most zealous critics could find little fault with him that magical summer. It was the hitting perfectionist’s perfect season. The so-called kid with the swelled head proved to the baseball world just how remarkable a talent he was. He showed that he was the equal of anyone playing the game and won many fans over. From then until the end of his career all the potshots that the press took at him could not deny his true greatness. It may be that no one will ever hit .400 again.

The 1941 season did not start out promising for Williams, however. In the second exhibition game he caught his spikes sliding into second base and chipped a bone in his right ankle. He came out of the exhibition season still limping and relegated to pinch-hitting duties only. On April 15, a sparse opening day crowd of 15,000 at Fenway Park saw the Red Sox rally for three runs in the ninth inning to top Washington, 7-6. Ted delivered a key pinch-hit single in the rally.

Strangely enough, Ted’s teammate Bobby Doerr believed that Williams’ ankle injury might have actually helped Ted hit .406. Doerr explained his theory; “I remember him going into the trainer’s room every day to get his ankle taped up. In batting practice you could see him kind of favoring it. I kind of wondered then, and I kind of got to thinking as the season went on, that it was sensitive enough to make him stay back for as long as possible to keep the pressure off his front foot.”

Williams agreed that he was able to hold back a little longer in 1941. Ted said, however, “But I never thought it was because of my ankle. I never thought that. From 1941 on, I was getting stronger and stronger and stronger. I was late to mature, and I think I was the strongest between the ages of 22 and 32. As a result, I was able to hold back and hold back, getting quicker and stronger than at any time.”

Boston won five of its first six games without Ted in the lineup. He tried to play left field at Griffith Stadium during a 12-5 loss to Washington on April 22. He whacked a single and a double in four at-bats but wound up aggravating the injury further. In the next four games he appeared only once, pinch-hitting unsuccessfully during a 6-3 loss in New York. Ted never was a good cold weather hitter. Fenway almost always had chilling adverse winds during the first couple of weeks of the season. Not being in the lineup every day then probably helped Ted’s batting average in 1941.

Ted was back in left field on April 29 in Detroit. He bashed a long double and a 440-foot home run off Johnny Gorsica, but Gorsica outpitched Lefty Grove to win, 5-3. Ted always considered Detroit as his best park to hit in with its short right field porch. In 585 career at-bats there he homered. 55 times and knocked in 162 runs.

On May 7 in Chicago, Ted walloped a 500-foot two-run homer into the upper right-field stands at Comiskey Park off Johnny Rigney in the third inning. Rigney liked to challenge hitters with high, hard fastballs, and the book on Ted was that he murdered the high fastball. Ted came to bat against Rigney again in the eleventh inning with the score tied at 3-3. Rigney tried to surprise Williams with a slow curve. Ted drove it over the roof of the second tier in the deepest part of right center and sent it bouncing into a parking lot estimated at some 600 feet from home plate. Only Ruth and Gehrig had hit balls over that roof before.

The Yankees arrived in Boston for the first time of the season on May 11, and the Red Sox routed them, 13-5, before an overflow crowd of 34,500. Ted singled twice and doubled in six at-bats while Joe DiMaggio singled three times in five at-bats. Joe was off to a slow start barely hitting .300, when he began his historic 56-game hitting streak on May 15. Ted singled once in three at-bats that day during a 6-4 loss to the first-place Indians. That single, however, started him on a 23-game hitting streak of his own.

Over the course of those 23 games, Ted would hit .487 (43 for 88) while DiMaggio hit .368 (32 for 87). On May 21, Ted went 4-for-5 with a double off the Browns’ Bob Harris as the Red Sox won, 8-6. Williams was always a terror against the Browns. In 1941, he hit .426 with nine homers and 26 RBI in 61 at-bats against them. From 1939 to 1953 he feasted on Brownie pitching, batting .393 with 60 homers and 223 RBI in 754 at-bats.

The Red Sox played three games at Yankee Stadium from May 23 to May 25. The first game was called because of darkness after nine innings with the score tied, 9-9. The Yanks won the second game, 7-6, as DiMaggio’s two-run single in the seventh inning proved to be the decider. Boston won the final game, 10-3, as Williams singled three times and doubled. His average was now at .404.

During a four-game series against the N..s from May 27 to May 29, Ted ripped eight hits in 15 at-bats, including a double and two homers, to bring his average up to .421. On Memorial Day in Boston, the Yanks and Red Sox divided a doubleheader. New York won the opener, 4-3, and Boston took the second game with a 13-0 rout. Ted was 3-for-5 on the day with a double and scored four times. DiMaggio had two singles in five at-bats but experienced the worst day of his career on defense, making four errors. Ted ended May at .429. He had hit .436 for the month.

The Sporting News opined: “Unless all people who know anything are 100 percent wrong, Williams is due to firmly establish himself this year as one of the truly great left-handed batsmen. There isn’t anything particularly new about this estimate of his ability, either. In 1939, his first complete season in the major leagues, Williams did things with a bat and ball that made all wonder where his limits were. He hit homers in many parks that went so far as to be almost unbelievable. He didn’t hit them off young or unskilled pitchers altogether either.”

As June opened, an announcement was made that all servicemen would be admitted free of charge for the remainder of the season at all major league parks. Ted began June in Detroit with four hits in nine at-bats including his eighth homer as the Red Sox swept a doubleheader, 7-6 and 6-5. Lou Gehrig died on June 2, and flags were at half-staff in all major league parks for the day of his funeral on June 4. Cleveland was leading the league on June 2 at 30-19. Another baseball star who would distinguish himself in military service during World War II, Bob Feller, had won 11 of the Indians’ games, including three shutouts. Chicago was 1 ½ games out. The Yanks were three games back and Boston was four out with a 22- 19 record.

The Red Sox teed off on Cleveland pitching on June 5, socking 16 hits in a 14-1 win. Williams singled twice, homered, drove in three runs, and scored four times. The next day his average reached its high-water mark for the season at .438 as he doubled and clouted a two-run homer off Rigney in a 6-3 win in Chicago.

Around this time Carl Felker characterized Williams in The Sporting News. Felker wrote, “Ted Williams rolled up a newspaper, gritted his teeth, faced the mirror in a hotel room in St. Louis and took a cut at an imaginary ball. ‘Hitting is the biggest thing in my life,’ he exclaimed. ‘I love it. And the thing I like next best is to hunt ducks in Minnesota.’ But right now, duck hunting doesn’t occupy any part of Ted’s thoughts. He is concentrating on the job of trying to top the .400 mark in hitting for the 1941 season. And he believes he has a good chance to reach his goal perhaps even to smash the all-time figure at .438 set way back in 1894 by Hugh Duffy, now a coach with the Red Sox. ‘If you don’t have confidence in yourself, who will?’ asks the Boston kid.”

Felker continued: “Every chance he gets, Williams practices hitting. ‘I’ve always done that,’ he declared. ‘It’s my pet theory—practice your swing all the time, from morning to night. Strengthen those muscles you’re going to use. I go out to the ball park in the morning for batting drill. Even when I’m in the outfield, I take my imaginary cuts at the ball. I’m always taking swings in my room. It all helps.”‘

Concerning Ted’s ability to hit left handers well, Felker added, “Williams doesn’t believe southpaws are any tougher for him to hit than right-handers. ‘At Minneapolis, where I played in 1938, we had a short right field fence (actually only 278 feet) and the other clubs would save their left-handers to send against us there,’ Ted related. ‘As a result I was fortunate in getting to look at a lot of southpaw pitching.”‘

Williams’ 23-game hitting streak was stopped in the first game of a doubleheader in Chicago on June 8 by Ted Lyons. Lyons walked him three times, including once with the bases loaded. The Red Sox won, 5-3, behind Grove. On June 12 in St. Louis, Ted’s two-run homer off knuckleballer Johnny Niggeling was the difference in a 3-2 win. Back in Boston on June 15, Ted whacked four hits in six at-bats including another double and homer as the Yawkeyites swept the White Sox, 8-6 and 6-4, before 34,000-plus.

On Bunker Hill Day in Boston, the Red Sox took the opener of a doubleheader from Detroit, 14-6, but dropped the second game, 8-5, before 23,000. Ted drilled a two-run homer and doubled in five at-bats. In New York, the Yanks completed a three-game sweep of Cleveland before a combined crowd of 100,675 for the series as “Joltin’ Joe” ran his streak to 29 games.

On June 23, Cleveland still led the league at 40-25 when they entered Boston for a three-game set. The Yanks were two games back, and Boston was four games off the pace. The Red Sox. won the opener routing Mel Harder and his successors with 18 hits, 13-2. The next day Williams cracked a two-run homer in the fourth inning to tie the score at 2-2, and Boston went on to win, 7-2. The loss knocked the Indians out of first place as New York took over the top by besting St. Louis, 7-5. “Joltin’ Joe” homered to bring his streak to 37 games. In the final game Cleveland rebounded to win, 11-8. Feller, showing signs of overwork, was hit hard but still recorded his 16th win Williams went 5-for-10 in the series, scoring six runs and knocking in three. He was now at .412 with 53 RBI and a league-leading 63 runs scored. DiMaggio was at .349 with 62 runs scored and a league-leading 57 RBI.

The Red Sox invaded Yankee Stadium for a big doubleheader on July 1, trailing the Bronx Bombers by five games. It was the Red Sox ‘s last real chance to get into the pennant race and they failed miserably. A crowd of 52,832 saw the Yanks win, 7-2 and 9-2. DiMaggio laced three singles, tying Wee Willie Keeler’s 1896 mark by hitting in consecutive game number 44. He broke Keeler’s mark the next day with a three-run homer that went over Ted’s head and sailed into the left-field stands. The Yanks won again, 8-4, to open up an eight-game lead over Boston. Ted managed just three singles in nine at-bats in the important series without an RBI.

On the last day before the All-Star break, Ted went 4-for-8 with two doubles as the Bosox bested the Senators twice, 6-2 and 6-3, at Fenway. Ted was getting second billing during DiMaggio’s streak but he was still drawing a lot of attention with his .405 average at the break.

The All-Star game was considered as big an event as the World Series in those days, as both leagues played for keeps to get bragging rights. With the American League trailing 5-4, Ted came to bat with two on and two out in the bottom of the ninth against Claude Passeau. He fouled off the first pitch, took two balls, and then lifted a fly ball toward the foul line in right. He described his historic homer in his autobiography: “I had pulled it to right field, no doubt about that, but I was afraid I hadn’t got enough of the bat on the ball. But gee, it just kept going, up, up way up into the right field stands in Detroit-halfway down to first, seeing that ball going out, I stopped running and started leaping and jumping and clapping my hands, and I was so happy I laughed out loud. I’ve never been so happy, and I’ve never seen so many happy guys. They carried me off the field, DiMaggio and Bob Feller, who had pitched early in the game and was already in street clothes, and Eddie Collins leaped out of the box seats and was there to greet me.” Ted called the home run “the biggest thrill” of his career.

The Red Sox stayed in Detroit for a four-game series after the All-Star game. On July 12, Ted received a base on balls, then took a big lead off first base. The Tigers pitched out and catcher Birdie Tebbetts fired down to Rudy York, trying to pick Williams off. Ted slid back to first hard, and when he did his foot hit the corner of the bag and twisted. It was the same foot that he had injured in the spring. He limped around a few more innings before retiring to the clubhouse. The ankle swelled up like a balloon. He had received three walks in the game before fouling out in his last at-bat. On the previous day he had been collared in four at-bats by Bobo Newsom. His average had now dipped to .397, and the dream of a .400 season seemed in serious jeopardy.

Meanwhile Joe DiMaggio ran his streak to 56 games before being stopped on July 17 before 67,468 in a night game in Cleveland. From the time he broke Keeler’s record until the end of his streak he had been on fire, whacking 24 hits in 44 at-bats. He now led the league in RBI with 76 and home runs with 20. During one span in the streak the Yankees won 30 of 35 games to run away from the pack into a solid lead in the standings. On July 21, they led Cleveland by 7 games and Boston by 14. Joe’s average was up to .375, and he told reporters that he hadn’t given up on catching Ted for the batting title. During the streak he had hit .408. During the same 56 games, Ted hit .412.

Ted spent the next 12 games on the bench while his foot healed. He pinch-hit four times in those 12 games. He walked once, hit an RBI fly ball, popped out, and cranked a three-run homer. He returned to left field in Fenway on July 22 and tagged Chicago’s Rigney yet again for a gigantic homer into the right-center bleachers in the second inning. Stan Spence replaced him in the field later in the game, but Ted was back for the full nine innings the next day, socking a single and a double in five at-bats. In his first 12 games back from the injury Ted collected 19 hits in 35 at-bats to bring his average back up to .412.

After DiMaggio’s streak was stopped in Cleveland, he ran off another 16-game streak, hitting safely in an unbelievable 72 out of 73 games. He went almost two months without striking out. Yet Ted was pulling away again in the batting race. His three singles on July 26 helped deny Feller his 20th win. His two-run homer on July 29 was the key blow in a 3-2 win over St. Louis. He smashed a grand slam against the Browns the next day. He ended July at .409 to “Joltin’ Joe’s” .377. On August 1 he went fishing on an off day and caught a record-breaking 374-pound tuna.

In two consecutive doubleheaders in St. Louis on August 19 and August 20, Ted went 8-for-14 with five homers, seven runs scored, and eight RBI. DiMaggio cooled off and dipped to .356. Joe then sprained his ankle on August 19. He would miss three weeks. DiMaggio’s injury now gave Ted a good chance at the Triple Crown, if the pitchers did not walk him so much. He was in the midst of a 21-game road trip that visited all seven cities. During the road trip he was walked 32 times in 96 plate appearances. He had 26 hits. He hit .406 on the trip with a .623 on-base percentage. On August 30 he celebrated his 23rd birthday with a single and a home run during a 12-3 win over the A’s at friendly Fenway.

The Sporting News reported, “The orders the pitchers get now when Ted comes to bat, particularly with men on base, is to walk him. They start walking him as early as the first inning. If he isn’t walked intentionally with the catcher moving off to one side, they might as well put on the act, because they pitch so wide to Ted it would be silly for him to swing on any of the pitches …. It is the exception when Ted is pitched a ball not down near his left knee or so far on the outside as to be almost a wild pitch. Therefore his chances of hitting are kept way down. Ted has one of the best eyes for pitches of any batter in baseball.” Later while in the Marines, Ted’s eyesight would be tested at 20/10, and he would set the student gunnery record at Jacksonville.

On Labor Day in Boston, Ted smashed three tremendous home runs in a doubleheader sweep of the Senators. This gave him 34 homers on the season, passing New York’s Charlie Keller for the league lead. He was also walked four more times. One of the homers came off Bill Zuber, the pitcher who had come close to ending Ted’s career with a beaning at Minneapolis in 1938. The writers said it was the longest homer Ted had hit at Fenway all season.

The Yanks clinched the pennant with a 6-3 win at Fenway on September 4. Atley Donald, a pitcher noted for his control, walked Ted four straight times before he managed a single in his final time at bat. They were the only free passes that Donald gave up all afternoon. The same frustrating experience had happened to Ted three weeks earlier at Yankee Stadium. After a first-inning RBI single, he was walked four straight times to a chorus of boos from New York fans, who had paid their money to see Ted hit. Yankee pitchers were well aware of Williams’ competition with Keller and DiMaggio for the league’s home run and RBI crowns.

The four walks to Ted in the game on September 4 were unfortunate for another reason. A 14-year-old boy named Billy Kane started out on a 250-mile hitchhiking trip from his home in South Brewer, Maine, on September 1 to sec his hero, Williams, at Fenway Park. He arrived in town on September 2, which was an off-day for the Red Sox. He walked through Boston to Fenway and fell asleep under the bleachers. When the police found him there, he told them his story. He was taken to the station house and the desk sergeant phoned Williams in his hotel. Ted had already gone to bed, but when he heard the kid’s story he dressed quickly and took the kid out for a good meal. He then put Billy up for the night at his hotel. The next day the youngster was permitted to sit in the Red Sox dugout during the game. After four walks, Ted whacked a single. The kid supposedly said to Williams after, “Dog-gone, Ted! Gee, pal, but I was pulling for the home run.”

On September 7 at Yankee Stadium, Ted hit a single and a pair of doubles off Lefty Gomez in an 8-5 loss to the Yanks. Yankee Stadium was the only park that Williams did not hit a home run in that magical summer. In the fifth inning, however, he crushed a 450-foot double off the top of the center-field wall, missing a round-tripper by mere inches. The next inning Gomez walked him on four pitches with the bases loaded, giving Ted his only RBI of the day. On September 15, Ted belted his 35th homer of the season, a three-run shot off Chicago’s Johnny Rigney (his sixth off Rigney in 1941) in a 6-1 win at Fenway. His three RBI that day tied him with DiMaggio at 116. The Yanks’ Keller was leading the league at 122, but he had twisted his ankle on September 7 and was lost for the remainder of the season. It was likely that both Ted and Joe would pass him in RBI.

When the Yanks came to Fenway on September 20, Joe and Ted were still tied in RBI at 116. Ted had two-thirds of the Triple Crown locked up and was battling Joe for the RBI crown. The Yanks won the first game, 8-1. Joe singled, doubled, and drove in two runs to take the lead again at 118. The next day Boston clinched second by winning, 4-1. In the sixth inning, Ted launched a two-run homer off Ernie “Tiny” Bonham to tie Joe for the RBI lead once more.

Ted was now hitting .406 with six games left to play—three in Washington and three in Philadelphia. He was quoted saying: “Lots of times I could belt the ball into the stands if I wanted to take a chance, but I have to think about my average this season. Next year, everybody will be talking about my 1941 mark. Then I’ll be swinging from my heels and giving the home run record a whirl. I’ll go after ’em all, one at a time. I’ll beat Gehrig’s mark for runs batted in, Hornsby’s and Cobb’s batting records, and Ruth in homers. I’m the boy to do it, too.”

The Sporting News remarked: “From the rockbound coast of Maine to the sun-kissed shores of California, the real fans are rooting almost to a man for Ted to continue above the .400 mark … . Williams has a grip on the fans of this country that is remarkable. He is only a youngster, having become 23 on August 30. It may be that his great ability as a batter for one so young has appealed to the fans. There is a boyishness about Ted that gets everybody. A string bean in build, with a frame so shy of the usual sinew and muscle which great hitters of other days have had, he does not appear to have the power to do what he does and yet he does it.”

On September 23 and 24, the Red Sox played three games in Washington, and Ted managed just two singles in ten at-bats. His average dropped to .402. Meanwhile in New York, the “Jolter” smashed two home runs and drove in three runs to take the RBI lead for keeps. On September 27, Ted got just one hit in four at-bats, a double to deep right center, against A’s rookie knuckleballer Roger Wolff during a 5-1 Red Sox win in Philadelphia. His average had now dipped to .39955 with a season-ending doubleheader scheduled for the next day at Shibe Park.

Ted described the evening before the big doubleheader in his book: “That night before the game Cronin offered to take me out of the lineup to preserve the .400 (.39955 rounds off to .400). I told Cronin I didn’t want that. If I couldn’t hit .400 all the way I didn’t deserve it. It sure as hell meant something to me then, and Johnny Orlando, the clubhouse boy, always a guy who was there when I needed him, must have walked ten miles with me the night before, talking it over and just walking around. Johnny really didn’t like to walk as much as I did, so I’d wait outside while he ducked into the bar for a quick one to keep his strength up. The way he tells it, he made two stops for scotch and I made two stops for ice cream walking the streets of Philadelphia.”

On the last day of the season a sparse crowd of 10,000 showed up at a cold and miserable Shibe Park. Ted recalled, ”As I came to bat for the first time that day, the Philadelphia catcher, Frankie Hayes, said: ‘Ted, Mr. Mack told us if we let up on you he’ll run us out of baseball. I wish you all the luck in the world, but we’re not giving you a damn thing.”‘

Williams started off the first game with a line single between first and second off Dick Fowler. The next time up he homered. Then he hit two singles off a left hander he had never seen before, Porter Vaughn. In the second game he hit a ground single to right, then doubled off a loudspeaker horn in right center (Boston writers said it was the hardest ball he had hit all year). Mack had to have the horn replaced in the winter, so badly was it dented. Ted was already 6-for-8 on the day, when the second game was called on account of darkness after 8 innings. As it happens, Ted was scheduled to lead off the top of the 9th and they probably would have pitched to him.

Suppose he’d gotten up one more time? With one more at bat, assuming the Athletics didn’t have the good sense to give him an intentional walk, he may have gone 7 for 9—which would have given him a .407 average. If he’d made an out, it would have reduced him to .405.

But darkness descended, with Philadelphia ahead, 7-1, so Ted never had that final at bat. For the day Williams wound up with six hits in eight at-bats to finish at .406. He added to his legendary story, “I don’t remember celebrating that night, but I probably went out and had a chocolate milk shake.”

The final day of the 1941 season would not be the last time Ted rose to the occasion. On opening day in 1946, in his first game back after three years in the military, Ted blasted a 400-foot home run in Washington. In 1952, in his last game before leaving for military duty in the Korean War, Ted broke up a 3-3 tie with Detroit by creaming a home run off Dizzy Trout. Ted flew 39 combat missions over Korea. When hit by small-arms fire during one mission, he crash landed his damaged jet and escaped from the flaming wreckage fortunate to be alive. In his first Fenway appearance back from the cockpit near the end of the 1953 season, he homered off Mike Garcia and went on to bat an incredible .407 in 37 games.

In 1957, at age 39, Ted topped the league with an amazing .388 batting average and slammed 38 homers, coming within five leg hits of hitting .400 again. He batted .453 during the second half of 1957. Off the field, his concern for charitable causes in Boston and his efforts on, behalf of the Jimmy Fund were numerous, often unpublicized and made genuinely from his heart. Today he is most remembered for hitting .406 in 1941, but Ted Williams’ whole career—both on and off the field—was nothing short of colossal. He was a true American hero. The greatest pure hitter ever? I’d say so. 

PAUL WARBURTON is a former baseball player, captain of the hockey team and sports editor at Moses Brown Prep in Providence. He lives in Wakefield, Rhode Island.

The majority of major league players who did serve in the American military lost between one and four years of their baseball careers, which often proved devastating for their professional lives. Although a small number of players suffered debilitating injuries or illnesses, the primary impact of the war on players of the World War II era entailed interruptions in and the curtailment of their careers. In most professional occupations, a hiatus of up to several years is relatively insignificant. However, the brevity of a typical professional baseball player’s tenure magnifies this type of absence, if only from a statistical standpoint. Inevitably, the years missed by players due to the war have led to unending speculation about what might have transpired on the field if not for the war. Each major league player who served in the military had precious years of their careers stripped away, and hundreds of minor leaguers had their careers derailed before they even began.

The most obvious examples of this phenomenon involved several of the most dominant offensive players of the era. Although it is impossible to precisely project career statistics for players who spent substantial time in the armed forces, the years spent away from the game obviously affected their final numbers. Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg, for example, both probably would have exceeded the 500 home run plateau and 2,000 RBI mark if not for their time spent in the military. DiMaggio’s situation is quite fascinating due primarily to the fact that there was such a disparity between his pre- and postwar offensive numbers. In his seven seasons before his induction DiMaggio never accumulated less than 114 RBI in any single campaign. Following his return, the Yankee center fielder drove in more than 100 runs only twice in the six seasons leading up to his retirement. Also, whereas virtually every one of his prewar seasons was truly dominant, only DiMaggio’s 1948 year can be compared favorably to any of his seasons completed before the war.

Despite this relatively precipitous decline following his military service, most students of the game nevertheless recognize Joe DiMaggio as one of the greatest players in history. In contrast, DiMaggio’s contemporary and annual rival for batting superiority in the American League, Detroit Tigers first baseman Hank Greenberg, has traditionally been denied such accolades. Greenberg was arguably the most dominant offensive player in the game and certainly among the five best hitters in baseball during the four years before he began his stint in the Army. The Tiger star then spent nearly five complete seasons away from the diamond at a time when his offensive numbers were still at their apex. With an average no lower than .312 during the four years before his military service, Greenberg led the league in home runs twice, RBI twice, and slugging percentage once. In those same four years he also won the American League’s Most Valuable Player award once and finished third on two other occasions. Once Greenberg returned from his nearly five-year absence, he never regained his prewar brilliance and was out of professional baseball by 1947. 

Another of the great players of the era, Stan Musial, also lost time due to his military service. Although he was absent only for one season, some of his final statistics fell just short of important milestones. By missing the 1945 campaign, Musial narrowly missed the magical number of 500 home runs—a total reached by only 16 other individuals in the history of the game. Less obvious to the casual observer are his career hits and RBI marks, which fell just shy of noteworthy plateaus. If Musial had not been absent in 1945, he almost certainly would have been only the second player to eclipse 2,000 career RBI. Regarding his hit total, although his career tally places him fourth all-time today, at the time of his retirement Musial had accumulated the second highest number of safeties in baseball history, behind only Ty Cobb. With a typical season in 1945 added to his career statistics, Musial would have been within about 350 hits of the great Tigers outfielder. In such a circumstance, it is not inconceivable that Musial would have attempted to prolong his career an extra couple of seasons in an attempt to reach Cobb’s seemingly unattainable record.

Of the elite players of the World War II era, Ted Williams’ career was arguably affected the most by his military service. With nearly five years during the heart of his baseball career spent in the military—three of which he served during the Second World War—Williams narrowly missed shattering some of baseball’s most hallowed records. Although Williams returned from his military stint during World War II and displayed his usual brilliance at the plate despite his three-year absence, he seemed poised to reach even greater heights. When Williams began his military obligation before the 1943 season, he was coming off of the two finest back-to-back seasons of his career, 1941 and 1942, during which he hit .406 in 1941 and led the league in home runs, batting average, and RBI in 1942. The Triple Crown in 1942 was not his last—he won another in 1947—yet Williams never exhibited quite the offensive skill in consecutive seasons as he did in his last two seasons before entering the Navy.

Since he was reaching the prime of his career at that time, it is impossible to determine exactly how impressive his career statistics might have been without the three-year interruption for military service. However, the Red Sox slugger almost certainly would have approached, if not exceeded, Babe Ruth’s career home run record of 714—the record at the time of Williams’ retirement. With less than 500 RBI separating Williams from the most prolific run producer in history, Hank Aaron, the Red Sox star also would probably still claim the career RBI record.

For players such as DiMaggio, Greenberg, and Williams it is therefore abundantly clear that the Second World War had a significant impact on their professional careers. For the players who fell just short of this elite status, however, their careers were arguably affected to an even greater extent. Whereas virtually all of the premier players of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame, several talented professionals sacrificed prime years of their careers to the war effort and fell just short in their bid for enshrinement in Cooperstown.

Probably the most glaring example of this is Yankees and Indians second baseman Joe Gordon, a nine-time all-star who played in the post-season six times during his stellar career. Gordon’s statistics compare favorably to fellow second baseman and Hall of Farner, Bobby Doerr, who was a close contemporary and also a veteran of the Second World War. Doerr has the slight edge over Gordon in career RBI, although the two campaigns lost by Gordon to only one sacrificed by Doerr explains most of that disparity. Doerr also holds an advantage in career batting average by twenty points, although this might be somewhat deceiving. Doerr played his entire career in Fenway Park, notorious for its cozy left field dimensions, while Gordon played during his prime in the more spacious Yankee Stadium. This almost certainly kept his batting average lower than it could have been in more offensive-friendly confines. Despite the deeper outfield dimensions of Yankee Stadium, however, Gordon struck 30 more home runs than did Doerr during their respective careers. Although Doerr does hold a minimal edge in career fielding percentage, Gordon was by no means a defensive liability with a .970 career fielding average.

The one area where Gordon has a tremendous advantage is in the six championship teams of which he was a major contributor. Gordon was a catalyst for the great Yankee teams of the late ’30s and ’40s and also won a World Series title late in his career with the Cleveland Indians. In contrast, Doerr played in only the 1946 World Series with Boston, and although he hit a sparkling .409 during the seven-game set, he never played in the World Series again.

Comparing Gordon to another Hall of Fame second baseman, Tony Lazzeri, whom Gordon replaced in the Yankees lineup in 1938, an even stronger case can be made for Gordon’s inclusion in the Hall of Fame. When analyzing career statistics for both players, Gordon leads or has nearly identical numbers in almost every category. The only two notable exceptions are Lazzeri’s advantages in career batting average and RBI, 24 points and 216, respectively. Again, the disparity in RBI can be dismissed due to Gordon’s two-year hiatus for military service, while the difference in batting average can be partly offset by Gordon’s superior power numbers—Gordon’s 253 home runs compared to Lazzeri’s 178. In balancing team championships, Lazerri’s impressive five World Series titles fall short the six won by Gordon.

For every elite star like Ted Williams or near-great player like Joe Gordon, there were many other lesser-known position players who also had their careers interrupted or ended by the outbreak of hostilities. Most of these individuals not only had years of their careers stripped away because of their military service, but the hiatus inflicted irreparable harm to their baseball abilities, often causing a premature close to their chosen vocation.

Philadelphia Athletic second baseman Benny McCoy, for example, enjoyed a promising three-year career before the war and seemed destined for stardom with skills that included exceptional speed and occasional power. McCoy, however, was one of the first major league players to enter the military, and he never again played in the big leagues after the war. First baseman Buddy Hassett, a solid player for three teams, also saw his big league career come to a screeching halt with the outbreak of the Second World War. A .292 career hitter, Hassett’s career spanned the seven years leading up to the war and ended when he entered the armed forces.

Unlike McCoy and Hassett, Washington Senator shortstop Cecil Travis did return to the major leagues following a stint in the military but without much success. Travis had been an exceptional hitter in the eight years prior to his entry into the Army, batting lower than .300 only once before the war while exhibiting occasional home run power and a low strikeout ratio. He was also a three-time all-star participant and led the American League in hits with 218 during the 1941 season, his last before joining the Army. The Senators star, however, suffered severe frostbite to his lower extremities during the Battle of the Bulge and never regained the mobility needed to perform at the major league level. Upon his return, the Senators moved Travis to third base to accommodate his limited range hoping that he might regain his potent prewar batting stroke. Travis spent a dismal three years following the war battling American League pitching and managed to hit only .252 in his best postwar season. By 1947 he had retired from baseball, and a promising career had been derailed for reasons beyond his control.

One of Travis’s teammates, outfielder Buddy Lewis, was another of the lesser-known players affected by their military commitment. In the six years before Lewis entered the Army Air Force, Lewis, a below-average defensive player but an exceptional hitter, never hit below .291 and three times batted over .300. While exhibiting occasional power and an ability to steal bases, the Senators outfielder went to the 1938 All-Star game and also led the league in triples in 1939. Upon his return to the major leagues following a three-year absence beginning in 1942, Lewis never again hit .300. Although he did again represent the Senators in the All-Star Game (1947), his statistics that year did not compare favorably to any of his prewar campaigns.

From an individual perspective, therefore, it is abundantly clear that the war affected numerous professional players to a greater or lesser extent. The list of anecdotal stories and statistical information regarding individual professional players returning from the war with diminished skills are quite plentiful. However, the question then arises whether the interruptions in players’ careers, when taken as a group, caused substantial declines in their abilities and statistics or if the trials and tribulations of a few have skewed the perception of those athletes that participated in the war.

First of all, in comparing groups of players who served during the war and those who did not, one can identify startling differences both between and within these groups and decipher some of the changes initiated in major league baseball by World War II. The first striking disparity between the players who served in the armed forces and those who remained in civilian life are the average ages of the two groups. During 1942, the first full year of the war, the mean age of the players who served in the American military was significantly lower (26.9 years old) than those who did not serve (29.4 years old). The logical explanation for this is simply that draft boards and armed forces recruiters preferred younger individuals for induction, while older players were also more likely to have chronic, age-related conditions that might disqualify them from military service. Also, the percentage of older players who were married, and subsequently less desirable for military service than single men, was most likely higher than in younger players.

Another interesting characteristic of major league players during World War II is that players who occupied certain positions were disproportionately represented within the armed forces. The revelation that first basemen (46.7%) and catchers (31. 8%) had the highest and third highest percentages, respectively, of players who did not serve is not exceptionally surprising considering that those position players also had the highest average ages at the outset of the war. In addition, many teams relocated exceptional offensive players to first base from other more athletically demanding positions, such as the outfield, once they had passed their athletic prime or if they had sustained an injury that hampered their efficiency elsewhere. Either scenario would suggest lower numbers of first baseman who were prime candidates for induction into the armed forces. Regarding catchers, many at this time had debilitating hand and finger injuries because of the catching style of the day (two-handed as opposed to the modern one-handed style) along with chronic knee and leg problems common among some due to years of donning the “tools of ignorance.” These factors, along with their elevated mean age, would have excluded many of them from military service. 

Also not surprising, second basemen (4) maintained the highest percentage (94.7%) of military service among all position players. Second basemen predictably were the youngest and, one can assume, healthiest of the position players and thus prime candidates for military service. What is startling is that the percentage of shortstops (6) that did not serve (41.2%) was extremely high despite the fact that their mean age was virtually identical to those of third basemen (5) and outfielders (7), who maintained predictable rates of service in the armed forces. Because it is virtually impossible to compete as a shortstop on the major league level with any kind of physical malady that might disqualify one from military service, the low number of shortstops who served is baffling.

At first glance, the offensive skill of both players who did and did not serve is very comparable, with nearly equal career batting averages for the two groups (.272 vs .274) and similar batting average statistics for the final prewar campaign of 1941 (.272 vs. .271). A closer examination of offensive statistics, however, shows slight deviations between players who did and did not serve, particularly in the power categories. In 1941, players who did not serve tended to hit more home runs (9.1) and compile more RBI (59.3) than their contemporaries who lost time due to the war (7.9 home runs and 54.7 RBI). This is most likely due partly to the fact that most teams relied on first basemen to be sluggers and run producers, and a disproportionate number of first basemen did not serve in the armed forces. Interestingly, the slugging percentages of those who did and did not serve is virtually identical (.397 vs .395), which reveals that players who served were more apt to hit doubles and triples than their civilian counterparts.

One might expect that since players who did not serve were more apt to be sluggers, they then would be more likely to be free swingers and therefore exhibit higher numbers of strikeouts, which was true only to a slight extent. What is somewhat surprising is that players who did not serve had higher mean numbers of stolen bases, at-bats, and walks during the 1941 season, although their on-base percentages were virtually the same. Those numbers clearly suggest that players who did not serve were more often utilized as starters and batted higher in the order in 1941 than those who did serve. The higher number of at-bats and walks is logical considering that teams usually tended to rely on more experienced and thus older players. Regarding stolen bases, however, the disparities are confounding when one considers that the group that did serve had higher percentages of second basemen and outfielders, positions that normally account for the majority of stolen bases. The only apparent explanation is that players that did not serve, because they accumulated approximately 10% more at-bats (438 vs. 400), were on base more often and thus had more opportunities to steal bases.

Possibly a more equitable test in balancing the offensive production of these two groups would be to compare their statistics at similar stages in their careers. When comparing statistics for the years 1937 and 1940, when the mean ages of those who did not serve and those who served, respectively, was approximately 25.5, there are several interesting revelations. First of all, the offensive production of those who served surpassed that of those who did not serve in several vital areas. While mean home runs, slugging percentage, and stolen bases were virtually identical, the mean batting average (.282) and on-base percentage (.350) of those who served was significantly higher than their counterparts at comparable ages (.277 batting average and .338 OBP). The nearly 12-point disparity in the on-base percentages in favor of those who did serve is particularly noteworthy, for teams and players especially prize that statistic as demonstrating a player’s value to his team.

Comparing both groups’ on-base percentages in those years to the league averages further evidences the offensive superiority of those who served. In 1937, the group that did not serve maintained an on-base percentage of .338, approximately six points below the league average, while in 1940 the group that did serve compiled an on-base percentage of .350, about 16 points above the league average. Therefore, the resulting differential is a very significant plus 23 in favor of the group that served. Also telling is the fact that those players who did serve surpassed those who did not serve in RBI production (57.4 vs. 54.7) and, most important, in Total Player Rating (.667 vs .205). The elevated TPR of the players that did serve suggests that they were more valuable and more productive than their civilian counterparts. One can conclude that at similar points in their careers, those players that did serve were more efficient offensive players.

Furthermore, besides their careers being interrupted, for the players that served, their absence apparently also statistically affected them to varying degrees. The first striking statistical disparity within the group of players that served is the nine-point decrease in batting average (.272 to .263) from the final season before the outbreak of the war, 1941, to the first full season following the war’s conclusion, 1946—the year in which virtually all of the players in this study who served were again active.

The first logical question that then arises is whether the decline in average was caused by a deterioration of skill because of years spent in the service or simply an age-related decline typical in the latter portions of a player’s career. In 1941, players that did serve had a mean age of slightly over 26 and in 1946 that number rose to slightly over 30. In comparing the statistics of 1939 and 1943 for those who did not serve—the seasons during which those players maintained approximately the same mean ages—a determination can be made regarding the possibility of an age-related decline in production.

From a superficial point of view, when comparing the two groups at similar ages it seems that the theory suggesting an age-related decline is the most logical conclusion to the decrease in averages—both groups witnessed a substantial decline in their averages at the age of 30 compared to their marks at the age of 26. However, looking closer at the data undermines that conclusion to some extent. In 1941, the players who served hit 11 points over the major league average of .262 while in 1946 they dipped to nine points over the major league norm of .256. Conversely, in 1939 the players that did not serve managed to compile a mean average which exceeded the major league average of .275 by six points, while in 1943 they managed to exceed the major league mark of .253 by 15 points.

Thus, the differences between 1941 and 1946 in the group that served was minus two while between 1939 and 1943 in the group that did not serve was plus nine. Subsequently, this results in a disparity of 11 points between the two groups at similar ages. Therefore, even though the group that did not serve aged to a degree that one might expect a decrease in batting average, they actually increased their mean average when compared to the major league norm. In contrast, those that did serve witnessed a decline in their relative postwar batting averages, indicating a factor not associated with an age-related decline in productivity.

In dismissing age as a factor in leading to a dip in batting average between 1941 and 1946, another logical explanation might be then that players who spent one to four years in the military lost some of their skills because of inactivity. This would not be completely surprising considering the reflexes and reaction times that are necessary to compete on the major league level. However, the statistics indicate several interesting anomalies within the group that served. The revelation that those who spent only one year in the service improved on their 1941 averages by about six points is not extremely surprising, given the fact that many professional players may have retained their skills during such a brief absence by competing on military baseball teams during the war, albeit usually not against major league competition on a consistent basis. The improvement in the one-year group is even more impressive when considered in relation to the league averages of those years. In 1941, players who served one year batted just a shade under the league norm of .262, yet in 1946 they hit 13 points above the league average. Thus, it appears that forfeiting one season due to the war greatly assisted some players in compiling high averages. 

More predictably, those who spent two and three years in the service witnessed a substantial decline, 9 and 23 points respectively, in their 1941 and 1946 batting averages. Part of this decline should be viewed as a general trend-the league averaged dropped seven points in 1946 compared to the 1941 season. Thus, for those who spent two years away, their nine-point dip is relatively insignificant and suggests that their absence impacted their batting skills only negligibly. In contrast, those who lost three years of their careers due to military service seem to have been affected the most by their time spent away from the diamond. As a group, they compiled a very impressive .289 average in 1941, 27 points better than the league standard and 18 points better than any of the other groups that served, before a precipitous postwar slip. In 1946 they dropped dramatically to just 11 points over the league average, and maintained only the second highest average among those who served.

Amazingly, those players who sacrificed four years of their careers to WWII actually enjoyed an increase of five points between their 1941 and 1946 batting averages. This finding is tempered somewhat by the fact that their prewar average was nine points lower than any other group’s 1941 average and subsequently 11 points below the league average. Also, their 1941 mean age was much lower than the other players who served, indicating inexperience at the major league level and thus less offensive expertise. In addition, even after their five-point increase, the group that missed four years still had the second lowest postwar batting average of those that served.

When an analysis of the two final prewar years is undertaken in relationship to the first postwar season in order to negate any one-season anomalies and obtain a more comprehensive view of the effects of the wartime absence on those who served, several interesting facts become increasingly clear. First of all, for those who spent one year in the service, their dramatic increases in batting average following their absence does not seem so startling. In combining the 1940 and 1941 averages of the players who missed one year and comparing those to the league standards, the one-year group hit six points above the league norm during those two seasons. In comparison to the 1946 numbers in which those who served one year batted 12 points over the league average, this difference of six points is substantially less than the nearly 13 point differential which is evident if considering the last prewar year alone. The numbers, however, still suggest that those who missed one year actually benefited statistically from their absence.

For the group that served two years, very little difference is evident when considering the two final prewar years compared to only one. The numbers simply reinforce the conclusion that their wartime absence had little effect on their batting averages. In contrast, among the group that missed three years, utilizing the two final prewar years strengthens the determination that their hiatus did affect their batting statistics significantly. An average of the variations from the league norms for their 1940 and 1941 batting averages results in the figure of plus 28. During the first postwar year that figure dropped dramatically to plus 11, thus again suggesting that the absence affected the group negatively to a great extent. 

Interestingly, among the group that served four years one can see the most dramatic reinterpretation of the statistics once the two final prewar years are included. When only variations from the 1941 and 1946 league batting averages were considered, the resulting conclusion was that the group that was inactive for four years witnessed an increase of 12 points relative to the league average upon their return. However, when the 1940 season is also included, their prewar numbers and postwar numbers are virtually identical, blunting the seemingly remarkable gains they made after the war.

Utilizing similar methods regarding the impact of the war on the power statistics of players who served, no discernible patterns emerge from the general data. Among both players who served and those who did not, home run totals dipped at least slightly in 1946 compared to 1941. However, this is not particularly revealing, since the overall number of home runs tended to decline after 1941 and remained low through 1946. In 1941, major league hitters struck a total of 1,331 home runs, with the numbers steadily declining from that point until in 1946, when a modest offensive power surge transpired. It was not until the following year, however, when batters smacked 1,565 home runs, that the number of round-trippers surpassed prewar totals. Therefore, it is not surprising that the statistics for the groups of players who both served and did not serve followed this general trend.

When one looks closer at the statistics, however, it seems obvious that the extended absences endured by those players that served in the military also negatively affected their home run totals in the years following their return. Again utilizing comparable data from the 1939 and 1943 seasons—the years when the ages of players who did not serve were almost identical to the 1941 and 1946 ages of those that served—notable differences are clearly evident.

In comparing the years 1939 and 1943 for those players who did not serve, totals decreased an average of approximately one per person, or 13%, while the major league home run totals between those two years decreased a drastic 38%. Therefore, in relation to the rest of the league, the players who did not serve actually witnessed an increase in their power statistics when comparing their statistics at the age of 30 in relation to their numbers at 26.

Despite earlier revelations that those players who spent one or two years away from the diamond due to military service increased their offensive productivity, their power statistics seem to have been affected by their absence. In 1946, the number of home runs in the major leagues was about 9% lower than in the last prewar war year of 1941. When comparing the home run totals during those same two years for players who missed one year of action, a decline of 12% is observed (9.2 home runs to 8.1) while those who missed two years witnessed a steeper decline of 26% (4.8 home runs to 3.6).

The disparity for the one-year group in relation to the league average decline, therefore, was a mild 3% while those players who missed two years endured a drop of 17% below the league norm. The three- and four-year groups also had drastic declines in their home run production, even when considering the 9% decline by the league as a whole between 1941 and 1946. The players who missed three years dipped 18% (10.3 home runs to 8.4), while the players with four years of military service sank 50% in their home run numbers (3.2 home runs to 1.6).

Other power statistics observed in 1941 and 1946 also reveal several more interesting variations. Whereas one would expect the slugging percentages of players who served to be detrimentally affected by their absence due to the fact that home runs play such an instrumental part in the calculation of that statistic, it seems to be only marginally true. In comparing 1941 slugging percentages of those who served with their 1946 numbers, only the group who missed three years showed any substantial decline beyond the aforementioned league-wide offensive dip with a drop of 52 points. Furthermore, when considering the slugging statistics for those who did not serve in the years 1939 and 1943, little, if any, inference can be made from the statistics. The slugging percentage of this group declined by about 51 points, which was virtually identical to the league average decline. The difference between the groups that served and did not serve was minimal at best.

However, when considering the RBI production for both groups at similar points in their careers, large disparities are clear, and it is evident that extended absences by players who served detrimentally affected their offensive output. For those players who served at least one year, a decrease in RBI output is plainly evident with those who were inactive longer suffering the most. Each subgroup of those who served endured a substantial decline in their run production when their 1941 seasons are compared to the first postwar campaign.

However, this again was partly due to the overall trend in professional baseball, for during the 1946 season major league teams scored just over 1,215 fewer runs than in 1941, thus leading to lower RBI totals across the board. This 11% decrease partly but not completely explains the drop in RBI production by every group that served. As has been the pattern previously, the players who missed only one year of action were affected least by their absence, knocking in only 12% fewer runs in 1946 (51.3) than in the last prewar season (58.1)—a negligible 1 % disparity from the league decline. Those who spent two years in military service seemed to have been affected to a greater degree, dropping their run production 19% (43.4 RBI to 35)—8% lower than the rest of the league.

Continuing the descent, the players who missed three years sagged 23% from 1941 to 1946 (64.3 RBI to 49.6), while those who missed four years dipped precipitously by driving in 32% fewer runs between those seasons (39.8 RBI to 27.4). These dips in production, 12 and 21% below the league average decline, respectively, indicates that players returning from military obligations did not retain their prewar abilities in hitting with men in scoring position. 

In comparing the numbers of those who did not lose seasons due to the war to those who did miss substantial playing time, the decline in RBI production by the group that served becomes more revealing. Weighing the years of 1939 and 1943 for the group that did not serve, those players witnessed a rather unexpected increase in RBI output (49.7 RBI to 56.3). This is somewhat surprising because in comparison to the 1939 season, the numbers of runs scored in the major leagues dropped dramatically by 2,182 or 18%. When combined with the modest increase in RBI of 12% by those who did not serve during those years, they boosted their production by 30% in relation to the league average. When compared to the decline among those that served, this is particularly impressive and suggests that military service did in fact affect RBI productivity.

In analyzing the vitally important statistic of on-base percentage in the same manner, players who missed seasons due to military service seemed to have been affected negligibly. The overall on-base percentage in major league baseball declined about four points in 1946 compared to 1941. However, only the players that missed three years actually saw a dip in their on-base percentages during the first postwar campaign (.369 OBP to .339). The remaining groups witnessed modest increases in their 1946 on base percentages of approximately nine, one, and 24 points in the one-year, two-year, and four-years-served groups, respectively.

These numbers, however, are very comparable to the disparities in the on-base percentages of players who did not serve in the years of 1939 and 1943. The average league on-base percentage declined 20 points within those two years, or about 6%, while the players who did not serve saw their on-base percentages decline by approximately 10 points or 3%. Thus, no direct correlation between this statistic and wartime absence can be proven to a high degree of certainty. However, when using Total Baseball’s statistic, Total Player Rating, in players who did and did not serve, once again evidence of the negative impact of military service becomes clear. Of the players who missed at least one season, the TPR’s of those players varied greatly both before and after the war. According to the TPR statistic, those players who missed three years were the most valuable group to their teams before the war while their numbers following the war sank dramatically. This confirms earlier analyses, which suggest the wartime absence for that group had a sizable impact on their postwar production.

One baffling anomaly is that the group who missed two years showed a remarkable improvement in their 1946 TPR ratings when compared to their 1941 numbers. This can be somewhat explained by their low 1941 TPR rank, which was the second lowest of the four groups. However, the other groups who served had either very modest gains in their TPR or, more predictably, a decline in those numbers.

When compared to the average increase in the TPR statistic for those players who did not serve for the years 1939 and 1943, the results of the group that served again decreased in relation. The group who avoided military service enjoyed a .530 increase in their TPR between 1939 and 1943 (.176 TPR to .706), while the players who served exhibited a relative decline in their on-field performance (.528 TPR to .255). Most notably, the group who served three years endured a startling decline in their TPR (1.264 to .382) from 1941 to 1946. Also, despite earlier revelations that the group who missed one year actually witnessed moderate to substantial improvement in their production, their slight increase of .14 in their TPR statistic (.431 to .445) reveals that improvement may have been overstated. 

Therefore, while the majority of major league players lost at least one season due to military service, it should come as no surprise that extended absences negatively affected the careers of the athletes involved. This is evident not only in individual cases where some lost as many as four years of their prime to the war, but also collectively for the group of players who served. For some, serving in the armed forces proved detrimental in reaching statistical milestones and for others prevented them from possibly reaching the Hall of Fame. Clearly military service initiated a general offensive decline among position players, the repercussions of which were felt years after the conclusion of the war both by the individual players and major league baseball as a whole.

STEVE BULLOCK is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and specializes in sport history. His book, Playing for their Nation: Baseball and the American Military during World War II, was awarded the Malloy prize by SABR and the University of Nebraska Press and will be available in early 2004.

Notes

1. Although Greenberg’s postwar statistics do not rival his prewar numbers, he was instrumental in Detroit’s 1945 World Series victory upon his release from the Army and playing in the final weeks of the season. Also, the Tiger star did lead the American League in home runs and RBI in his first full season back but had a batting average much below his norm. Following the war, Greenberg never again hit over .300 and retired within two years of his return to the major leagues.

2. At the time of Musial’s retirement, only Babe Ruth had surpassed that total. Hank Aaron eventually accomplished the feat several years after Musial’s departure from the game.

3. Doerr also spent time in the military during the war, though only one year compared to Gordon’s two-season absence.

4. For the purpose of this study, players who played at least one season before and after their military service with at least 50 at-bats in each of those seasons will be considered for the group that served. For a control group, players who played at least the 1941-1946 seasons with no time missed due to military service will be considered.

5. Total Player Rating is a statistic devised by Total Baseball researchers which determines a player’s worth by comparing his statistics to players throughout his league at his position during a particular season. The higher the TPR rating, theoretically the more valuable a player is to his team. For an in-depth description as to exactly how a player’s TPR is calculated, see John Thorn, et al., eds., Total Baseball (New York: Total Sports, 1999), p. 655.

This saga includes as dramatis personae a few of the most powerful men of professional baseball at the time. We will see how the lives of George Sisler are intertwined with those of Branch Rickey, Barney Dreyfuss, August “Garry” Herrmann, and ultimately, although indirectly, Judge Kenesaw Landis.

The story begins in 1911 as Sisler was completing his senior year in high school. “Peerless George” was born March 3, 1893, in Nimisilia, Ohio, south of Akron. “Many baseball books show that Sisler was born at Manchester, a few miles east of Clinton. But Nimisilia is the correct place, if you can find it—or pronounce it.”1

By the time Sisler was in high school, he was making a name for himself as a left-handed pitcher. Sisler remembers, “I got a lot of publicity in my last year in high school, and when I was still a student I signed up one day to play with Akron.”2

Ernest J. Lanigan, a former executive at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, wrote an undated notation to George Sisler’s file at the Hall of Fame Library:

Three years before Fohl [Lee Alexander Fohl] was in charge of the Akron club, which was owned by Columbus, and one night he phoned Bob Quinn, Columbus business manager, that there was a youth at Akron High School that looked like the prospect of the century and suggested signing him.

“Sign him,” said Quinn, “at $100 a month, even if you have to release somebody.”

“I can’t sign him,” said Fohl, “but I know someone who can.”

And the Someone Who Could—Umpire Jesse Goehler—signed Sisler, then 17, to an Akron contract for $100 a month. He reported to the club one day, but there was no uniform to fit him, so he didn’t play. And he never showed up again. Akron transferred his contract later to Columbus and Columbus sold him to Pittsburgh, but Garry Herrmann of the National Commission ruled that Akron had no right to the player, that Columbus hadn’t and that Pittsburgh hadn’t. Rickey signed him for the Browns, and that was the start of a lifelong feud between Herrmann and Barney Dreyfuss that led eventually to Judge Landis getting into the baseball picture.3

Sisler later contended, “I was only 17 years old when I wrote my name on the slip of paper that made me property of Akron …. After I signed it I got scared and I didn’t even tell my dad or anybody ’cause I knew folks wanted me to go on to college and I figured they’d be sore if they knew I wanted to be a ballplayer.”4 Sisler also maintained that he never reported to Akron or any professional club until after he graduated from the University of Michigan, dismantling the myth that there was no uniform to fit him.

Eventually Sisler did confess to his father that he had signed a contract with Akron. “In a way that’s what saved me, I guess. For by not telling my dad he never had a chance to Okay my signature and in that way the contract didn’t hold.” After graduation from Akron Central High School, Sisler was told to report to Akron on March 17, 1912, for spring training with the Columbus club. When he did not report to either team, Columbus sold his contract in 1912 to Barney Dreyfuss, owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates for $5,000.

George Sisler enrolled at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for the fall term in 1911. However, his Akron contract was duly “promulgated in April of that year by Secretary Farrell, of the National Association.” The Sporting News later reported, “The Agreement for the transfer of the player by Columbus to Pittsburg was filed with the National Commission and as it was in proper form was approved and promulgated by the Commission.”5

The first volley in the battle to emancipate George Sisler from his Akron contract came from Sisler himself (with assistance from Branch Rickey6 and George B. Codd, a Michigan circuit court judge) when he wrote to Garry Herrmann, chairman of the National Commission. Sisler wanted his amateur status reinstated so he could play varsity baseball that spring for Michigan. Dated August 27, 1912, Sisler wrote, “Two years ago this winter while I was attending high school, I signed the baseball contract given me by an umpire who watched me pitch the summer before. The proposition came very suddenly and unexpectedly, and I was an easy mark as I now look back upon it. At that time, being only 17 years old, I thought it would be a great thing to sign a league contract and supposed that I would be a sort of a hero among my fellow students and the people around Akron in general.”7

When Sisler requested that the National Commission sustain his amateur status, he was recognized as an up-and-coming athletic star at Michigan under the watchful eye of Branch Rickey.

Rickey revolutionized baseball by creating an extensive farm system when he was an executive with the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1947, as general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to a major league baseball contract. Sisler first met “the Mahatma” in the spring of 1912.

Rickey had attended the University of Michigan Law School, and he coached the Michigan varsity baseball team to make ends meet. In September 1911, he and two law school classmates opened up a legal practice in Boise, Idaho. In January 1912 he wired the Michigan athletic director, “am starving. Will be back without delay.”8 Baseball was, until 1913, only a way for Rickey to get what he wanted, a law degree. When he realized that the law business was not succeeding and that he was placing his health in jeopardy, he decided to devote himself to baseball full-time.9

Rickey had some experience as a judge of baseball talent. He had worked at Allegheny College as coach and athletic director. In 1904 he signed to play for the Cincinnati Reds under the ownership of Garry Herrmann, who had taken a liking to Rickey and his honest virtues. Rickey had refused to play on Sundays as a promise to his mother, so the Reds manager Joe Kelley fired the rookie catcher before he appeared in a regular season game. Herrmann reversed the decision and allowed Rickey to remain on the team. After thinking about it, Rickey decided to leave the Reds anyway, with Herrmann’s blessing.10 He later was a catcher and outfielder with the Cardinals and Yankees, appearing in 120 games.

Branch Rickey returned from Boise in the spring of 1912. “Candidates for several varsity baseball teams were reporting,” Rickey said in describing a pivotal moment in his life, “for registration, assignment and tryout. Here before me stood a handsome boy of eighteen, with dark brown hair, serious gray eyes and posture. He was about five feet eight or nine, well built but not heavy, and he wore a somewhat battered finger glove on his right hand. He said he had pitched on a high school team in Akron, Ohio, and that he was George Sisler, engineering student in the freshman class.

‘”Oh, a freshman,’ I said. ‘Well, this part of the program is only for the varsity. You can’t play this year.’ He showed extreme disappointment. I said, ‘You can’t play this year, but you can work out with the varsity today.’

“The workout was unforgettable. He pitched batting practice and, for the next twenty minutes, created no end of varsity embarrassment. His speed and control made him almost unhittable. All of his moves were guided by perfection of reflexes, which made him quick, graceful, accurate-the foundation of athletic greatness. It was all there.”’11

Sisler had played football, basketball and baseball in high school, and he was offered scholarships at the University of Pennsylvania and Western Reserve but he chose Michigan because of Russ Baer, his high school catcher. “Russ today [1953] is a banker in Akron. At that time he wanted to study law and decided to enroll at Michigan. I thought I would have a better chance in baseball as a pitcher if I had Baer as my catcher, so I followed him.”12

George Codd pushed hard on Sisler’s behalf. On December 28, 1912, Garry Herrmann wrote to Judge Codd with a response on behalf of the National Commission, of which he was chairman. Although the commission would not rule on the amateur status of Sisler, his contract was made “dormant,” he stated, “The player’s status is and will be wholly dependent on his own acts regardless of formal claims by the Pittsburg club, or any other National Agreement Club, of the right or property in contracting with him.”13 Rather than declare Sisler an amateur, the National Commission sidestepped the issue by saying that Sisler was not a professional—yet. Sisler was now eligible to play for the Michigan varsity under Rickey.

J.G. Taylor Spink reported that many clubs were following Sisler’s brilliant performance and were interested in signing him when he graduated.14 “By the time he graduated college,” noted historian Donald Honig, “Sisler’s baseball abilities were known to every big league club. Mysteriously, however, only the Pirates seemed interested. By dint of Gentleman’s Agreement among all the owners, the old voided contract Sisler had signed was being honored by Major League Baseball. Rather than commit the slightest offense against their hallowed reserve clause, the owners were recognizing a contract that their own ruling body had voided.”15 All teams that is, except the St. Louis Browns, where Branch Rickey, Sisler’s baseball mentor, began his managerial and executive career in 1913.

Judge Codd pressured the National Commission to declare Sisler a free agent. “Through the influence of powerful friends Sisler was eventually declared a free agent by the National Commission, not, however, until the threat to carry the matter into the courts had been resorted to. The commission, in declaring him a free agent, however, recommended that he give Pittsburg the preference, which was only fair.”16

Barney Dreyfuss was furious. He was one of the most innovative magnates and considered an outstanding judge of baseball talent. Branch Rickey told Lee Allen, historian at the Baseball Hall of Fame, “Dreyfuss was the best judge of players he had ever seen.”17 Dreyfuss was successful in baseball because he understood the business of baseball and its rules. He appealed to the National Commission for a review, especially after National League President John Tener wrote in May 1914 that while the Pittsburgh club had conformed with the “laws and regulations” of organized baseball and that it might have a moral right to the player, he concluded that “The Pittsburg Club’s claims and contentions are all based on the assumption that the signing of an Akron Club contract by Sisler was perfectly legal, valid, reasonable and binding.”18

Tener offered, and it was adopted by the National Commission, that Dreyfuss and the Pirates be given an unimpeded first chance to sign Sisler. The mistake that Dreyfuss may have made was the assumption that he had a clear and easy path to the player when in fact Branch Rickey held the upper hand. Dreyfuss received a letter from Sisler dated June 2, 1915, asking for “your very best offer.”19 When Dreyfuss learned on June 18 that Sisler had signed with St. Louis, he immediately asked the National Commission to review his charges of interference and tampering by Rickey and the St. Louis Browns. The commission asked Dreyfuss for evidence to prove the allegations, which he couldn’t provide.

The case for Sisler had really come down to contract terms, notwithstanding his previous association with Rickey. “Branch Rickey, however, refused to enter into this collusion [the Gentleman’s Agreement]. Always the maverick, Rickey saw to it that the Browns signed Sisler. The draconic machin­ery of Baseball’s jurisprudence went so far as to suspend Sisler while the question was being investigated. Rickey, determined not to lose his prize, made some not-so-veiled threats about civil law versus baseball law, and the National Commission finally ruled on behalf of the Browns.”20 The St. Louis club offered Sisler $7,400 as opposed to $5,200 from Pittsburgh.21 By June 18, Sisler was on the Browns team for good and appeared in 81 games.

The Browns eventually moved Sisler to first base to take advantage of his hitting. “He was in fact generally acclaimed the greatest of all first basemen until nudged aside by the power hitting of Lou Gehrig.”22 In 1922, his greatest season, Sisler earned the first American League MVP award after hitting .420. George Sisler was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1939, the 10th player so honored.

Barney Dreyfuss refused to let go of his grievance against the National Commission. Dreyfuss “never forgave Herrmann for voting with [American League President Ban] Johnson in awarding the crack first baseman to the Browns. Barney was an implacable enemy, and cried for vengeance.”23 Barney wanted Herrmann out as chairman, feeling that he had a conflict of interest as owner of the Cincinnati Reds. Dreyfuss had supported Herrmann in the past especially after Herrmann’s role in negotiating peace between the American and National Leagues in 1903. Dreyfuss felt that Herrmann had a history with and was too close to Ban Johnson. It was Johnson, in fact, who had nominated Herrmann as chairman.24 The business of baseball was evolving and a different kind of leadership was needed, and Dreyfuss pushed hard for a “neutral” chairman of the commission.

According to Spink, Dreyfuss’s first attempt to overthrow Herrmann was “a one man campaign” when he introduced his resolution to the National League meeting in December 1916.25 Harold Seymour notes that while Dreyfuss’s initial resolution failed, “his was never an entirely lone voice against Herrmann in National League councils.”26 The National Commission was struggling with other demanding problems, externally and within baseball. Organized baseball was dealing with the impact of war in Europe, anti-trust suits from the Federal League, player disputes, and allegations that Herrmann was “under Ban Johnson’s thumb”27 or unfavorable to American League clubs because of his conflict of interest.’

Two years after the Sisler case was over, another major dispute erupted involving a pitcher, Scott Perry of the Philadelphia Athletics. He had pitched briefly for the NL’s Boston Braves but left the team after 17 days. Perry played for some independent and minor league teams before signing to pitch for Connie Mack’s A’s .28 Perry, who won a few games for Philadelphia, was ordered to report to the Braves but Philadelphia obtained an injunction keeping him an Athletic. National League owners were upset and Dreyfuss cried foul, stating, “Herrmann decides against us we have to take it; he decides for us, and the American League goes to court.”29

Dreyfuss’s movement to make significant changes began to gather momentum during the postwar era. NL President John Heydler was unhappy by the way the commission handled a threatened players’ strike at the 1918 World Series. Spink wrote, “The entire incident left a nasty taste in everyone’s mouth. I have always felt that mercenary-minded players on those 1918 championship teams [Red Sox and Cubs] were mostly to blame; their judgment in pulling a strike at such a time was more than deplorable—it was downright stupid. Yet, the old Commission, especially Johnson and Herrmann, took a lot of abuse, and their conduct in dealing with the strikers was termed undignified. It was felt by many that it showed that the game needed a strong one-man head.”30 Later, two owners, including Red Sox magnate Harry Frazee approached William Howard Taft about replacing Herrmann, but he declined.31 NL President Heydler later conveyed to Spink that he realized the end of the three-man commission was near after the players’ strike in Boston. 32

Whether Ban Johnson was controlling Herrmann’s swing vote or Herrmann was trying to avoid civil litigation, the National Commission received more criticism in Johnson’s handling of pitcher Carl Mays’ defection from the Red Sox in 1920. Johnson suspended Mays, but the Red Sox traded him to the New York Yankees, claiming that they had not suspended him and defied Johnson’s power. The Yankees secured an injunction against the American League allowing Mays to pitch for them. This action caused alienation between Johnson and several AL clubs.33

As the power of the National Commission began to crumble, Barney Dreyfuss could only feel like he had accomplished what he set out to do in 1916. Several initiatives were under way to reform the leadership of the game. The final blow came in September 1920 when “the officialdom of Organized Baseball, ostensibly represented by a two-man National Commission, was in chaos.” That’s when the Black Sox Scandal broke and accelerated the movement toward a radical change in baseball and the hiring of Judge Landis.

The case of George Sisler pointed out, “Baseball and law have the same affinity that oil and water possess-they don’t mix, that’s all.”34 The National Commission, always mindful of welfare of the game, tried to avoid legal confrontations and in doing so created animosity among the magnates. Certainly Sisler had no idea when he signed that contract in 1911, he would challenge the structure of the game. The result of his action had a curious and interesting result: the game would be run by a Landis, a federal judge, and uniquely influenced by Rickey, a lawyer. 

SAM BERNSTEIN, MSW, is a school social worker in Elizabeth, New Jersey. When not rooting for the Mets, his main research interest is the life of Barney Dreyfuss.

Notes

1. Allen, Lee and Tom Meany. Kings of the Diamond. New York: Putnam, 1965, p. 104.

2. Smith, Lyall, “George Sisler as Told to Lyall Smith”, My Greatest Day in Baseball as told to John P. Carmichael and Other Sportswriters. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1996, p. 158.

3. Lanigan, Ernest J. Baseball Hall of Fame Library player file on George Sisler.

4. Smith, p. 158.

5. The Sporting News, June 15, 1916.

6. Mann, Arthur. Branch Rickey: American in Action. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1957, p 82.

7. The Sporting News, June 15, 1916.

8. Mann, p. 60.

9. Lipman, David. Mr. Baseball: The Story of Branch Rickey, New York: Putnam, 1966, p. 39.

10. Lipman, p. 53.

11. Mann, pp. 60-61.

12. Biederman, Les. “Gorgeous George H. Sisler,” The Sporting News, February 25, 1953.

13. The Sporting News, June 15, 1916.

14. Spink, J. G. Taylor. Judge Landis and Twenty-Five Years of Baseball. New York: Thomas Crowell, 1947, p. 41.

15. Honig, Donald. The Greatest First Basemen of All Time. New York: Crown, 1988, p. 23.

16. Ward, John J. “The Famous Sisler Case,” Baseball Magazine, October 1916, p. 35.

17. Allen, Lee. Cooperstown Corner. Cleveland: SABR, 1990, p. 164.

18. The Sporting News, June 15, 1916.

19. The Sporting News, June 15, 1916.

20. Honig, p. 23.

21. “Dreyfuss vs. Herrmann,” Baseball Magazine, October 1916, p. 22.

22. Honig, p. 21.

23. Spink, p. 43. In 1945 Sisler stated to Lyall Smith (p. 158), “I didn’t know at the time I signed that contract I was stepping into a rumpus that went on and on until it finally involved the National Baseball Commission, the owners of two big league clubs and Judge Landis.”

24. Bruce, John E. “The Chief Justice of Baseball’s Supreme Court,” Baseball Magazine, February 1912, p. 54.

25. Spink, p. 43.

26. Seymour, Harold. Baseball: The Golden Age. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 261.

27. Seymour, p. 261.

28. Seymour, p. 262.

29. Seymour, p. 43.

30. Seymour, p. 45.

31. Seymour, p. 263.

32. Spink, p. 45.

33. White, G. Edward. Creating the National Pastime. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996, p. 107.

34. Ward, p. 33.

However, his irascibility didn’t endear him with major league owners and front-office men. When one adds his propensity for gambling and controversy, it’s little wonder the Chicago Cubs cast him adrift in the summer of 1932, although the Cubs were in third place and still entertained hopes of a pennant.

Given all these shortcomings, Hornsby didn’t attract much attention on the free market. The Pirates, though, were one team that was very much interested in obtaining Hornsby’s services for a stretch drive of their own.

Not the Pittsburgh Pirates, but the Hampton, Iowa, Pirates, a crack semi-professional team that was enjoying its most successful season since coming into existence in 1923.

John Clinton Marschall had organized the team in the summer of that year when he returned home from classes at the University of Iowa. Nicknamed “Smoke” for his pitching arm, Marschall was unable to break into the Hawkeyes’ starting lineup. A friend of his suggested that he take up track and field. Marschall did, and he soon became an accomplished javelin thrower. 

Yet he couldn’t long ignore baseball’s siren call. He played center field for the Pirates and surrounded himself with athletes of similar educational background. High school classmates and accomplished area amateurs supplemented the lineup.

For the first few years the Pirates played teams within a 50-mile radius. They also played host to barnstorming teams such as the House of David, Kansas City Monarchs, and Gilkerson’s United Giants.

Convinced that baseball would retain its popularity even in the midst of a nationwide slump, Marschall in 1931 refurbished the old bleachers at the fairgrounds and added a 135,000-watt lighting system to enable the Pirates to play night baseball.

The gamble worked.

The Pirates were soon attracting as many as 6,000 fans to games with top-notch opponents. The attendance figures were buoyed by promotions such as ladies night, deep discounts on season tickets, and a carnival-like atmosphere, with circus entertainers, motorcycle exhibitions, and boxing matches scheduled on the same day as baseball games.

Marschall and the Pirates slowly began to expand their circle, scheduling games all over Iowa, not to mention South Dakota and Nebraska.

The Pirates also were making the transition to a strictly professional team. In place of amateurs, Marschall was able to attract players from the American Association and Three I League. He had also secured the services of two Iowa natives, Art Reinhart and Wattie Holm, who helped the Cardinals to a world championship in 1926.

Reinhart, a native of nearby Ackley, pitched one game for the Cardinals in 1919. The lanky left hander kicked around in the minors for five years before returning to the Cardinals in 1925. In his first full year Reinhart strung together an 11-5 record and a 3.05 earned run average, which placed him among the league leaders in that category.

During the Cardinals’ stretch run in 1926, Reinhart picked up a victory in a crucial doubleheader against the Pittsburgh Pirates in September at Sportsman’s Park. Reinhart disappointed in the World Series. He was loser to the Yankees in the fourth game, walking four and surrendering four runs in the fifth inning without getting an out.

Reinhart was denied a chance to redeem himself. He was one of the pitchers warming up in the bullpen in the late innings of the decisive seventh game. Hornsby opted for the veteran Pete Alexander, who finished the game out to earn the underdog Cardinals the world championship.

Holm, a native of Peterson, also attended the University of Iowa. He was promptly signed by the Cardinals and was sent down to Syracuse. An outfielder, he played from 1924 to 1928 with the Cardinals. A career .278 batting average, he was a good contact hitter who struck out only 86 times in 1,500 at-bats. Holm, too, contributed to the Cardinals’ title with a Series home run.

Both players might have been able to find major league employment had times been flush, but the Depression had forced teams to tighten their belts. Attendance was sagging and teams were forced to cut salaries and ax players.

Marschall also inked Bud Knox, the former Pittsburgh Pirates catcher, and Lynn King, a Drake University alum who would step up to the major leagues a few years later.

Even those who took note of Marschall’s ability to sign major league-level talent, however, raised an eyebrow when the Mason City Globe-Gazette on August 24, 1932, announced that Hornsby and the Hampton Pirates were nearing agreement on a contract.

The Globe-Gazette had picked up the story from the United Press International. The story came their way by a Carroll daily newspaper reporter who prefaced his report with the following proviso: “It may be just another one of those things.

Nonetheless, the rumor spread as quickly as a prairie fire in Hornsby’s native state. When Hornsby was contacted by the press, he disavowed any such arrangement. Marschall was not with the club in Carroll when the story broke. His whereabouts were unknown, but he was expected to rejoin the club at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the following day.

When a reporter hooked up with him the following day, Marschall expressed optimism that a deal could be struck.

“Reinhart and Hornsby used to be buddies on the St. Louis Cardinals,” he told the Globe-Gazette. “Reinhart has been in negotiations with Hornsby to play with us. I am not prepared, however, to make an announcement yet.”

The prospect of a player of Hornsby’s stature toiling for a semi-professional team might sound ludicrous. However, there were incentives.

Hornsby was deep in debt. According to one biographer, Charles Alexander, Hornsby was embroiled in a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service concerning a tax deduction. If disallowed, Hornsby and his wife would owe the federal government several thousand dollars.

Hornsby, always a profligate spender, also owed baseball acquaintances several hundred dollars when his horse racing selections finished up the track.

The top prize in the Council Bluffs tournament was $1,600. A piece of the purse, coupled with the $300 to $400 per game that Marschall pledged to pay, would have alleviated Hornsby’s financial suffering.

When weighed against a month or two of inactivity, the opportunity to play with the Pirates didn’t seem to be a bad scenario. He would be reunited with two World Series pals and play against top-notch competition, just a step below the major leagues.

Remember it was Hornsby who said, “It don’t make no difference where I go or what happens, so long as I can play the full nine.” On another occasion he stated, “Baseball is my life. It’s the only thing I know and care about.”

The score books, in the possession of Marschall’s son, John, don’t contain an entry for Hornsby. There was no incentive for Marschall to keep the matter secret. The news that Hornsby would play in the tournament would have swelled attendance figures.

The Council Bluffs Daily Nonpariel, which covered the tournament, would have certainly recognized Hornsby. But there is no mention of him in a newspaper box score.

There are other factors that conspired to make the deal fall through. The Pirates had two African Americans in their starting lineup. Hilton, who reportedly played for the Monarchs, played second base. Simms, one time a member of the Gilkerson’s United Giants, patrolled center field. 

Hornsby, according to Alexander, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, although it was doubtful he was active in the organization. Still, the presence of two African Americans on the same field, on the same team, may have led Hornsby to reconsider.

Swede Risberg was a member of the Sioux City Stockyards, who were entered in the tournament. Since his banishment from baseball for his role in the Black Sox scandal, Risberg had traveled from town to town, finding employment with semi-professional teams when he could. He had applied for reinstatement several times, but his pleas were turned down by Commissioner Landis.

Landis, if he caught wind of Hornsby’s participation in a tournament with Risberg, would likely have severely reprimanded Hornsby. It’s likely, said Alexander, that Landis would have prevented Hornsby from ever playing major league baseball again. It’s a pity the deal was never consummated.

Hampton was considered a dark horse, but upset the Cuban Giants en route to a title game with the House of David. In a delicious bit of irony, Grover Cleveland Alexander reprised his role in the World Series five years earlier. After his team scored the go-ahead run in extra innings, Alexander closed out the Pirates to secure a title for the House of David.

Hornsby’s experience with the Pirates provided him with a template for his baseball days after his major league career was over. He found out that a washed-up major leaguer could still make another large payday when he helped a Denver semi-professional team to a tournament title in 1937.

DUANE WINN is the editor of the Brooklyn (Iowa) Chronicle. He also is pursuing a master’s degree in journalism and mass communications at Drake University in Des Moines.

A diverse crowd of 5,000 deaf and hearing people witnessed this once-in-a-lifetime event. The Reds were celebrating the opening of their new concrete stadium. Weber’s Band provided the music for the occasion. Mayor Julius Fleischmann and Judge Ferris gave short speeches complimenting the club and the public for the opening of the grandstand and expressing the hope that the season would be very successful.

Luther Haden “Dummy” Taylor took the mound for the visiting New York Giants. William Ellsworth “Dummy” Hoy played center field and was the leadoff hitter for the Cincinnati Reds. At the age of 40, Hoy was in his last season with the Reds.

In those days, being called “Dummy” was not intended to reflect low intelligence or poor ball playing skills. Rather, the nickname “Dummy” was referring to being deaf and unable to speak. It should be noted that neither man was insulted by the nickname; they were both proud and inspired by their team-given names.

Horace Fogel, the Giants manager at the time, named Taylor to start the game. There was only one umpire, Joe “Pongo Joe” Cantillon, who would make all the calls on the field and at home plate. Before the game started, Dummy Taylor threw warm-up pitches from the mound. Meanwhile, Dummy Hoy did his preparation activities in the batter’s circle. He then strode up to the plate, looked at Dummy Taylor on the pitcher’s mound, and said in sign language, “I’m glad to see you” before stepping up to bat. Hoy led off with a hit to center field.

Hoy played a great game, as he was the only Red to collect two hits. Luther Taylor performed well, pitching eight innings and allowing no earned runs. However, a shortstop error allowed three Reds, including Hoy, to cross home plate in the eighth to give Cincinnati a 3-0 lead.

Dummy Taylor settled down and made sure that Hoy did not steal any bases during the game. It looked like Taylor’s performance might be sacrificed, as he was pulled and replaced by a pinch-hitter for the Giants’ last at-bat in the ninth inning. New York rallied to score five runs and took a 5-3 lead. Hoy was able to get one run, one walk, and two hits off Taylor and did not strike out. Ultimately the Reds failed to score in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Giants won the game 5-3. Taylor was credited for the victory as he struck out four and walked only two.

This game was the only time in major league history when two deaf players faced each other. It also ended up being the only time that Hoy and Taylor would face off against each other in their major league careers. While New York and Cincinnati met several times that season, Hoy and Taylor’s playing time did not coincide. Taylor pitched in relief against the Reds twice, but Hoy was replaced in the center field by a young player named Cy Seymour.

Dummy Hoy started his professional career late at the age of 26. Despite the late start, Hoy managed to finish his career with 2,042 hits, 594 stolen bases (reaching the 500 mark at age 40), 1,424 runs, and a career batting average of .288. Dummy Taylor went on to pitch with the Giants for eight more years, compiling a 116-106 record, a respectable 2. 75 ERA, and 21 shutouts. Taylor spent eight more years in the minor leagues before retiring.

Interestingly, later in the season, Taylor helped to initiate John McGraw’s reputation as an accomplished manager during the July 23, 1902 game between the Brooklyn Superbas (Dodgers) and the New York Giants. Taylor beat the Superbas 4-1, handing John McGraw the first of his 2,763 regular-season managerial wins.

On September 6, 1942, Dummy Hoy and Dummy Taylor returned to the baseball diamond in Toledo, Ohio, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of their Palace of the Fans encounter. They performed as battery mates to open the Ohio. State Deaf Softball Tournament, where Toledo played the Akron “Rubber City Silents” at Willys Park Field.

Luther Hayden Taylor passed away on August 22, 1958, at the age of 82, eleven days after suffering a heart attack. William Ellsworth Hoy threw the first ball of the 1961 World Series, played by the New York Yankees and the Cincinnati Reds. Hoy passed away six weeks later on December 15, 1961, at 99 years of age. 

JAMES GOODWIN and RANDY FISHER are members of the “Dummy” Hoy Committee, which is attempting to put Hoy into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

I cannot find any contemporary indication that the Boston American League baseball club was ever known as the Pilgrims in 1903. It’s a fairly widespread myth, though, which has taken on the appearance of fact. Late in 2002, a quick survey of key baseball Web sites finds the American League entry in the 1903 Series almost always termed the “Boston Pilgrims.” Among these sites are those of Major League Baseball and baseball-reference.com.

There also exist a number of standard baseball reference books. Total Baseball has always been my favorite. Unfortunately, the seventh edition describes the Boston Pilgrims as facing the Pittsburgh Pirates on page 280. No wonder I used the name when writing and while proofreading Tales from the Red Sox Dugout. No wonder other researchers do the same.

The Pilgrims keep cropping up. Burt Solomon’s The Baseball Timeline (2001), produced in association with Major League Baseball, consistently refers to the “Boston Pilgrims.” The Sporting News book Baseball, edited by Joe Hoppel, which was also published in 2001, says the 1903 World Champions were “the Red Sox ( also known as the Pilgrims, Puritans and Americans.)” I’ve scoured the Boston newspapers of the day, though, and find nothing which even suggests that there was a team known as the Boston Pilgrims in 1903. Or, for that matter, the Puritans. They’re both wonderful names, but I can’t find even a shred of evidence that they were names used by anyone in Boston at the time.

The team was also not named the Boston Americans. That was perhaps the most common nickname—to distinguish it from the older NL club in town—but “the Bostons” was a nickname used interchangeably and about as often in the contemporary press. The Boston Red Sox might be in a position to know. They have a Web site, but according to their site the team was always named the Red Sox, from their founding in 1901 right up to the present! They should know better than that.

The Red Sox actually do know better. Their media guide, for example, details the story of how the team first became known as the Red Sox, though in the process gives the incorrect impression that the team was known as the Red Sox during the 1907 season. (see page 282 of the 2003 media guide). It was not until the following year, 1908, that players donned red hosiery and played under the name “Red Sox.”

Despite this awareness, though, the media guide is internally inconsistent. On page 340 of the same edition, the name Red Sox is applied to the 1903 club. On the cover, however, the “Boston Americans” are recognized. The Library of Congress Web site, by contrast, seems to get it right: “On October 1, 1903, the Boston Americans (soon to become the Red Sox) of the American League played the National League champion Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series. Pittsburgh won the game by a score of seven to three, but lost the best of nine game series to Boston, five games to three.”

Last things first. As mentioned above, the Red Sox media guide provides the 1907 date as the first for the “Red Sox.” Describing them as adopting that moniker in 1907 would seem to imply that the team was known as the Red Sox during the 1907 season. They were not. That began with the 1908 season. Glenn Stout and Dick Johnson in Red Sox Century, the most definitive history of the team, report that Boston’s AL team owner John I. Taylor made the decision to name the team the Red Sox on December 18, 1907 and ordered new uniforms with bright red stockings from Wright and Dixon, the sporting goods supplier.

Stout and Johnson then quote the reaction of both the Boston Journal newspaper and The Sporting News. Tim Murnane, writing in The Sporting News, said, “Well, what do you think of that? The Boston Americans have a new name … the ‘Red Sox’.”

There are two points of note here. One, if the team was given this name only in mid-December, it would seem misleading for the Red Sox media guide or other sources to suggest that it was their team name for the 1907 season, as opposed to just the last two weeks of December. Second, the veteran writer Murnane suggests that the team was known as the Boston Americans up until the time the change was made. Murnane doesn’t say the “Pilgrims” have a new name. He says the ”Americans” have a new name.

Of course, they could have been the Pilgrims in 1903 and the Americans in 1907. Murnane actually adds more context when he elaborates, “Ever since Boston became identified with the American League an effort has been made to give the team an appropriate nickname which would sound good in print … but no two writers will agree on any one name. It was consequently up to John T. Taylor to re-christen his bunch and he has done so effectively.

In Red Sox Century, Stout and Johnson note what I found in my own reading of the several Boston daily newspapers of this era, regarding both the AL and NL teams in Boston: “Neither team had a nickname, nor would they for several more seasons. Both were simply called ‘the Bostons,’ although to differentiate between the two clubs, fans, sportswriters, and players commonly began referring to the NL entry as ‘the Nationals,’ and their American League counterparts as ‘the Americans.’ Other nicknames, such as the Pilgrims, Puritans, Plymouth Rocks, Somersets (so named after owner Charles Somers), or Collinsmen (after manager Collins) for the AL team and the Beaneaters, Triumvirs, or Seleemen (after manager Frank Selee) for the Nationals, were convenient inventions of the press. Their subsequent use by many historians is misleading. None of these nicknames was ever widely used by either fans or players.”

Precisely. In fact, the nicknames were not always convenient inventions—in that both the Boston Nationals and the Boston Americans were sometimes dubbed the Beaneaters! Even within columns by the same sportswriter in the same newspaper, these casual nicknames were changed from day to day. Late in 2002, I completed a game-by-game chronology of the entire 1903 season, and found that the nickname used most consistently for the AL team—the only one which was really widely used at all—was the ”Americans.” Their 1902 uniforms reflected this terminology to some extent. Photographs show “B. A.” on front of the uniform. This confirms what Tim Murnane reported just a few years later.

Almost all today’s standard reference books list the 1903 team as the Boston Pilgrims, but it’s hard to know why—other than that it really is a nice nickname, and a name that sounds good in print is appealing to many people. But the record of the day would indicate that “Pilgrims” was not used all that often in the press. How often was it used, though, really?

Analysis of Boston Newspaper Sports Coverage in 1903

The Boston Herald was the biggest newspaper in town in 1903. I decided to perform a content analysis of the game accounts as run in the Herald. A careful survey indicates that the team was indeed referred to by a number of names.

On some occasions, more than one team name would be used in a given day’s newspaper—sometimes one name would appear in the headline and another one in the body of the text. I counted only one usage per game account. Assuming that texts were written by reporters closer to the game, and headlines often written by editors, I decided to choose the name used in the text unless no name was used, in which case I used the name from the headline, if there was one.

I read every game account for the entire 1903 season. There were nine accounts where no team name or nickname was used in either the headline or the text. The content analysis revealed that the name “Boston Americans” was used 57 times, while the term “Bostons” to describe the team was used in 54 game accounts. Interestingly, though, of the 54 game texts where “Bostons” was used in the story, 29 times the name “Boston Americans” was used in the headline or sub-head. The general impression is that the two terms were used fairly interchangeably, though with far more frequency than any other nicknames.

There were four game accounts in which the AL team was referred to as the “Beaneaters.” There were two game accounts in which the only named characterization was “Bostonians,” and there was one game account that referred to the team as the “Collinsites.” There were a number of other collective phrases used as aggregate descriptors to “name” the team. These were: the locals Collins’ club, the Boston side, Boston Club, Collins’ men, Collins’ tribe, men from the Hub, the Boston team, the local team, and, of course, simply “Boston.”

In early September 1903, when the American League pennant seemed within their grasp, there were a couple of stories which referred to them as the “coming champions” (the sportswriters of the day were not snakebit, the way Red Sox fans have learned to become) and once they clinched, there was at least one story referring to them collectively as the ”American League champions.” How many times was this team referred to as the “Pilgrims” or “Boston Pilgrims” in the Boston Herald? Not one time. 

Sampling of Other Boston Newspapers

One might conclude from this reading of the Boston Herald that there was no 1903 Boston team called the Pilgrims, or that for some perverse reason the Herald chose to ignore the name. I didn’t want to have to read every game account in every other daily Boston newspaper, but I decided to sample them.

I looked at four other daily newspapers and read each of their game accounts for the month of September 1903. I picked the last month of the season, figuring that coverage would be fuller as the season progressed and as it became clearer that Boston’s American League team—whatever it was called—would become the champions. I read each day’s September 1903 coverage (whether there was a game or not) in the Boston Post, Boston Globe, Boston Journal, and Boston Record.

The Boston Post results were as follows: Boston Americans, 16; the Collins team, 5; Bostons, 3; Boston, 3; Collinsites, 1; the Collins boys, 1; the champion Boston nine, 1. On several occasions the “Boston Americans” were mentioned in the headline but not in the story. Sometimes the only mention was in the headline, while otherwise the team was listed as “Boston.” As I read the Post, I counted such occurrences as “Boston Americans.” More often than not the headline read ”Americans” but the text simply referred to “Boston” as a collective entity, as in “Boston played a good game today.”

Other teams, such as the Senators, White Sox, Athletics, Browns, and Highlanders were referred to by nicknames or by city name (e.g., the Detroits). Even when the Post used the term ”Americans” in their headline, though, it was clear in the accompanying text that they more formally referred to the team as “the Boston American League club.” The Post typically termed the other league’s Boston entry as the Boston Nationals.

When describing the upcoming World Series, the September 1903 Post referred to the Pittsburgh National/Boston American series. How many times was this team referred to as the “Pilgrims” or “Boston Pilgrims” in the Boston Post? Not one time.

Analysis of the Boston Globe’s daily coverage produced the following results: Boston, 18; Americans, 6; Bostons, 1; Collins’ men, 1; Bostonians, 1; the Boston boys, 1. There were two days where I could not find any mention at all of the team—and they were both in the final week of the season. The Globe seemed to be very cautious in giving the team any nickname at all.

As we can see, the use of the city name alone was the predominant usage. I tried to err in favor of finding a team nickname. If one story used “Boston” two times and “Boston Americans” two times, I would tend to “award” that game story to the “Boston Americans” tally. In most instances, there was no decision to be made, in that mixed messages as to team name were not conveyed. How many times was this team referred to as the “Pilgrims” or “Boston Pilgrims” in the Boston Globe? Not one time.

Anyone begin to detect a pattern here? The Boston Journal had very good coverage of ball games, too. They often followed the practice of putting the nicknames of other teams into quotation marks, e.g. “Senators” and “Tigers.” The content analysis in the Journal showed: Boston, 12; Bostons, 7; Americans, 2; Collins’ men, 1; the Collins team, 1; Boston American club, 1; champions, 1; no reference, 5. Interestingly, a few days after Boston clinched the pennant, the Journal began to refer to the team in the headlines as the “champions,” though only once did the story text apply that designation.

The Journal also included a column composed of quotes from fans on how they rated their team’s chances, but not a single fan referred to the Pilgrims, either. How many times was the team in question referred to as the “Pilgrims” or “Boston Pilgrims” in the Boston Journal? Not once. The last newspaper I read for September 1903 was the Boston Record. The Record always presented a header over its league standings. “The Americans’ Record” was the box title for the league standings and “with the National Leaguers” for the senior circuit. As to daily coverage of the Boston entry in the AL, the Record’s stories broke down in these quantities: Americans, 11; Boston, 6; Collins and his pets, 1; Collins and his charges, 1; Jimmy Collins’ men, 1 (the same story also referred to “the Boston boys”); Boston American League baseball team, 1; no reference, 2. How many times was this team referred to as the “Pilgrims” or “Boston Pilgrims” in the Boston Record? Not one time.

One might note, parenthetically, that the name “Puritans” also never appeared once in any of the daily newspapers sampled. A survey of these five major daily newspapers in Boston in 1903 failed to turn up even one reference to the alleged “Boston Pilgrims.”

Where did this name come from? Agreed, it’s a nice name, but it doesn’t seem to have been this team’s name. When a paper like the Journal included a column composed of quotes from fans on how they rated the team’s chances in the 1903 World Series, not a single fan referred to the team as Pilgrims. The only reference I’ve yet found for the “Pilgrims” shows up in a Boston Journal article in December 1907—well after the 1903 season was concluded.

Sampling of Other Newspapers from Cities with American League Teams

I also read every September 1903 game account in newspapers from three other cities which hosted American League baseball teams. I read through the daily coverage provided by the Chicago Tribune, New York Times and Washington Post.

The Chicago Tribune typically used the straightforward designation “Boston” in its game stories. No other name was used more than once—except for the name “Beaneaters,” which was used in three accounts. In addition, the Tribune described the team as Collins’ aggregation, Collins’ men, the Americans, the Bostons, the Bostonians, and also, in one instance, the Plymouth Rocks.

The New York Times never really used any designation other than the city name: Boston. In accounts datelined from Boston itself, game stories would sometimes referred to “the local baseball team,” “the local men,” or, in one case, “the local Americans.” After clinching the championship, the Times once referred to the Boston club as “the new American League baseball champions.”

More than half the time, the Washington Post also simply used the city’s name to describe the team. The Post, like the Tribune, employed “Beaneaters” (four times); they used ”Americans” twice and “champions” twice. In general, the feeling I was left with was that the team really did not have any name, nor did it have a common nickname.

Even though the team was often described as the “Boston Americans,” that was more often in the headlines than in the story. Even then, one did not get the impression that this was meant to be taken as the name of the time; it seemed more simply a way to distinguish the column presenting the AL team’s cover age from that of the NL team’s. Though it’s convenient (and enjoyable) to have team nicknames, I believe that, in this case and the team’s 1902 uniforms notwithstanding, it would be inaccurate to state definitively that the team nickname was the ”Americans”—the designator “Bostons” was used as often.

We are probably better off concluding that the team really had no nickname until “Red Sox” became established prior to the 1908 season. All in all, the team was described in newspaper columns as “Boston” or “the Bostons” and, when more clarity was necessary, the “Boston Americans.” The Boston Pilgrims, though, never existed, not in the minds of the sportswriters, or in the minds of the fans ( as best we can tell).

Over the course of 2003, as we begin to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first World Series, hopefully many Web sites and standard reference sources will begin to effect changes to correct the historical record. As a result of this research, STATS Inc. has agreed to change its data, as has baseball-reference.com and the Baseball Almanac. The Pirates have already corrected their Web site.

Over time, the names Pilgrims and Puritans will probably tend to disappear. It seems like sort of a shame, because someone once went to the trouble to invent these more colorful nicknames and they caught on. History is often rewritten, but there is merit to sticking more closely to contemporary facts.

There is a fascination in reading these 1903 sportswriters, how they covered games and how they occasionally labored to find alternative nicknames to describe these early teams that awkwardly lacked more formal names or nicknames. Pittsburgh was typically spelled without the “h” in 1903. As Louis Masur notes in Autumn Glory, the United States Board of Geographic Names dropped the “h” between 1890 and 1911.