Josh Gibson was the most dominant power hitter in the Negro Leagues from 1930 through 1946. His production was so prodigious that his Hall of Fame plaque reads he had almost 800 home runs. Unfortunately, documentation is limited. Teams barnstormed across the country, playing wherever the bus stopped. Black newspapers, for the most part, appeared weekly and had details of relatively few games. White newspapers sometimes took notice, but the articles about games in rural areas were not particularly detailed. However, when the Negro League teams were given the opportunity to play in big league ballparks, the coverage in the media was more significant, and fans—both Black and White—saw that Josh Gibson was capable of homering anywhere and everywhere. Writers in mainstream newspapers from New York in the East to Chicago in the Midwest joined with Black mainstays such as the Pittsburgh Courier and Chicago Defender in lauding Gibson’s power.

Josh Gibson first set foot in a big-league park as an 18-year-old in 1930, as a member of the Homestead Grays. He played at Forbes Field and Yankee Stadium that year. Legend has it that one of his homers sailed out of Yankee Stadium in 1934 (or was it 1930 or perhaps sometime in the 1940s?) and that two of his homers cleared the back left field bleacher wall at Griffith Stadium. It was also asserted in the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported in an Associated Press release that, after he homered in Philadelphia’s Shibe Park on July 18, 1944, he had hit at least one home run in each of the ten big league ballparks in which he played up to that point in his career.2 Later, newspapers including the Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer would claim that he had homered in every big league ballpark in which he played.

How true are these legends? What is the real story?

Gibson’s records are incomplete as he played most of his games beyond the spotlight of the big-league arenas, and there was not a premium on keeping score beyond the tally of runs. In this article, Josh Gibson’s feats at big league ballparks will be documented and establish that he did homer at every big league park in which he played—all 16.

In the early years of his career, most games played in big-league cities were not contested in major league parks. Black owners staged games in other venues, whether because of the high rental fees or racism on the part of owners of the big-league ballparks. Also, during the early part of Gibson’s career, most big-league ballparks did not have lights, while Negro League games were often played at night. In New York, Dexter Park and Dyckman Oval were used for most Negro League games. In Pittsburgh, games were held at Greenlee Field. In Philadelphia, games were held at the 44th and Parkside Ballpark (also known as the Bolden Bowl).

American Giants Park

In Chicago, many games were held at the American Giants Park (previously known as South Side Park, Schlorling’s Park, and Cole’s Park) at the intersection of 39th Street and Wentworth Avenue. American Giants Park had been, two decades earlier, the home of the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox took up residence at South Side Park in 1900, when they moved from St. Paul, then moved to Comiskey Park in 1910. The Negro Chicago American Giants moved into the ballpark in 1911 and remained there through 1940. Gibson first played there in 1930 when the Grays defeated the Chicago American Giants in five of six games between September 5 and September 8. While with the Crawfords, he played there in 1932 and 1934. His best effort was on June 17, 1934, when he went 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles in the second game of a doubleheader.3

In 1937, Gibson homered at American Giants Park. On Sunday August 29, the Grays visited the American Giants and took both games. In the opener—won by the Grays, 4-2—Gibson homered on a 3-1 pitch in the sixth inning. The ball flew over the left field fence to give the Grays a 2-1 lead.4

Forbes Field and Yankee Stadium

Gibson’s professional career had begun in 1929 with the Pittsburgh Crawfords. The Crawfords would not be taken over by Gus Greenlee until 1931, and at the time Gibson played for them, they were not yet the powerhouse team that they would become. They played their home games at Ammon Field in Pittsburgh and went 63–11 against less-than-stellar opposition.5 On July 25, 1930, Gibson joined the Homestead Grays, the pre-eminent Negro team, and hit nine homers with them over the balance of the season, his first coming on August 22 at Akron in a 16–5 win over the Detroit Stars.6 (Not long after joining the Grays, tragedy stuck when Gibson’s wife died while giving birth to twins on August 20.7) Against the Baltimore Blacksox on September 13, he homered in each game of a doubleheader at Forbes Field.

He made his Yankee Stadium debut on September 21. His first two Yankee Stadium homers came in a Negro League World Series doubleheader on September 27. His first homer came in the third inning of a 9-8 first game loss. But his second homer in the Bronx that day was a truly memorable clout. It was a two-out three-run first inning homer off Connie Rector in the second game which traveled an estimated 460 feet to the bleachers in left-center field, and gave the Grays the lead as they went on to defeat the Lincoln Giants, 7-3, for their fifth win of the series.8 Per the Baltimore Afro-American, “it was the longest home run that has been hit at the Yankee Stadium by any player, white or colored, all season.”9 The next day, he went 1-for-4 in the second game as the Grays took that contest, 5-2, in a game halted by darkness after eight innings, to win the series six games to four.10,11

Gibson went on to hit seven homers during the 34 games he played at Yankee Stadium, none of which apparently went completely out of the stadium.

In 1940, the Scranton Tribune had scoffed at Ted Shayne’s assertion that Gibson had accomplished the feat. They received several letters in support of the claim, mentioning that the ball, presumably hit in 1930, had landed in the distant bleachers and bounced over the outer perimeter of the ballpark.12

One of his most-remembered home runs took place at Forbes Field on October 23, 1934, when the Crawfords barnstormed with the Dizzy Dean All Stars. After an interruption in the game—a bench-clearing brawl that even the fans joined in on—play resumed with Dean’s team leading, 3–1, but the Crawfords came back to win, 4–3. Their game-winning, two-out, eighth-inning rally featured a double by manager Oscar Charleston, a Gibson homer, a triple by Judy Johnson, and a single by Curtis Harris.13 Gibson’s homer, one of his longest, cleared the wall in left field.

Cleveland Stadium and League Park

Gibson joined the Pittsburgh Crawfords in 1932. Crawfords’ owner Gus Greenlee sent his squad barnstorming, making occasional stops at big-league ballparks. At the time, there were two major league ballparks in Cleveland—League Park and Cleveland Stadium. Gibson homered at each. In a doubleheader against the Cleveland Cubs on June 19, 1932, Gibson powered a homer out of Cleveland Stadium. The next year, at League Park on July 23, 1933, the Crawfords defeated the Chicago American Giants in a doubleheader. In the first game, Gibson had three hits—all singles—as the Crawfords won, 8–1. Chicago’s only run was a ninth-inning homer by Alex Radcliffe. The second game went to the Crawfords, 13–12, in 12 innings. Gibson tripled and homered in the game, bringing the total of big-league ballparks in which he homered to four.14 He was far from finished with his tour.

Ebbets Field

Gibson’s first appearances at Ebbets Field were in 1935 when the Crawfords visited the Brooklyn Eagles, owned by the husband-wife team of Abe and Effa Manley. They played on July 13–14, and a Gibson clout in the first game of a doubleheader on July 14 gave him homers in two of the three New York ballparks. Gibson started in three of the five games played by the Crawfords at Ebbets Field in 1935. In those games, he went a combined 7-for-12.

The Eagles moved to Newark after the 1935 season and over the next several years the Negro League baseball played in Brooklyn was between out-of-town teams. Most of the games were at Dexter Park but Ebbets Field was used on occasion. On September 6, 1942, the Homestead Grays played the Newark Eagles there. The Grays won, 4–2, and Gibson stroked his second Ebbets-Field homer.15

Borchert Field

Toward the end of the 1935 season, the Crawfords took off for a western swing that took them to Milwaukee’s Borchert Field, the longtime home of the minor league Brewers. Borchert Field was originally built in the late 19th century and had served as the home, at the end of the 1891 season, of the Brewers who joined the American Association for the final month of the league’s existence. Only 20 big-league games were played at Borchert Field. At Milwaukee, the Crawfords swept two games from the Chicago American Giants by respective scores of 17-2 and 8-3. Gibson’s Borchert field homer came in the 8-3 win on August 28.16

Oriole Park

At the end of the 1937 season, the Negro League World Series was held between the Grays and the Chicago American Giants. Ten games were played, and nine ballparks were used. On September 26, the teams split a doubleheader at Oriole Park in Baltimore. Although Baltimore was not a big league city in 1937 and would not host an American League game until 1954, Baltimore had been in the Federal League in 1914–15 and had used Oriole Park, then known as Terrapin Park, for its home games. Hence, when Gibson homered there in a 14-11 loss on September 26, he had added another big-league park to his list. For those counting, the list, with the additions of American Giants Park, Borchert Field, and Oriole Park, stood at nine at the end of 1937.

Josh Gibson, pictured with the Pittsburgh Crawfords in the mid-1930s, hit a home run in all 15 big-league stadiums in which he played during his Hall of Fame career. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)

Griffith Stadium

Gibson’s first homer at Griffith Stadium came on June 28, 1931, in a 5-2 Grays’ win over Hilldale.17 Griffith Stadium was the proving ground that defined Gibson’s greatness as a home-run hitter. Witness his performance there eight years later, on July 16, 1939. As writer Sam Lacy said, “The first contest ended 8–7 in favor of the Grays, largely because of Gibson, and the nightcap concluded with a score of 6–5 in favor of the Stars in spite of Gibson.”18 In the bottom half of the ninth inning of the opener his second homer of the game broke a 7–7 tie and gave the Grays the win over the Philadelphia Stars. In the second game his second-inning homer left the stadium completely. He also tripled during the course of the doubleheader split with the Stars.19

After the 1939 season, Gibson left the Negro Leagues to play ball in Mexico, not returning to the Grays full-time until 1942. But he did appear with the Grays for one doubleheader at Griffith Stadium in 1940 and, to nobody’s great surprise, hit a home run. In the first game of a doubleheader on August 18, his two-run blast capped a five-run rally, and the Grays went on to win 6-4 over the Philadelphia Stars.20 By the time he returned to the Grays in 1942, the team was using Forbes Field for Saturday home games and Griffith Stadium for Sunday home games. Gibson had his only Griffith Stadium homer of the season on May 17 in a 6-5 loss to the Baltimore Elite Giants.

What Josh Gibson did at Griffith Stadium in 1943 boggles the mind. The reality of it all dwarfs the myth!

According to myth, Gibson had more homers at Griffith Stadium in 1943 than all of the visiting American League teams had, combined, against the Washington Nationals. So, again we ask about the real story. Although he did not quite hit more homers than the visiting teams, the story of the 1943 season is compelling.

In April 1943, not a single home run was hit at Griffith Stadium—by anyone, Black or White.

In a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Stars in May, he was prolific. In the opener, he singled and doubled in the first game win, and doubled, tripled, and homered in the second game as the Grays completed the sweep in DC. His homer was reported to have traveled 440 feet. On the day, he was 5-for-8. He scored four runs and drove in seven.21 And, on May 31, he was just showing off. The Grays demolished the Baltimore Elite Giants, 17-0. Gibson went 5-for-6 with two homers. The first one, a solo shot in the second inning, gave his team the lead. The second homer, a grand slam, put the icing on the cake in the seventh inning.22

Through the end of May, Gibson thus had three homers at Griffith Stadium. The entirety of the American League, in 18 games, had two, courtesy of Charlie Keller and Bobby Doerr.

Gibson was far from finished. On June 20 against the Kansas City Monarchs and Satchel Paige, Gibson unleashed even more fury. In the opener, he went 4-for-5 with a pair of doubles as the Grays won 10-2. They had blown Paige away with a five-run first inning. In the second game, Gibson went 2-for-4 with two more doubles as the Grays won 7-6.23

The Grays first played in Homestead, Pennsylvania in 1912 and still played many games each season in the Pittsburgh area. On June 23, 1943, at Forbes Field, Gibson hit another of his signature blasts. This one traveled an estimated 20 feet over the left field scoreboard and gave the Grays a 2-1 a first inning lead against the Kansas City Monarchs. The Grays went on to win 8-3 as Gibson hit his sixth homer in 10 games.24

As June ended, Gibson’s count at Griffith Stadium was five, as was that of the visiting American League teams. Rudy York had hit two homers for the Tigers and Elmer Valo had hit a homer for the Athletics.

Fireworks on the Fourth of July? Of course! On July 4, the Grays hosted the Newark Eagles at Griffith Stadium and swept the doubleheader by scores of 6-2 and 6-5. Gibson went 1-for-2 in the opener and then, in the seventh inning of the second game with his team trailing 5-4, slammed a 430-foot two-run homer with Buck Leonard aboard to give the Grays the 6-5 win. For the day, he was 3-for-4 with a triple and the homer in the second game.25

Over the next two days the Brooklyn Bushwicks visited the Grays at each of the Grays’ home fields. On July 5, the Grays took two games at Forbes Field by scores of 5-4 and 8-5. The first game went 12 innings, and the Grays’ winning run scored when pitcher Edsall Walker executed a perfect squeeze play scoring Howard Easterling.26 Gibson extended his newest hitting streak to eight games with hits in each game. Brooklyn’s first game pitcher, Bots Nekola, left the game after the tenth inning.27 Nekola had two brief tenures in the major leagues. He was in nine game with the 1929 Yankees and two games with the 1933 Detroit Tigers. After his playing days, he scouted for the Red Sox from 1949 through 1976.

The next evening, the Bushwicks traveled with the Grays to Griffith Stadium. The Bushwicks were a top semi-pro team and their lineup featured three men who played in the major leagues. In addition to Nekola, the Bushwicks had Al Cuccinello had played 54 games with the 1935 New York Giants, and Wally Holborow, a pitcher, who would pitch for the Washington Nationals, appearing in nine games at Griffith Stadium in 1945. Gibson did not let up. He tripled and homered as the Grays won 11-3.28

Through July 14, Gibson had seven homers at Griffith Stadium as opposed to five for the visiting American League teams. But then the Nationals had a long homestand during which the visiting clubs had four homers. At the end of July the American League’s visiting teams had two more homers than Gibson.

In August, when the Grays returned to Griffith Stadium, Gibson homered against Newark and Baltimore to bring the count in Washington to nine. But by then, the count for the visiting clubs was up to 11.

On August 21, 1943, at Forbes Field, Gibson had three hits including a triple in the first game 9-1 win over the Baltimore Elite Giants. In the second game, his two homers drove in all his team’s runs in a 4-1 win.29

On September 2 at Griffith Stadium, Gibson was honored and presented with a trophy.30

On September 12, 1943, he hit his 10th and final Griffith Stadium homer of the season. He fell four homers short of the number posted by the visiting American League teams. However, he did hit more than the Washington Nationals. They only had nine for the season in 76 games. Gibson’s came in only 38 games in Washington. To underscore his dominance as a home-run hitter that season at Griffith Stadium, only three homers were hit by Black players not named Josh Gibson. To underscore how difficult it was to hit home runs there, compare the nine homers the Senators hit at their home ballpark with their 38 on the road.

In 1945 Gibson once again had more homers at Griffith Stadium than the Nationals. He had five and the Nationals only had one, an inside-the-park homer by Joe Kuhel.

As far as some of Gibson’s homers traveled at Griffith Stadium, only the one on July 16, 1939 went beyond the rear wall.

The final home run of Gibson’s career was also hit at Griffith Stadium, on September 15, 1946. It came in the first game of a doubleheader against the New York Cubans. It was his 27th career homer at that ballpark. It is estimated that he played in 153 games there. His production (one homer per 5.67 games) is slightly less than that of Babe Ruth, who had 34 homers in 171 games (one per 5.03 games) at that ballpark.

Of those players with at least 20 homers at Griffith Stadium, the player with the best home run frequency was Rocky Colavito. He had 24 homers in 57 games (one per 2.375 games). The second-most-frequent slugger at Griffith Stadium was Mickey Mantle. He had 29 homers in 98 games (one per 3.38 games).

Here is what other noted sluggers did at Griffith Stadium.

• Joe DiMaggio 30 homers (one per 4.17 games)
• Harmon Killebrew 41 homers (one per 4.80 games)
• Roy Sievers 91 homers (one per 5.14 games)
• Jimmie Foxx 27 homers (one per 5.78 games)
• Ted Williams 23 Homers (one per 6.83 games)
• Lou Gehrig 22 homers (one per 7.18 games)

Wrigley Field

Gibson got to display his talents at Chicago’s Wrigley Field on August 29, 1943. The Grays played the Kansas City Monarchs. In the first inning, against former teammate Satchel Paige, he hit a three-run homer to give his team the early lead. He also doubled, singled twice, and walked as the Crawfords went on to win, 10-4.31

Polo Grounds

On July 25, 1943, the Grays took on the Philadelphia Stars in the second game of a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds in New York. The Grays won 14-4, as Buck Leonard, Edsall Walker, and Gibson keyed their attack with homers.32 For Gibson, it was his first homer at the Polo Grounds. He would go on to homer another three times at the ballpark in Harlem.

Two of those homers came in one game in 1944, He hit two homers on July 16. The game was halted by rain in the ninth inning. The game had been tied, 6–6, after eight innings, and the Grays, with Gibson hitting a triple, had scored three runs in the ninth when the rains came. The score reverted to 6–6, and the ninth inning rally was washed away.33

Shibe Park

Two days after his multi-homer day at the Polo Grounds, Gibson hit a three-run homer that traveled 405 feet in an 11-4 win over the Baltimore Elite Giants in the first game of a doubleheader at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park. His first ever Shibe Park blast came in the first inning as the Grays scored five times.34

Comiskey Park

Although Gibson’s hitting performance was prodigious in several appearances, it would take Gibson a bit of time to add Chicago’s Comiskey Park to his list. Negro Baseball’s East-West All Star game was contested at Comiskey Park beginning in 1933, and although Gibson batted .483 (14-for-29) in 9 East-West appearances in the Windy City, he did not have a home run. In the 1935 East-West Game, Gibson had four hits in his first five at-bats and came to the plate in the 11th inning with Cool Papa Bell on second base. There were two outs at the time. The opposition wanted no part of Gibson, and he was intentionally walked, setting the stage for a game-winning homer by Mule Suttles.35 Chicago’s Negro American League team, the Chicago American Giants, played games at Comiskey Park beginning in 1941. On August 13, 1944, in the East-West Game, and Gibson’s long, seventh-inning double in front of 46,247 fans was not enough to offset a big five-run fifth inning by the West squad. The West won the game, 7–4. It was not until July 21, 1946, that Gibson finally connected for a homer at Comiskey. In front of an estimated 10,000 fans, he homered in the sixth inning of the second game of a doubleheader. His three-run shot highlighted a four-run inning that erased a Chicago American Giants’ 3-0 lead and propelled the Homestead Grays to a 9-7 win.36

Briggs Stadium

Gibson did not get the opportunity to play in Detroit’s Briggs Stadium until 1945. Although Detroit fielded Negro League teams in the early part of Gibson’s career, it was not until 1941 that the Grays played at Briggs Stadium. That season, Gibson was in Mexico. They returned to Briggs Stadium for a doubleheader in 1945. On June 3, the Grays shut out the Baltimore Elite Giants by scores of 1–0 and 5–0. Gibson’s double keyed a ninth-inning rally that produced the only run in the opener. In the second game, he homered to add Briggs Stadium to his remarkable list.37

Sportsman’s Park

Gibson got only one opportunity to play at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, as for most of his career, St. Louis did not have a team in the Negro Leagues. The St. Louis Stars, when they were in the Negro Leagues, did not play at Sportsman’s Park. A Negro team had first appeared at Sportsman’s Park after the 1921 season when a barnstorming group of St. Louis Cardinals played four games against the St. Louis Colored Giants. The first Negro League game at Sportsman’s Park took place on July 4, 1941, when the Chicago American Giants played the Kansas City Monarchs.38 Gibson finally played at the ballpark on July 9, 1946, in a doubleheader between the Homestead Grays and the Cleveland Buckeyes. The crowd of 19,774 sat through a rain delay in the third inning of the first game. At the time there was no score. But the Grays won the first game 12–2, with Gibson going 4-for-5. The second game did not start until 11:20 PM and they were only able to play two and one-half innings before the midnight curfew. The Grays scored nine runs in their two times at bat, three coming on a homer by Gibson, Although the game, not having gone five innings, was not technically official, Gibson’s homer was very much real.39

Other Major League Parks

Gibson did not play in Boston. The Massachusetts city was not in the Negro Leagues, although the Boston Royal Giants did play in the Negro minor leagues. There is no hard evidence that the Royal Giants played at Braves Field or Fenway Park. There is no record of their playing against either the Grays or Crawfords. Gibson’s barnstorming travels with the Grays and Crawfords never took him beyond Hartford, Connecticut when his teams played in New England. On May 26, 1944, the Grays played at Fenway Park, defeating Fore River, 1-0. Gibson did not play. His replacement, Robert Gaston, drove in the only run of the game with a sixth-inning single off the wall in left field.40

In Philadelphia, he often played at Shibe Park, but never appeared at the Baker Bowl.

Crosley Field

Only one major-league park remains. Did he ever homer at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field?

Gibson’s first appearance in Cincinnati was on August 23, 1933, and the game with Chicago was held at Crosley Field, then known as Redland Field. He went 1-for-4 as the Crawfords lost to Chicago, 6–2, but did not homer. Following the first East-West Game at Comiskey Park in 1933, the teams traveled to Redland Field for a rematch on September 14. Unfortunately, the game was rained out. Documentation of Gibson’s appearances in Cincinnati is elusive. During his time with the Crawfords, and later with the Grays, Cincinnati was not regularly represented in the Negro Leagues, and there is a significant question as to whether or not Gibson homered at Crosley Field.

There is strong anecdotal evidence that he homered there. Chester Washington of the Pittsburgh Courier declared in 1941 that Gibson had hit the longest home run at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field.41 Barnstorming was not as commonplace during the 1930s as it had been during the prior decade, but there were still tours that crisscrossed the country each October. In 1939, during an interview, Leo Durocher remembered an encounter at Crosley Field:

About two years ago, I played against Josh Gibson in Cincinnati and found that everything they say about him is true, and then some. In that game in Cincinnati, Josh hit one of the longest balls I’ve ever seen. Josh caught hold of one of Monte Weaver’s fast ones, and I’ll bet you it’s still sailing. Boy, how he could hit that ball!42

How good was Durocher’s recall? Further research indicates that, after the 1933 season, the Crawfords barnstormed with Jimmy Shevlin’s All-Stars, a team that, indeed, included Leo Durocher.43 As for the specific game in which Durocher saw a Gibson homer, probably on October 15, 1933, there is little in the way of detail. One thing known is that the homer did not come off Monte Weaver who was, at the time of the game at Crosley Field, toiling in the World Series for the Washington Senators. It likely came off Jim Weaver. On October 15, 1933, the Crawfords were scheduled to play Shevlin’s team at Crosley Field.44 Two days before, the Crawfords had taken on the Homestead Grays. The Grays defeated the Crawfords, 9-345, but the details of the game also are not known. Did Gibson homer on either October 13 or October 15? That will require more research.

Conclusion

When Gibson added Sportsman’s Park and Comiskey Park to his list in 1946, Jackie Robinson was playing for Montreal. Gibson would not live to see the first Black man play in the big leagues in the twentieth century. Gibson died on January 20, 1947. The travels of Josh Gibson forge a path of great achievement, but during his lifetime he was not as well-known as contemporary major league sluggers. At the Hall of Fame Induction ceremony in 1966, Ted Williams urged the Hall of Fame to open its doors to Negro League ballplayers. Gibson’s greatness was acknowledged with his induction into the Hall of Fame in 1972. On July 6, 2000, a stamp with Gibson’s image was issued by the United States Postal Service as part of its Legends of Baseball series.

ALAN COHEN has been a SABR member since 2010, and his first Baseball Research Journal article appeared in 2013. He serves as Vice President-Treasurer of the Connecticut Smoky Joe Wood Chapter and is datacaster (MiLB First Pitch stringer) for the Hartford Yard Goats, the Double-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. His biographies, game stories and essays have appeared in more than 40 SABR publications. Alan has contributed stories on Black baseball to several SABR books and has continued to expand his research into the Hearst Sandlot Classic (1946–65) from which 88 players advanced to the major leagues. He has four children and eight grandchildren and resides in Connecticut with wife Frances, their cats Morty, Ava, and Zoe, and their dog Buddy.

Cover art

SABR Baseball Research Journal cover illustration by Gary Cieradkowski. Click here to learn more about the process behind Gary’s cover design.

Sources

In addition to the sources shown in the notes, the author used Baseball-Reference.com, Seamheads.com, and the following:

Burick, Si. “Si-ings: Time (Magazine) Points Out ,” Josh Gibson of Homestead Grays as One of Greatest Sluggers of Pastime,” Dayton Daily News, July 21, 1943: 12.

Jones, Lucius Melancholy. “Sports Slants,” Atlanta Daily World, August 16, 1942: 8.

Snyder, Brad. “Black Baseball’s Return Caught On,” Detroit Free Press, March 21, 2008: 4E.

Washington, Chester. “Sez Ches,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 22, 1941: 16.

Notes

1 Jimmy Powers, “The Powerhouse,” New York Daily News, September 18, 1937: 27.

2 “Grays Jar Giants; Tie Stars, 4-4,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 19, 1944: 24.

3 Al Monroe, “Giants Drop Crawfords from Lead,” Chicago Defender, June 23, 1934: 17.

4 “Giants Drop 2 to Grays: Gibson Stars,” Chicago Defender, September 4, 1937: 19.

5 William Forsythe, Jr., “Jolly’s Jottings,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 31, 1929.

6 “Grays Defeat Stars by 16-5,” Akron Beacon Journal, August 23, 1930: 16.

7 “Wife of Homestead Gray Catcher Dies,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 23, 1930: 4, and “Helen Gibson,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 30, 1930: 18.

8 W. Rollo Wilson, “Grays Win Eastern World Series,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 4, 1930: 2-5; and “We Confess that the Fast Grays are Real,” New York Amsterdam News, October 1, 1930: 12.

9 “Giants Drop Championship,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 4, 1930: 15.

10 “Lincolns Split; Grays Capture Colored Title,” New York Daily News, September 29, 1930: 38; and “Poor Support Given Holland Kept Lincoln Giants from Going into a Tie with Homestead grays Last Sunday,” New York Amsterdam News, October 1, 1930: 12.

11 Gibson also homered at Philadelphia’s Bigler Field as the Grays won the fifth game of the series, 11–3. As described in the Philadelphia Tribune, Gibson “clouted the longest home-run ever seen at Bigler Field, the ball clearing the leftfield fence and even the roofs across Bigler Street.”; “Rivals Divide Double Bill Here; Grays Win 11-3, Lincolns on Top 6 to 4,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 2, 1930: 10.

12 Bob Considine, “On the Line,” Scranton Tribune, August 9, 1940: 15.

13 Balinger.

14 “Crawfords Trip Colored Rivals,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 24, 1933: 17.

15 William E. Clark, “Grays Clinch Pennant in Final Series with Eagles,” New York Age, September 12, 1942: 11.

16 “Crawfords Defeat Giants Again, 8-3,” Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wisconsin), August 29, 1935: Part 2, 1.

17 “Hilldale Series Thrills; Grays Set for Balto.,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 4, 1931: A5-A6

18 Sam Lacy, “Josh Gibson Clouts 3 Homers as Grays Divide,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 22, 1939: 22.

19 “Grays’ Catcher Hits 3 Homers; Team Takes 2,” Washington Post, July 17, 1939: 14.

20 “Homestead Grays Take Doubleheader,” Washington Post, August 19, 1940: 18.

21 “Grays Defeat Stars, 9-3, 8-2,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 24, 1943: 16, and “Homestead Grays Knock off Philadelphia Stars in Two Tilts,” New York Amsterdam News, May 29, 1943: 15.

22 “Josh Gibson’s Homers Help Grays Win,” Washington Post, June 1, 1943: 15.

23 Harold Jackson, “Grays Take Two from Monarchs,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 26, 1943: 23.

24 Paul Kurtz, “Gibson’s Bat Spurs Grays to 8-3 Win,” Pittsburgh Press, June 24, 1943: 24, and Al Abrams, “10,350 See Grays Defeat Monarchs in Night Game,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 24, 1943: 15.

25 “Grays Twice Victors over Newark Nine,” Washington Post, July 5, 1943: 11.

26 “Grays Win Twice, 5-4, 8-5,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 6, 1943: 15.

27 “Bushwicks Set for Cubans After Road Trip,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 6, 1943: 14.

28 “Grays’ Blasts Beat Bushwick Here by 11 to 3,” Washington Post, July 7, 1943: 16.

29 “Gibson Stars as Grays Win,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, August 22, 1943: 2-3.

30 “Grays Murder Ball to Win 5 Over Weekend: To Honor Josh Gibson, Home Run King, at Stadium,” New Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Virginia), August 28, 1943: B19.

31 “Paige Shelled off Hill as Grays Win,” Chicago Sun, August 30, 1943: 17.

32 “Bounce Homers All Over Polo Grounds Battle,” New York Amsterdam News, July 31, 1943: 14.

33 “Cubans Tie Grays, 6-6,” New York Times, July 17, 1944: 10, and “Cubans, Grays Tie, 6-6; Rains Cancels Twin Bill,” New York Age, July 22, 1944: 11..

34 “Grays Jar Giants; Tie Stars, 4-4,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 19, 1944: 24.

35 “East-West Game Draws 25,000 Fans—West Wins,” Chicago World, August 10, 1935: 7.

36 “Homestead Nine Wins Two from Negro Giants,” Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1946: 26.

37 “Grays Win Pair,” Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph, June 4, 1945:14.

38 “19,178 Fans See Negro Twin Bill,” St. Louis Globe Democrat, July 5, 1941: 9.

39 John Hagar, “Grays Pound Bracken, Beat Buckeyes, 12-2,” St. Louis Star-Times, July 10, 1946: 21.

40 “Homestead Grays Take Fore River,” Boston Globe, May 27, 1944: Sports-2.

41 Chester Washington, “Says Ches,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 21, 1941: 16.

42 Wendell Smith, “Brooklyn Dodgers Admit Negro Players Rate Place in Majors,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 5, 1939: 16.

43 Following the initial publication of this story in the Fall 2020 Baseball Research Journal, the author received correspondence from SABR member Richard Bogovich. The presence of Durocher on the Shevlin team in 1933 was noted in articles in the Cincinnati Enquirer on October 1, 1933 and October 5, 1933. The Crawfords also barnstormed in Cincinnati in 1934. No details of games in Cincinnati are available.

44 “Curtains for Baseball,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 15, 1933: 33.

45 “Grays Bump Crawfords,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 14, 1933: 16.

A publicity still of Lou Gehrig in Tarzan garb.

As the 1937 baseball season came to a close, Lou Gehrig was still at the top of his game. Lou had a .351 batting average that year, with 37 home runs and 158 RBIs. He was fourth in voting for the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award, having won the title the year before. Lou made his annual appearance in the 1937 All-Star Game, hitting a home run off legendary pitcher Dizzy Dean. Lou already held the major league record for playing in the most consecutive games and his streak was approaching 2,000 games. His New York Yankees won the 1937 World Series, beating the New York Giants, four games to one.

Lou commanded a high salary for ballplayers of the day.1 But with the aid of his business manager, Christy Walsh, Lou also looked for moneymaking opportunities outside the game. In prior years, these had included barnstorming tours and endorsements of products.2 Now, a new idea would be implemented—a starring role in the movies.

Hollywood Beckons

Lou first considered an appearance in a Hollywood film just after the end of the 1936 World Series.3 Independent producer Sol Lesser, who then had the rights to the Tarzan character, was looking for a new actor to play Tarzan in an upcoming movie. In the tradition of prior Tarzans Johnny Weissmuller, Buster Crabbe, and Herman Brix, Lesser was looking for a world-class athlete to play the part. He considered Ken Carpenter, the 1936 Olympic gold medalist in the discus; Larry Kelly, a Yale football star; Max Baer and Jimmy Braddock, heavyweight-boxing champions; and Sandor Szabo and Dave Levin, professional wrestlers.4

When Christy Walsh suggested to Lesser that Lou Gehrig could play Tarzan, Lesser was receptive to the idea. Before making a decision, however, Lesser wanted to see more of Lou’s body than is revealed in a baseball uniform.5 Walsh then arranged for the taking of publicity photos of Lou in jungle garb, which were sent to Lesser and also circulated to the media. The photos, not unexpectedly, met with some derision. Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of the Tarzan stories, sent a telegram to Gehrig, which drolly read, “Having seen several pictures with you as Tarzan…I want to congratulate you on being a swell first baseman.”6 A few weeks later, after seeing the publicity photos, Lesser nixed the idea of Gehrig as Tarzan, commenting that Gehrig’s legs were “a trifle too ample” for the role.7 The part went to Glenn Morris, another Olympic champion, and the proposed film became Tarzan’s Revenge (1938).8

An ad for the premiere of Lou Gehrig’s Rawhide (St. Petersburg Times, March 23, 1938)

Despite the Tarzan disappointment, Sol Lesser retained an interest in Lou as an actor and box office draw. In March 1937, Lou flew to Hollywood for a screen test for Lesser. Afterwards, the parties announced that Lou had agreed to a one-picture deal with Lesser’s studio, Principal Productions. No details of the contract were disclosed. Lou was quoted at the time as saying, “I know I’m no actor, but I am going to give ’em my best.”9

The film turned out to be a B Western titled Rawhide. The movie started production on January 17, 1938, primarily at the Morrison Ranch near Agoura, California, about thirty miles from Hollywood.10 Reflecting the short shooting schedule of B movies, filming completed in early February 1938, about three weeks later.11 Lou’s wife Eleanor accompanied Lou on the trip.12 In an interview during production, Gehrig said, “Boy, I never had so much fun in my life as I’m having on this picture. … You ought to see me in my boots and saddle and ten-gallon hat.”13 Gehrig purportedly made $2,500 per week during filming.14

While Lou Gehrig was the obvious draw for the making of Rawhide, the producers knew even though Lou was playing himself in the film, he did not have the acting skills to carry a feature-length (58 minutes) movie on his own. Other experienced performers were brought in to assist. The top-billed performer in the movie is Smith Ballew, a Texas native who entered show business in the 1920s, quickly becoming a well-known singer, leader of his own band, and a recording artist. By 1935, Ballew was a regular on the radio and in 1936, he appeared in his first feature film. When producer Sol Lesser decided to do a series of Westerns with a singing cowboy, he chose Ballew as his leading man. It turned out that there would only be five films in the series, the fourth being Rawhide.15

Evalyn Knapp, an experienced B movie actress, plays Lou Gehrig’s sister, Peggy. Most of the heavies are familiar faces, such as Cy Kendall as the crooked sheriff and Dick Curtis as a henchman. The most recognizable actor in the film, though, is probably Si Jenks, who plays Pop Mason, the bewhiskered and toothless old codger who assists Lou in the movie. Jenks was a character actor who appeared in numerous films over the years, including many Westerns.

Christy Walsh received an unusual mention in the film’s credits: “Lou Gehrig by Arrangement with Christy Walsh.” According to The Hollywood Reporter, this was the first time that a manager received screen credit in a motion picture.16

The Film

Rawhide is a fairly standard B Western, in a modern setting, with Lou Gehrig and his sister Peggy buying a ranch out West near the town of Rawhide, which is tightly controlled by a criminal enterprise known as the Ranchers Protective Association. The Association, by threats and force, coerces the area’s ranchers into paying high dues, buying supplies from the Association at inflated prices, and turning over a part of their profits to the combine. Local attorney Larry Kimball has been fighting the Association for some time, with little success, but with the arrival of Lou Gehrig, he now has an ally in his fight to clean up the area. After the usual fisticuffs, gunfights, and chase scenes, along with standard characters such as a crooked sheriff, thug-like henchmen, and an old-codger sidekick, Larry and Lou clean up the town, providing a happy ending for its citizens and the movie’s viewers.

While Rawhide is routine, at best, it is the presence of Gehrig in the cast that distinguishes the film from standard B Westerns of the era. Gehrig was not simply thrown into the film for his name value and nothing else. Instead, scenes and dialogue were written especially for him, giving the movie a special flavor. For example, in a fight in a bar, Gehrig, recognizing that his pugilistic skills may not be up to Western standards, foregoes punches and instead throws pool balls at the bad guys, knocking many of them out and winning the fight. Who knew that baseball-throwing skills could be so important in the New West? Actually, Gehrig seems a little out-of-practice early in the scene, as he breaks windows and bottles in the bar, but once warmed up, he is very accurate.

Later, as Peggy Gehrig is about to sign a contract with the Protective Association on the second floor of a building, bandits on the ground floor prevent Lou from entering the building to stop her. Lou goes to the back of the building and sees some kids playing baseball. He borrows a bat, and fungoes a ball through the narrow second floor window, breaking the glass and preventing Peggy from signing. Who knew that baseball-hitting skills could be so important in the New West? Gehrig accomplishes this feat on his first try, contrasted with his throwing skills with the pool balls, suggesting that Lou may have been a better hitter than a fielder.

There is also self-deprecating humor inserted into the movie at the expense of Gehrig. Trying to mount a horse for the first time, Gehrig and his rear end quickly find the ground. All Lou can say is, “Strike One.” Once Gehrig finally goes out for his first ride, he finds that bouncing on the saddle is very painful for his Eastern posterior. There is even some modern satire. Saunders, the lead villain, threatens Gehrig, saying, “You’re not in New York now,” to which Gehrig responds, “For a minute, I thought I was.” Saunders also tells him, “You don’t want to be a holdout, do you?” to which Lou replies, “Well, I’ve been a holdout before.” The latter retort is a reference to some pre-season contract disputes that Lou had with the Yankees, including one before the 1928 baseball season.17, Another resulted in him missing several spring training games in 1937.18 (Lou never had a holdout during the regular season.)

The three stars of Rawhide, (L to R): Evalyn Knapp, Smith Ballew, and Lou Gehrig.

As to Gehrig’s performance, while he wasn’t the natural in front of a camera that Babe Ruth was, Gehrig gives an acceptable performance in the film, delivering his lines with all of the sincerity he can muster. Rawhide was not Shakespeare in the Park and the movie did not require the greatest of performances to be effective. In fact, Variety gave Gehrig a good review, commenting that he “can act, and should his baseball career come to an end, he might develop into another Bill Boyd or Buck Jones type.”19 Newsweek wrote, “Fully dressed from sombrero to spurs, the Tarzan candidate [Gehrig] photographs well and handles an important role with assurance.”20 Unfortunately, Gehrig’s hometown newspaper, The New York Times, was less enthusiastic, opining, “The Iron Man appears to be painfully conscious of the fact that acting is one of his lesser accomplishments.”21 Generally, however, Gehrig received good reviews for his screen performance.

It turns out that Lou Gehrig was not just a ballplayer and a cowboy star, he was also a singing cowboy. There are four songs sung in the film, with Smith Ballew carrying the heavy load on three of them.22 Lou, while riding in a wagon, gets a chance to sing a few verses of one of the songs, “A Cowboy’s Life.” Those verses are specific to Lou’s experiences in the West. For example, Lou warbles the following lyrics: “Oh, the city cowboy had his fun/So I took my bats/I traded them for riding boots and seven gallon hats.”

Lou has a surprisingly good singing voice in the movie, but, of course, it is not really Lou singing. Buddy Clark, a popular singer of the 1930s and ’40s who sometimes dubbed other actor’s voices, dubbed Lou’s voice.23 Lou’s “singing” in the film continued a practice of Yankees Hall-of-Famers singing in the movies. In addition to Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio sang a bit of a song in Manhattan Merry-Go-Round (1937) and Babe Ruth talked his way through a song in Home Run on the Keys (1937).

Release and Promotion

The premiere of Rawhide took place on March 23, 1938, in St. Petersburg, Florida, then the home of the New York Yankees’ spring training facilities. The festivities included a parade down Central Avenue, a marching band, and fireworks. Yankees owner Colonel Ruppert, manager Joe McCarthy, Eleanor Gehrig, Christy Walsh, and players from the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals, who also trained in St. Petersburg that year, were present for the event. Al Schacht, the famous baseball clown, rode a trick bicycle. The Oklahoma Mud Cat band, composed of several St. Louis Cardinals players—including its leader, outfielder Pepper Martin—played hillbilly music for the crowd.24 According to a newspaper report, thousands of the curious thronged the streets to get a glimpse of the celebrities of the sports world.25

The opening, which took place at the Capitol Theater, was advertised as “A Real Hollywood Premiere.”26 At the entrance, there was a red carpet, Klieg lights, and a microphone for anybody who had something to say.27 Inside the theater, Lou gave a speech to the fans in attendance, saying, “People think I’m modest when I say I’m lucky. I’m not—I am lucky, and if anyone wants to argue with me about it, I’ll stand and argue with him about it all day.”28 That would not be the last time in Lou Gehrig’s life that he referred to himself in a speech as lucky.

Rawhide premiered in New York City at the Globe Theater in midtown Manhattan on Saturday, April 23, 1938. Although there was no Hollywood-style opening, Gehrig and his teammates made a personal appearance at the theater on the evening of Sunday, April 24, 1938, after beating the Washington Nationals earlier that day, 4-3.29

The Life of Lou Gehrig

For those who are familiar with the facts of Lou Gehrig’s life, there are some strange moments in Rawhide. Lou quits baseball at the beginning of the film and returns to baseball at the end of the film, but surprisingly never mentions the New York Yankees by name. In real life, Lou never had a sister named Peggy. In fact, Lou Gehrig did not have any siblings who survived childhood.30 Lou was married to Eleanor at the time the movie was made, but she is never mentioned in the film. In this fictionalized version of Lou’s life, there is no reference to Lou being married.

Of course, the fictional character of Peggy was inserted into the film to provide Larry Kimball with a mild love interest. If Eleanor had bought the ranch with Lou in the movie, Rawhide would have been bereft of a romantic subplot, a B Western staple.

While not true at the time of the film’s release in 1938, Rawhide now has a form of dramatic irony. As a result of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Gehrig played his last regular season game of baseball in real life on April 30, 1939. Thus, Gehrig was through with baseball only about a year after the first showing of Rawhide in New York City. Accordingly, when Gehrig tells the reporters at the beginning of the film, “Take it or leave it. I’m through with baseball,” those lines now take on added meaning. Also, because of the quick onset of ALS, some viewers may scrutinize the film to see if there are any signs of Gehrig’s oncoming disease. They would conclude, as seems apparent, that Gehrig was in excellent health during the filming of the movie. In fact, he lifts a henchman over his head in the fight scene in the bar and leaps over a porch chair in the film’s concluding scene.31

The End of a Film Career

Rawhide contains Lou Gehrig’s only role in films.32 Although not disclosed at the time of the signing of Gehrig’s contract in March of 1937, Principal Productions apparently negotiated an option for the use of Gehrig in an additional movie. The studio let that option lapse in October of 1938, with Sol Lesser announcing that going forward, he was only interested in making kids pictures.33 Whether another studio may have been interested in working with Lou will never be known as, by then, Lou was already showing the first signs of the disease that eventually took his life.34

RON BACKER is an attorney who is an avid fan of both movies and baseball. He has written five books on film, his most recent being Baseball Goes to the Movies, published in 2017 by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. A long-suffering Pirates fan, Backer lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Feedback is welcome at rbacker332@aol.com.

Sources

Photos courtesy of Ron Backer.

Notes

1 The New York Times reported that Lou’s salary for 1937 was $36,000 plus a signing bonus of $750. James P. Dawson, “Two-Gun Gehrig, Movie Job Ended, Turns Thoughts to Baseball,” New York Times, February 3, 1938, 27. This is confirmed by “Training Camp Notes,” The Sporting News, March 25, 1937, 8.

2 Gehrig did ads for Camel cigarettes and Aqua Velva. He was the first athlete to have his face on a Wheaties box. Louis Menand, “How Baseball Players Became Celebrities,” The New Yorker, June 1, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/01/how-baseball-players-became-celebrities.

3 “Gehrig Seeks Role as Tarzan in Films,” Associated Press, New York Times, October 21, 1936, 40.

4 Scott Tracy Griffin, Tarzan on Film, (London, UK: Titan Books, 2016), 58.

5 Dan Joseph, Last Ride of the Iron Horse (Mechanicsburg, PA: Sunbury Press, 2019), 10.

6 “Author Ridicules Gehrig as Tarzan,” Atlantic Constitution, November 19, 1936, 12.

7 Jonathan Eig, Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 220.

8 Eig, 219-220. Morris won the gold medal in the decathlon in the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin.

9 Bob Ray, “Lou Hits the Screen,” The Sporting News, March 11, 1937, 5.

10 Joseph, 26.

11 American Film Institute Catalog of Feature Films (“AFI”), Rawhide, https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5451-RAWHIDE?sid=e3fb05f4-1f85-4e26-a54e-414249ec5c70&sr=0.8563489&cp=1&pos=4.

12 Bob Ray, “‘Two-Gun’ Lou Gehrig Stars as Rootin’,Tootin’, Shootin’ Hero of the Wild West,” The Sporting News, January 27, 1938, 10.

13 Ray, “‘Two-Gun’ Lou Gehrig.”

14 Joseph, 24, 26.

15 Don Creacy, “Smith Ballew,” Classic Images, posted June 2, 2010, http://www.classicimages.com/people/article_6a695f92-3a23-5fba-89d6-87cf2e422bf2.html

16 “Ghost Shreds Shroud,” Hollywood Reporter, January 21, 1938, 2. Christy Walsh was never afraid to promote himself. In the 1930s, he produced several short subjects, including a five film series with Babe Ruth, with the overall title, “A Christy Walsh All America Sportreel.” In The Pride of the Yankees (1942), he received mention in the film as follows: “Appreciation is expressed for the gracious assistance of Mrs. Lou Gehrig and for the cooperation of Mr. Ed Barrow and the New York Yankees arranged by Christy Walsh.”

17 James Lincoln Ray, “Lou Gehrig,” SABR Biography Project. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ccdffd4c.

18 Richard Hubler, Lou Gehrig: The Iron Horse of Baseball (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1941), 174; “Training Camp Notes,” The Sporting News, March 25, 1937, 8.

19 Variety, April 6, 1938, 14. William “Bill” Boyd and Buck Jones were stars of many B movie Westerns, with Boyd playing Hopalong Cassidy in a series of films.

20 “Baseball’s Iron Man Fails as Tarzan But Qualifies as Western Two-Gun Hero,” Newsweek, April 18, 1938, 24.

21 New York Times, April 25, 1938, 19.

22 Albert Von Tilzer, the man who composed “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” composed two of those songs.

23 Eig, 238.

24 Ray Robinson, Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig In His Time (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.: 1990) 231-232; Eig, 242; “Lou Gehrig’s Film in World Premiere Here Tonight,” St. Petersburg Times, March 23, 1938, 8.

25 Jack Thale, “Premiere Here Honors Gehrig,” St. Petersburg Times, March 24, 1938, 6.

26 St. Petersburg Times, March 23, 1938, 9.

27 Gayle Talbot, “St. Louis and New York Players See Lou Gehrig’s New Moving Picture,” Tampa Daily News, March 24, 1938, 14.

28 Thale, 6.

29 Advertisement for Rawhide, New York Times, April 23, 1938.

30 An older sister Anna died when she was just three months old. Another sister, Sophie, died when she was less than two years old and an unnamed brother died almost immediately after birth. James Lincoln Ray, “Lou Gehrig,” SABR Biography Project. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ccdffd4c.

31 According to an article published in 2007 in Neurology, a scientific journal, a careful examination of Rawhide by medical professionals disclosed that Lou functioned normally in January 1938, when the film was shot. No evidence of hand atrophy or leg weakness appears in the movie. Melissa Lewis and Paul H. Gordon, “Lou Gehrig, Rawhide, and 1938,” 68 Neurology, February 20, 2007, 615-618.

32 In Speedy (1928), his only other screen appearance, Lou photo bombed a scene outside Yankee Stadium with Harold Lloyd and Babe Ruth. Lou appears in the background of the scene for only a second or two. He has no dialogue.

33 “Lesser Benches Gehrig,” Variety, October 5, 1938, 5.

34 Joseph, 137.

When you’re left-handed, it dominates your whole being in a way that the majority of the world cannot understand simply because the world is fitted to them.

Still, even from a young age, I was told that baseball teams are forever on the lookout for left-handers who can throw with control, which made me feel special, even if my backyard catches with Dad hadn’t yet graduated from tennis ball to horsehide.

Thus, it’s no surprise that I felt an innate connection to southpaws who took the mound at Veterans Stadium, on television, and on my baseball cards: hometown Phillies Steve “Lefty” Carlton, Tug McGraw, Jim Kaat, and Randy Lerch (a lefty with my name!), Randy Jones (a Cy Young–winning lefty with my name!), Don Gullett, Mickey Lolich, Fred Norman, Paul Splittorff, Frank Tanana, Jerry Koosman. And, of course, the deity of all southpaws, Sandy Koufax, who, though just before my time, commanded the highest respect in my household because the electrifying southpaw, by virtue of his Jewish heritage, single-handedly revived my Flatbush-born father’s interest in baseball after his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers broke his heart. (Sadly, that renewed vigor for the game abandoned my father once and for all upon Koufax’s retirement.)

Of course, I also knew of the great lefties of old: Lefty Grove, Lefty Gomez, Eddie Plank, Carl Hubbell, even Babe Ruth himself! But the southpaw who loomed largest, of course, was Warren Spahn. One of my baseball magazines contained his lifetime record. Thirteen 20-win seasons. Thirteen?! And a win total, 363, to which no other lefty stood remotely close. For me, and perhaps other young southpaws, 363 became something akin to Babe Ruth’s 714 and Ty Cobb’s 4191 (before many sources revised his hit total to 4189), an instantly identifiable benchmark in baseball history that spoke for itself.

Yet in examining Spahn’s record more closely, one finds a statistic that should make one wonder beyond simple coincidence: During a career in which Spahn pitched 363 victories, the multitalented hurler also recorded 363 batting hits.

When one takes into account the myriad variables that go into this curious confluence—from the fact that a starting pitcher’s at-bats vary from game to game depending on how well his hurling keeps him in each contest, to the fact that Spahn relieved in 85 games, further fluctuating his at-bats—one further wonders how unusual this could be.

And then there’s the additional confounding variable that Spahn appeared in 18 games as a pinch-hitter, which chance could employ to further skew two totals rather than bring them together.

Macroscopically, how could one total derived from a pool of 750 (games) end up equaling another from a pool of 1872 (at-bats)—especially considering the first is accrued at a maximum of one per game whereas the second is almost always accrued multiple times per game?

It is for strange cases such as this that I wish I were a mathematician so that I could calculate the odds of two wholly unrelated totals, incurred at vastly different per-game rates (0 to 1 for wins; 0 to infinity for hits), somehow matching up perfectly over the course of 21 seasons. Still, it doesn’t leave me exactly hollow to state abstractly that the chance of both totals landing on 363 seem merely astronomical.

Yet, is it?

Among all pitchers with at least 100 victories, three others matched Spahn’s accomplishment: Dick Ruthven (123 wins/123 hits), Dave Roberts (103/103), and Tex Carleton (100/100).

Ten other pitchers had victory and hit totals separated by exactly 1, and 57 pitchers had a difference of between 2 and 10 (including Smoky Joe Wood’s tenure as a pitcher with Boston and Phil Niekro’s totals as a Brave, because he never batted for another franchise). These 70 other pitchers range from some of the most talented moundsmen ever, such as Grover Cleveland Alexander and Three Finger Brown, to the mediocre likes of Don Cardwell and Chuck Stobbs.

Whether one attributes it to less formidable pitching or to pitchers, themselves, possessing better-honed batting skills in a less specialized time, this seems largely to be a phenomenon of bygone days. Only five of these 70 pitchers played most or all of their career during the designated-hitter era, and none are active (although Madison Bumgarner had a difference of just 14 at the end of the 2019 season). Warren Spahn, however, took this statistical quirk to the next level.

One of the best batsmen among pitchers, the crafty Buffalonian possessed an uncanny (though surely unrecognized) knack for knocking as many hits in a season as he tossed victories. Eleven times, Warren’s win total of any given season equaled his hit total of any given season, including an incredible eight times in the same season. That is some serious synchronicity, if such a concept can be applied to the baseball diamond.

Yet there exists another layer to this algebraic madness. Spahn, who seemed as if he would continue winning forever, going 23–7 at age 42, finally was snared by Father Time in 1964. After suffering only his second losing campaign since breaking into the big leagues more than two decades earlier, he was purchased from Milwaukee by the young New York Mets just before Thanksgiving.

As the ledger closed on his Braves career, Spahn boasted 356 victories—again, the exact number of hits he notched as a Boston/Milwaukee Brave.

Struggling through 20 games with the ever-floundering Mets, Spahn staggered to a 4–12 record, his bloated 4.36 ERA hardly helping the punchless New Yorkers. Yet in those 20 games, as well as one in which he pinch-hit, Spahn collected four hits, equaling his victory total.

Going nowhere, New York released Spahn on July 17. Two days later, the San Francisco Giants, tangled in fourth place yet only 5½ games off the lead, signed Spahn, hoping to coax a last bit of magic from his left arm for the stretch drive. Perhaps revitalized by taking the mound once again for a contender, Spahn pitched better, for a time. As a Giant, he cut his ERA by nearly a run and chipped in three victories, although four of his last five appearances were spent in relief, as the Giants came up two games short at the wire.

Yet with eerie consistency, Spahn once again managed to collect as many hits as victories, rapping a trio of singles to match the 3–4 record he put up with San Francisco. The Giants released Spahn after the season, ending his remarkable major league career.

Not only had Spahn managed to produce equal victory and hit totals across 21 seasons (interestingly, he stroked his first hit in 1942 yet had to wait, because of highly decorated military service in World War II, until 1946 for his initial victory) but he, improbably, registered matching numbers of hits and victories with each franchise for which he played.

Warren even remained true to his nature in the postseason, slapping four singles to complement his four World Series victories.

Spahn’s peculiar proclivity was not exclusive to the major leagues. Between his pair of appearances at both the opening and closing of the 1942 season, his apprenticeship with the Hartford Bees of the Eastern League saw him register 17 hits en route to a team-leading 17 victories. And just for good measure, when Warren pitched seven innings over three games while managing the Pacific Coast League’s Tulsa Oilers in 1967, he failed to get a hit in four at-bats, matching the 0-1 record of his minor league swan song.

And if all that weren’t enough, the breakdown of Spahn’s corresponding pitching wins and batting hits achieved as a Brave by city very nearly match as well: As a Boston Brave, Spahn won 122 games while collecting 120 hits, which, of course, leaves his totals after the Braves moved to Milwaukee at 234 pitching wins and 236 hits.

(In pale reflections of Spahn’s strange achievement, Steve Carlton logged both 77 victories and hits as a St. Louis Cardinal, though his totals in Phillie pinstripes are significantly farther apart, whereas Curt Davis did the same for the Phillies but none of the other three teams for which he hurled. Joe McGinnity matched his league-leading 28 victories in each of his first two seasons with 28 hits during each campaign. Additionally, George Mogridge’s career included 68 wins and 68 hits for the Washington Senators, and General Crowder’s hit total is exactly one less than his victory total for each of the three teams for which he pitched.)

Warren Spahn’s almost preternatural ability to achieve pitching victories and batting hits with the same frequency on multiple “levels” seems to represent a true statistical anomaly in baseball annals.

Perhaps southpaws should take a bit of pointless pride that this odd phenomenon appears well suited to our “eccentric” minority: Of the 71 pitchers (including Spahn) with at least 100 victories and a difference of 10 or fewer between victories and batting hits, 26 (36.6%) were lefties—an amount noticeably higher than the 28.0%–29.7% of left-handed starters populating major league rosters since 1904.2

RANDY S. ROBBINS is a Philadelphia-area native who grew up a Big Red Machine fan before eventually converting to the hometown nine. He is obsessive about the game though he doesn’t much care for the recent turns baseball has taken. He worked as an editor in the medical and pharmaceutical fields for nearly 30 years and his own articles and op-eds (both sports- and non- sports-related, humorous and serious) have been published in numerous newspapers, magazines, and websites over the years. Despite once having driven Henry Aaron in his car, he considers his greatest moment in baseball to be the time a 60-something, Brooklyn-born umpire in a men’s league game, while observing him scooping low throws at first base between innings, told him he was reminded of Gil Hodges.

Notes

1 “World’s Biggest Study of Left-handedness.” NeuroscienceNews.com, April 3, 2020. https://neurosciencenews.com/left-handedness-study-16070/.

2 Mike Petriello. “Where Have All the Top Lefty Pitchers Gone?” MLB.com, May 20, 2020. https://www.mlb.com/news/left-handed-pitchers-decreasing.

Mickey Mantle is carried off on a stretcher after injuring his knee during the 1951 World Series at Yankee Stadium. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)

A batter takes a fastball to the ribs. An outfielder crashes into the wall trying to make a circus catch. A baserunner steps on the side of first base and sprains an ankle. All of these rather common occurrences take place on baseball diamonds on a regular basis. Sometimes the mishap results in a player being unable to play for a period of time due to the injury. In the past, a player in Major League Baseball (MLB) with this type of injury would be placed on what was known as the Disabled List or the DL. But is he injured—or disabled? And does it matter how he is labeled? Recently, MLB decided to examine its use of the term Disabled List and changed the name to the Injured List or the IL. While this seems like a rather insignificant change, baseball fans took to social media to express their opinions and perceptions of MLB’s decision. The purpose of this study is to examine that reaction. We will begin with an overview of the history and usage of the terms, provide context for the analysis of effects of language on societal attitudes, and review previous work in analysis of social media with regards to societal attitudes toward sport, before we present our own analysis of reactions to MLB’s announcement.

Policy Language Used to Describe Injured Players

MLB first used the term Disabled List at the end of the nineteenth century. According to Dawkins and Glass, disabled or injury lists first regularly appeared in MLB in the early 1900s.1 The National League codified the term Disabled List in 1915 and it referred to a list of players who were removed from a roster for a 10-day period.2 The Disabled List began to more closely resemble the current version back in 1941. Over the years, the length of time a player could be placed on the Disabled List has varied.

All of the major North American professional sports league have their own terms for their lists of athletes who are unable to play due to injuries. The NFL has an Injured Reserve List, Physically Unable to Perform List, a Non-Football Injury List, and a Personnel (Injury) Report Policy.3 The NBA uses a general Inactive List for players who are not able to play for various reasons which is “the list of players, maintained by the NBA, who have signed Player Contracts with a Team and are otherwise ineligible to participate in a Regular Season game.”4 The NBA also has what is known as the Disabled Player Exception whereby a “Disabling Injury or Illness means any injury or illness that, in the opinion of the physician…., makes it substantially more likely than not that the player would be unable to play through the following June 15.”5 Lastly, the NHL uses an Injured Reserve List.6

Major League Baseball currently defines the Injured List as follows:

The 10-day injured list (known as the 10-day disabled list until the end of the 2018 season) allows clubs to remove players from the 25-man active roster while keeping them on the 40-man roster. Players can be placed on the 10-day injured list for any type of injury, though players with concussion symptoms are first sent to the 7-day injured list. Players on the 10-day injured list must remain out of action for at least 10 days, though a player can also stay on the list for considerably longer than 10 days, if necessary.7,8

Two authors of the current study were directly involved with the nearly 15-year process advocating for the name change from the Disabled List to the Injured List. In 2003, an initial inquiry was made to the MLB Commissioner’s Office suggesting the name be changed.9 The Commissioner’s Office responded with a letter acknowledging receipt of the request and indicating the matter was of interest. Over the years, the authors, along with other disability advocates, reached out again to follow up. Finally, in 2018, the authors contacted the Ruderman Family Foundation, a disability advocacy group based in Boston, about helping with getting the name changed. Link20, an initiative of the Ruderman Foundation, took up the effort and directly contacted MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and also copied Billy Bean, MLB Vice President and Special Assistant to the Commissioner.10 Bean is the representative in the Commissioner’s Office who works with MLB’s social responsibility and diversity initiatives. With Bean’s assistance in the League office, the change was agreed upon. Teams were notified in a memo from Jeff Pfeifer, MLB’s Senior Director of League Economics and Operations:

In recent years, the commissioner has received several inquiries regarding the name of the ‘Disabled List,’…The principal concern is that using the term ‘disabled’ for players who are injured supports the misconception that people with disabilities are injured and therefore are not able to participate or compete in sports. As a result, Major League Baseball has agreed to change the name ‘Disabled List’ to be the ‘Injured List’ at both the major and minor league levels. All standards and requirements for placement, reinstatement, etc., shall remain unchanged. This change, which is only a rebranding of the name itself, is effective immediately.11

When the renaming occurred, no changes were made to the actual policy itself.12 The only change was replacing the word Disabled with the word Injured. (Unrelated to the name change, via the recent Collective Bargaining discussions, at the end of 2020 the shortest length of stay on the Injured List for a non-concussion injury will be changed from 10 days to 15 days.)

LITERATURE REVIEW

The Importance of Language—Disabled v. Injured

The importance of language cannot be overstated. “The words that we use shape the image of the world in which we live.”13 This holds true in the world of disability as well. Over the years, the proper terms to describe people with disabilities have evolved. “Proper” terms at various times included words such as crippled, handicapped, wheelchair-bound, lame, and impaired, language which by today’s standards is clearly offensive and marginalizing.14 Acceptable terms today use what is known as person first language. According to the American Psychological Association:

For decades, persons with disabilities have been identified by their disability first, and as persons, second. Often, persons with disabilities are viewed as being afflicted with, or being victims of, a disability. In focusing on the disability, an individual’s strengths, abilities, skills, and resources are often ignored.15

Hence, we now see the term “person with a disability” as opposed to saying “a disabled person,” although there are still some groups who hold that the person first language inadequately captures the breadth of disability identity.16 According to the United Nations:

The term persons with disabilities is used to apply to all persons with disabilities including those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which, in interaction with various attitudinal and environmental barriers, hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.

According the Americans with Disabilities Act, a person with a disability is defined as:

someone who has as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment.17

On the other hand, the definition of injured is someone who is or has been “hurt or physically harmed.”18 WebMD supplies a list of sports injuries which includes ACL injuries, dislocated shoulders, muscle strains, rotator cuff tears, running injuries, turf toe, and the ulnar collateral ligament injuries that lead toTommy John surgery, among others. The most common injuries in baseball for hitters are muscle strains, meniscus tears, hand/wrist injuries, elbow tendinitis, and rotator cuff tendinitis, and for pitchers labral tears, dead arm, ulnar collateral ligament injuries (Tommy John), and oblique strains.19 Beyond these simple definitions, however, are the societal expectations that differ between persons who are “injured” and persons who are “disabled.” Persons who are injured are typically seen as having a finite time for healing, whereas people with disabilities often live with their conditions on a long-term, and sometimes lifelong, basis depending on how/when they acquired their disability (i.e. at birth or adult onset). Beyond living with a disability and its associated physical challenges, however, there is a societal stigma placed on people who are “disabled.” According to Garland-Thompson:

Because disability is defined not as a set of observable, broadly predictable traits, such as femaleness or skin color, but rather as any departure from the physical, mental, and psychological norms and expectations of a particular culture, disability highlights individual differences. In short, the concept of disability unites a heterogeneous group of people whose only commonality is being considered abnormal.20

People with disabilities face stigma in many forms including social avoidance, stereotyping, discrimination, condescension, blaming, internalization, hate crimes, and violence.21 As LeClair states “Disability is often equated with inferiority and deficiency rather than a neutral difference that may require some adaptation.”22 At times, people who are injured may become disabled as a result of their injury, but the injury itself and the disability are two different situations. The differences between the terms disabled and injured, then, are quite clear, and attitudes differ toward the people who wear those labels. In this particular study, MLB’s use of the term injured is actually a more accurate term to describe baseball players who are unable to play for a designated period of time. They are injured (or ill), but not disabled.

It is important to note, however, that just because a person has a disability does not mean they are unable to participate in sport. Sport for people with disabilities has been increasing in popularity in the recent years. To put the growth into perspective, the cumulative audience watching the Paralympics has grown by 127 per cent in the last 12 years.23 Reports on the 2020 Tokyo Summer Paralympic Games indicate ticket sales demand at an all-time record high.24 While these numbers are encouraging, people with disabilities still face stigmatization when they seek full inclusion in society generally and specifically in the sport industry.25 One way that inclusion can be encouraged is through the use of proper language. This includes no longer using words such as handicapped or impaired, but rather using terminology like persons with disabilities or athletes with disabilities because these terms are more accurate.26

According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “The unique ability of sports to transcend linguistic italics added for emphasis], cultural and social barriers makes it an excellent platform for strategies of inclusion and adaptation.”27 With that in mind, it becomes paramount to understand how society reflects upon and discusses these terms within a sport context. Framing is a useful theoretical framework to employ when examining the context of narratives disseminated via media platforms and whether these narratives challenge or embrace the decisions made by entities within the realm of sport.

Framing

The framing process refers to the selection, emphasis, and exclusion of information within media messages.28 To frame a message is to essentially create a package of information that can thereby be interpreted by the audience.29 Framing has traditionally been examined within the context of a top-down model, which puts the emphasis on how narratives crafted by media outlets impact public perception. A plethora of research has applied a top-down approach to the examination of framing within sport. This line of research has primarily examined coverage of the Olympic Games,30 framing regarding social or political issues within a country,31 and the framing of race, nationality, and the personal scandals of professional athletes.32 The emergence of the Internet and social media platforms has provided the opportunity to examine narratives created by everyday content contributors rather than traditional media entities. This is referred to as bottom-up framing.33 According to Meraz and Papacharissi, bottom-up framing is evident on social media, as non-elite actors can produce and reiterate certain frames via these platforms.34

A growing body of research has applied a bottom-up framing model to sport. Much of this sport-related research has analyzed content via Twitter and Facebook. In terms of bottom-up framing via Twitter, one study examined Twitter content pertaining to the Vancouver Riots following Vancouver’s loss in the NHL’s Stanley Cup Finals.35 The authors found that many users utilized Twitter to counter negative perceptions of Canadian hockey fans, which included showing embarrassment and disassociating from those engaging in the riots. Ultimately, Twitter provided an avenue to counter traditional media coverage of the riots. Another study examined the hashtag #Sochi2014 during the Sochi Winter Olympic Games.36 While most dialogue discussed Games-related material such as results and medal counts, dissent existed on the periphery. Much of the dissent discussed unsuitable accommodations in Sochi and Russia’s political stance on the LGBTQ community. Along similar lines, Frederick, Pegoraro, and Burch performed a comparative analysis of traditional media and social media framing during the Sochi Olympic Games.37 The analysis revealed an echo chamber from traditional media to social media in terms of political discussions. Organic content related to sub-par accommodations existed primarily on Twitter, without being amplified by traditional platforms. Additionally, Billings, et al., found a divergence between newspaper and Twitter content. Specifically, those authors examined coverage of Jason Collins coming out as gay. The analysis revealed that newspapers framed Collins’ coming out as a watershed moment, while Twitter focused on ancillary items such as TV appearances.38

With regard to bottom-up framing via Facebook, various issues have been explored such as athlete transgressions and the framing of controversial sport leagues. In 2014, NASCAR driver Tony Stewart hit and killed Kevin Ward Jr. after Ward Jr. vacated his car on the racetrack. Following this incident, Stewart posted a message on Facebook where he expressed sadness and offered thoughts and prayers to Ward Jr.’s family and friends. Frederick, Stocz, and Pegoraro found that users responded to Stewart’s message by levying judgment, displaying and debating racing knowledge with other users, and calling for a further examination of the “evidence” related to the incident.39 With regard to controversial sport leagues, Frederick, Pegoraro, and Burch analyzed user framing of the Legends Football League (LFL) on Facebook. The LFL is a professional league where scantily-clad women play football indoors. Overall, users discussed the games, athletes, and results, thereby framing the league as a legitimate entity despite the existence of peripheral dialogue that sexualized the appearance of the athletes.40

Recently, sport-specific framing research has explored bottom-up framing on Facebook as it pertains to issues of racism and athlete activism. Frederick, Sanderson, and Schlereth examined user comments pertaining to protests by football players at the University of Missouri following various racially charged incidents on campus.41 Utilizing Critical Race Theory (CRT) along with framing, the authors found that users often framed the protests as incompatible with the sporting environment and that the athletes engaging in advocacy were manufacturing racism where it did not exist. Along similar lines, Frederick, Pegoraro, and Sanderson examined responses via Facebook following LeBron James, Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade, and Carmelo Anthony’s ESPYs speech during which the athletes discussed police violence against African Americans in the United States. The findings highlighted deeply ingrained racial stereotypes, as individuals debated the nature of race relations and racially charged incidents (i.e., police shootings). These debates focused on “accurate” crime rate statistics, the “facts” of recent racially-charged incidents, and the nature of racism in the United States. A common refrain was that racism against African Americans no longer exists.42 Finally, Schmidt, et al. examined bottom-up framing with regard to the protests by Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe during the playing of the US National Anthem. Utilizing CRT, the authors found that users framed Kaepernick’s activism efforts by questioning his masculinity and expressing often misinformed and racist arguments. These racist arguments again leveraged “accurate” crime rate statistics. Users also declared that Kaepernick was anti-American and should leave the country. Similar sentiments were expressed about Rapinoe, however, there was very little discussion of race, sexual orientation, gender, etc. in her comments.43

Limited research has explored bottom-up framing in terms of social media reactions to policy change in sport. Cranmer and Sanderson employed bottom-up framing to examine user commentary on Twitter and online news comments pertaining to the Ivy League’s decision to restrict full-contact tackling during football practices. Their thematic analysis revealed two over-arching frames including traditionalism and progressivism.44 Comments within the traditionalist perspective focused on the detrimental impacts of the tackling policy and its long term consequences. Sub-themes within the traditionalist perspective discussed how the tackling policy would lead to an “erosion of masculinity,” while also undermining American values.45 Additionally, many advocated for preserving the norms of football, stating that the tackling policy would threaten the existence of football. Comments within the progressivism perspective framed this policy decision as a positive step forward. Specifically, users discussed this policy in terms of health advocacy on behalf of players, and as a significant benchmark for risk management within the Ivy League. Overall, the authors witnessed much resistance to this policy. Additionally, with regard to bottom-up framing, the authors argued, “discourse within the public sphere is much more varied than that within the media.”46

In summary, scholars have commonly applied a bottom-up framing model to analyze sport commentary via social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Bottom-up framing shifts the focus from traditional media outlets and their impact on the public to the public themselves who create their own narratives on social media. While research has explored the framing of political controversies, athlete transgressions, gender, and race, the authors could not locate research examining the framing of disability as it relates to sport. MLB changing the name of the Disabled List to the Injured List provided an intriguing opportunity to examine how individuals discussed disability within the realm of sport and beyond. The researchers were guided by the following research question:

What was social media reaction to Major League Baseball’s name change from the Disabled List to the Injured List?

METHOD

Data Collection and Data Analysis

Data for this research were collected from Twitter using Twitonomy, a Twitter data collection and analysis program. The tweets were collected using the search term “injured list” for a two-day period starting from the date of the announcement on February 7, 2019, and ending on February 9, 2019. Similar abbreviated time frames have been utilized when examining the immediate impact of an announcement, event, transgression, etc. on audience perception and subsequent framing via social media (see Frederick and Pegoraro 2018; Sanderson, Frederick, and Schlereth 2017). This yielded a dataset of 5,880 tweets. The researchers then examined this tweet corpus and removed any tweets that may have contained the search term “injured list” but did not pertain to the MLB announcement of the name change, resulting in a final dataset of N = 1,822 tweets.

This study was rooted in discovery rather than confirmation of a previously established codebook or framework. Therefore, the researchers conducted an inductive thematic analysis with each tweet serving as the unit of analysis. In order to generate themes, two researchers independently viewed the entire dataset (1,822 tweets). The initial step in the analysis consisted of the researchers reading through the tweets and familiarizing themselves with the nuances and unique qualities of the dataset. The first round of forma coding, referred to as open coding (see Strauss, 1987) consisted of the researchers generating initial descriptors from the tweets. During this stage, categories are “built, named, and have attributes ascribed to them.”47 In order to reduce the descriptors into themes, the researchers engaged in axial coding. This process involves placing similar categories of descriptors into emergent thematic categories. Specifically, axial coding takes place when connections are made between categories, effectively bringing separate categories together under the umbrella of an “overarching theory or principle.”48

The two researchers who conducted the coding have extensive experience and expertise in either social media use in sport or perceptions of disability as it relates to sport. Open communication took place between the researchers during the coding process if there were any misunderstandings of specific tweets. Categories were summarized and compared to ascertain similarity, and the researchers reduced the categories as much as possible while still preserving meaning. The researchers met and reviewed the themes and discussed any differences until a consensus was reached.

Results

A total of 1822 tweets were analyzed for the study. Of these, 379 were simple retweets which contained no additional content. An additional 77 contained disparate responses which did not group together to form themes. The following themes emerged from the remaining 1366 tweets:

1. Opposition (615)
2. Sarcasm (420)
3. Support (331)

Several subthemes emerged under opposition and also support.

Theme 1—Opposition

By far, the primary theme that emerged from the tweets was negative in nature. The 615 opposition tweets could be broken down further into two subthemes—(1) hostility/denial (515 tweets) and (2) deflection (100 tweets).

Subtheme 1—Hostility/Denial. In this subtheme, tweets reflected an open hostility to the change. For example, “So today MLB renamed the DISABLED LIST to the Injured List because DISABLED LIST may be offensive to people. If you are offended by the term DISABLED LIST please unfriend me now and choke on a cupcake.” “Another example of our snowflake pussy ass culture we live in. Changing the name because disabled is offensive? Disabled is a word and it describes players that can’t play. Are there REALLY people that sit out there who REALLY get offended by this stuff? Fuuuuuuck” was another example of this content.

Some of the tweets decried what people saw as the onset of politically correct (PC) culture into the game. “Here we go… this is just the begging of hypersensitive babies ruining the best sport on Earth” and “Is nothing sacred from the PC police anymore?” Others saw it as a reflection of US culture becoming soft. “Because disabled offends ppl? Lol what has happened to our country. So soft” and “When the world is run by pussies, shit like this happens.”

Other tweets gave a sense that people were so opposed to the change they would not even bring themselves to use the new terminology. “Always going to call it the DL. Stop trying to fuck up the sport” and “I am not calling it this” exemplify that opposition.

Subtheme 2—Deflection. Some people indicated that MLB leaders should be spending their time on matters deemed more important to fans. “What about the advocates that are disabled from line drives and broken bats? When will you listen to us? And when are you going to address the fatal accident at Dodger Stadium?” and “MLB more offended by disabled than by Indians.” Another example stated, “Let’s not fix the NL’s DH, tanking, shifts, blackout restrictions, sharing highlights on social media, service time manipulation, minor league wages, pitcher substitutions, slow pace. None of that. The name of the list for injured players. Unreal. Get your priorities straight @MLB.”

Others just did not like the name change word choice saying, “Players go on the DL for mental issues, drug & alcohol issues, in addition to actual physical injuries” and “Calling it the Injured List creates ambiguity when a player requires time away for illness.” Another tweet stated, “If you want the name changed because it is offensive, fine. But don’t pretend the Injured List is more accurate or that disabled applies specifically to one group of people and it isn’t just a word with multiple definitions.” These statements indicate opposition but were more about the language used than the change itself.

Theme 2—Sarcasm

A large number of tweets (420) appeared to be sarcastic responses to the change. People did not make specific suggestions but just seemed to want to vent in a sarcastic manner. “MLB now channeling their inner progressiveness… Look how woke we are!”, “Well, that will fix everything….”, “Next for MLB they will change the name of the first baseman to avoid position privilege”, “I am embarrassed for the world I live in” and “Wow—Injured List replaces Disabled List. That’s a game changer. Like saying I’ll rename cloudy days to overcast days” are all examples of the sarcastic commentary.

While some tweets that fell into the sarcasm category could possibly also have been classified under hostility/denial, many seemed to have a different tone. They were not attacking MLB for the change or saying they would not use the new terminology, but on some level mocked the change that was being made.

Theme 3—Support

While two of the first three themes that emerged from the data were less than positive, numerous tweets did indicate a level of support for the change. These 331 tweets fell into two subthemes—(1) understanding (207 tweets) and (2) advocating (124 tweets).

Subtheme 1—Understanding. Tweets in this category tended to be rather matter-of-fact and in agreement that the change made logical sense because it is more accurate. “Never thought about that but this change really shouldn’t bother anyone and should be welcomed by people who did take offense to it. Good on you MLB.” Other examples stated, “Well, I am not offended by the term….but to be accurate, they aren’t disabled. They are injured” and “Injured List is more accurate anyway. There’s no reason to be upset over changing a name that is both outdated and inaccurate anyway.” These tweets, along with others, agreed that the new name brought MLB in line with industry language. “Every other sport uses Injured Reserve. I mean even taking away the offensive nature, it makes MLB more in line with what everyone else does.”

Subtheme 2—Advocating. People whose tweets fell into the advocating subtheme were supportive but went beyond and actually cheered MLB for its action. “THANK YOU BASEBALL FOR UPDATING THIS TO BE PRECISE AND ACCURATE. It’s time for sports culture and media to respect what disability really means.” “We never believed that a disability means you can’t play the game. Props to MLB for making this important change.” “MLB’s Disabled List is now the Injured List. The injured might not be able to compete. The disabled still can. Community Connections applauds this change by #MLB.” Others took an opportunity to display their fandom and pride with tweets such as “For my part, I am a big time fan of this move. Shout out to MLB for thinking about inclusion and the messages they send” and “Proud of the activism of Link20 a group of advocates for #disability rights and the leadership of MLB.” Finally, one person simply said, “Good move—language matters.” These tweets indicated there are fans who recognize the logical rationale for the change and accept or celebrate it for what it is.

DISCUSSION

In reflecting on the results section, a number of points arose which bear elaboration. These include (a) discussions of other potential MLB changes which may have influenced participants’ responses, (b) reasons why baseball fans may have been resistant to the change, (c) looking at other policy changes involving disability and (d) the evolution of terms to describe traditionally under-represented groups.

First, prior to the time the name change took place, MLB had been involved in public discussions of ways to improve the game. Some of the hotly debated topics included abolishing (or expanding use of) the designated hitter, instituting a pitch clock, and requiring relief pitchers to face a minimum of three batters.49 The name change from Disabled List to Injured List was not mentioned in these discussions. This may have influenced user framing as some saw MLB making the name change as insignificant or even diversionary compared to issues that would directly impact the pace of play.

Second, baseball fans may be an audience which does not favor change, particularly change that appears to have a political bent. Sport fans in general seem to think that politics and sport should be kept separate. A recent Washington Post poll revealed that 50% of respondents strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement “Sports and politics should not mix.”50 Conservatives were also more likely to oppose the mixing of sports and politics.51 Baseball fans may be seen as unlikely to be open to change, particularly if the change involves language one could interpret as being “politically correct” in nature. This resistance to change, evident within user comments in the current study, is consistent with previous research exploring policy change in sport (see Cranmer and Sanderson, 2018). Resistance to “politically correct” language aligns well with the traditionalist perspective frame as discussed by Cranmer and Sanderson, as it was clear that individuals perceived the change from the DL to the IL as an affront to history and a symbolic softening of culture.

The findings of this study are also in line with the work of Kaufman, who keenly observed that athletes who engage in activism will likely receive backlash for their efforts.52 Additionally, Cunningham and Regan have noted that athletes may be less likely to engage in activism due to public focus on athletic achievement instead of political or social advocacy within the realm of sport.53 While the subtle advocacy of the name change was performed by a league and not an athlete, users adopted adversarial frames similar to responses following athlete activism and advocacy efforts. Specifically, the hostility theme aligns with the work of Frederick, Pegoraro, and Sanderson, who found that users attacked advocacy efforts, stating that they were misguided and misinformed.54 The practice of trolling (leaving incendiary comments with the intention of causing offense and eliciting a response) is common in discussions of socially charged issues and further amplifies the polarity of these conversations as they unfold on social media (see Frederick, Pegoraro, and Sanderson, 2019; Smith et al., 2014). The sarcasm theme in the current study is similar to that identified by Frederick, Sanderson, and Schlereth, who noted that individuals often utilized social media to trivialize and/or downplay the significance of advocacy efforts with sarcastic overtones or ill-fated attempts at humor.55 Overall, the most prominent themes in this study highlight a general resistance to change. The resistance to MLB’s change was further illustrated by a number of blogs and websites which spoke out against or disparaged the change in language.56 As MLB Executive Billy Bean observed in a podcast on this topic:

I think it’s more about people being afraid of where we’re going to take the sport, if we start changing things that they’re just accustomed to, and not the actual understanding that we were underserving a segment of our community and our population, and it was time to change and stop doing that.57

Third, it is useful to examine how another policy change in the representation of disability was received. A non-sport example of a policy which changed a long-standing depiction of disability occurred when the state of New York passed legislation to alter “existing law to require the removal of the word handicapped from new or replaced state signage, as well as update and destigmatize the accessibility logo.”58 The state adopted the use of the new Accessible Icon on any signs dealing with accessibility. A few years later, the state of Connecticut followed as well, changing to the use of the newer Accessible Icon and changing the wording on signs on parking spaces from “handicapped” to “reserved.” According to Gazda:

“It’s 45 years old,” said Connecticut Governor Daniel Malloy about the outgoing symbol. “It was developed at a different time, when our own ideas of a culture and a society were much more about concentrating on that which held people back, as opposed to that which moves people forward and so it was time.”59

Can MLB say the same for its language change? While MLB may view the change as a progressive and obvious move forward, it was clear from user framing via Twitter that the notion of changing Disabled List to Injured List was viewed as neither evident nor necessary.

Finally, language changes over time and words related to under-represented groups have evolved. For example, gendered terms such as chairman or policeman have now become chair and police officer to avoid sex bias. Regarding race, the terms Negro or Colored used to be in common usage but were replaced by Black or African-American, and Oriental has been replaced by Asian. It is important to note that the advocacy efforts examined in the present study aimed to remove the word disability because it was not an accurate description within the particular context of injured players. While many advocacy initiatives center around inserting disability into the language and diversity dialogue, this MLB initiative perhaps created some confusion and misunderstanding for the layperson who may have believed that now the disability community does not agree with the term “disability.” In fact, the use of the word disability is strongly encouraged when needed and necessary, but in the context of describing injury it is not an accurate term. It is possible that the extraction of the term disability may have increased opposition by the everyday fan who lacked an understanding of the nuances of the situation, possibly contributing to the overall negative responses via Twitter.

LIMITATIONS AND DELIMITATIONS

One delimitation to this study was that the data were collected only from Twitter, which has been a common approach in sport communication research (see Blaszka et al., 2016; Burch et al., 2015). Other social media platforms such as Instagram or Facebook were not used for data collection. Another delimitation was the time frame involved in data collection. The time frame took place between the time ESPN reported the change would occur and lasted for 48 hours in order to capture the initial responses. A limitation in the study was an unrelated occurrence that coincided with when the name change story went public. On that same day, Hall of Fame outfielder Frank Robinson passed away. Because he was a prominent MLB player and manager, this may have deflected some commentators who were more interested in the story of Robinson’s death than the change in the name of the Disabled List to the Injured List.

FUTURE RESEARCH

As a follow up to this study, more work is needed in examining disability in a sport industry context. Much work has focused on participation in sport for people with disabilities, but the work being suggested here should focus on disability from a management perspective. For example, while researchers have extensively examined the sport consumption behavior patterns of women and racial ethnic minorities, this has not been done for people with disabilities. In addition, while work exists on the numbers of women and racial ethnic minorities working in sport management (see Lapchick), this work has not been replicated for sport managers with disabilities. Representation is important and having sport managers with disabilities who are visible to fans, sponsors, media, athletes, and coaches will create a more welcoming environment for all. Finally, assessing sport organizations on how disability is present in various aspects of the organization needs to be undertaken. A tool such as the Criteria for Inclusion put forth by Hums, et al. in 2019 could be used to assess how well people with disabilities are represented in sports organizations in terms of funding/sponsorship, media/information distribution, awards/recognitions, philosophy, awareness/education, policy environment, and attitudinal environment.60 Finally, research should continue to monitor how disability is discussed and how information related to disability is disseminated via social media in order to determine how perceptions and reactions change with time.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTITIONERS

In general, organizations should work to promote diversity for two primary reasons: (a) it is the right thing to do, and (b) it makes business sense.61 This includes using inclusive language since it has a positive effect in business environments. According to Pecoraro, “Valuing diversity should be part of the communications brand you build for your business, if you want to reflect the customers you’re serving.”62 Approximately 35% of households in the United States have a member with a disability and these households are more loyal to brands than other households.63 People with disabilities living in the US combine for nearly $175 billion in annual discretionary spending.64 Clearly, this is a market with great potential. People with disabilities also are quite interested in sport and attending sporting events despite the fact they often encounter barriers when wanting to do so. Some teams have made an effort to make their games more inviting to people with disabilities. MLB’s Arizona Diamondbacks host Autism Awareness Day at their ballpark, and the New York Yankees celebrated a Disability Awareness Night, while minor league baseball’s Lake Elsinore Storm and Lancaster Barnstormers have done the same. MLB teams have successfully promoted events such as Ladies Days, Pride Nights, and Hispanic-themed celebrations to appeal to fans from specific demographics. Sending out the message that people with disabilities are welcome, as MLB has done with the change in the Injured List language, can go a long way in newly cultivating a potentially very loyal fan base.

CONCLUSION

The importance of language cannot be overstated. “Language powerfully reflects and influences attitudes, behaviour and perceptions,”65 but language is never static. Changes in everyday language occur all the time. According to the Linguistic Society of America, “Language is always changing, evolving, and adapting to the needs of its users.”66 This study examined how social media users reacted to a change in language related to people with disabilities in the context of a name change to a sport organization’s policy. It illustrated that however simple and straightforward changing one word may appear, that change can still elicit strong emotions from people who are fans of a particular sport. Language can be used to include or exclude. MLB made the decision to change language to be more inclusive of people with disabilities. Social media users reacted both positively and negatively. It was a sure sign that language related to disability in sport needs further research and there is much for sport managers to learn about how to implement changes such as these.

MARY A. HUMS, PH.D. is a Professor of Sport Administration at the University of Louisville. A North American Society for Sport Management Ziegler Lecturer and Diversity Award recipient, her research interest is policy development in sport organizations, especially regarding inclusion of people with disabilities and also sport and human rights. Email: mary.hums@louisville.edu. Twitter: @mahums

EVAN L. FREDERICK, PH.D., is an Associate Professor of Sport Administration at the University of Louisville. His research interest is the intersection of sport and social media. He currently serves as the Vice-Chair for the Association for Communication and Sport.

ANN PEGORARO, PH.D. is the Lang Chair in Sport Management at the University of Guelph and the co-director of the EAlliance— a National Network for Gender Equity in Canadian Sport. Her recent research in digital media focuses on gender and diversity.

NINA SIEGFRIED is a University Fellow and Ph.D. student in the Sport Administration Program at the University of Louisville where she previously completed her M.S. on a Fulbright Scholarship. Her main research areas focus on establishing and maintaining sport partnerships in parasports and also developing successful adaptive sports programs.

ELI A. WOLFF directs the Power of Sport Lab, and co-founded Disability in Sport International and Athletes for Human Rights. His work highlights the intersection of research, education and advocacy in and through sport, with a focus on sport and social justice, diversity, disability and inclusion.

Sources

Allentuck, Danielle. (2019, June 29). “Paralympians See a Big Welcome in Small Title Change.” New York Times, June 29, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/sports/olympics/usoc-paralympians-.html

American Psychological Association. “Guidelines for Nonhandicapping Language in

APA Journals.” 2019. https://apastyle.apa.org/manual/related/nonhandicapping-language

Angelini, James, MacArthur, Paul, and Billings, Andrew. “Spiraling Into or Out of Stereotypes? NBC’s Primetime Coverage of Male Figure Skaters at the 2010 Olympic Games.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 33, no. 2, (2014). 26-35.

Associated Press. “MLB is Focused on Pace of Play Game Changes for 2019.” New York Times. February 8, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/08/sports/baseball/rob-manfred-rule-changes.html

Atcheson, Sheree. “Embracing Diversity and Fostering Inclusion is Good for Your Business.” Forbes. September 9, 2018.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/shereeatcheson/2018/09/25/embracing-diversity-and-fostering-inclusion-is-good-for-your-business/#7d9f3c6472b1

Baseball Reference. “Disabled List.” No date. https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Disabled_list

Bell, Stephania. “Injury Primer: A Guide to Common Baseball Injuries.” ESPN. March 30, 2009. https://www.espn.com/fantasy/baseball/flb/story?page=mlbdk2k9_injuryprimer

Billings, Andrew, Moscowitz, Leigh, Rae, Coral, and Brown-Devlin, Natalie. “The Art of Coming Out: Traditional and Social Media Frames Surrounding the NBA’s Jason Collins.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 92, no. 1, (2015). 142-160.

Bishop, Ronald. “The Wayward Child: An Ideological Analysis of Sports Contract Holdout Coverage.” Journalism Studies 6, no. 4, (2005): 445-459.

Blaszka, Matthew, Frederick, Evan, Newman, Tim., and Pegoraro, Ann. “Was Dissent Being Displayed During the Sochi Olympics? Examining the #Sochi2014 Hashtag for Dissent.” Global Sport Business Association Journal 4, no. 1, (2016). 1-13.

Blum, Ronald. “31 MLB Players and 7 Staff Test Positive for COVID-19—A Rate of 1.2%.” Chicago Tribune. July 4, 2020. https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/breaking/ct-mlb-covid-19-test-results-20200704-46mgzdfv2bepzcyvugc6op56tu-story.html

Bogage, Jacob. (2019, February 9). “‘Baseball Got It’: Disability Rights Advocates Hail MLB’s Decision to Shelve the Disabled List.” Washington Post. February 9, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/02/08/baseball-got-it-disability-rights-advocates-hail-mlbs-decision-shelve-disabled-list/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.29f9a4b9f56d

Bowman, Karlyn. “Polls on Political Correctness.” Forbes. June 5, 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bowmanmarsico/2017/06/05/polls-on-political-correctness/#5c3e81af6093

Burch, Lawrence, Frederick, Evan, and Pegoraro, Ann. “Kissing in the Carnage: An Examination of Framing on Twitter During the Vancouver Riots.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 59 no. 3, (2015). 399-415.

Cambridge University Press. “Definition of Injured.” Cambridge University Press. 2019. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/injured

Cranmer, Gregory and Sanderson, Jimmie. “’Rough Week for Testosterone’”: Public Commentary Around the Ivy League’s Decisions to Restrict Tackle Football in Practice.” Western Journal of Communication 82, no. 5, (2018). 631-647.

Cunningham, George. B., and Regan, Jr., Michael. “Political Activism, Racial Identity, and the Commercial Endorsement of Athletes.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 47, (2012), 657-669.

Dawkins, Corey, and Glass, Rebecca. “Collateral Damage: The Disabled List — A History. Baseball Prospectus. February 3, 2012. https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/15967/collateral-damage-the-disabled-list-a-history/

Eagleman, Andrea. (2011). Stereotypes of race and nationality: A qualitative analysis of sport magazine coverage of MLB players. Journal of Sport Management, 25, 156-168.

Eagleman, Andrea, Rodenberg, Ryan, and Lee, Soonhwan. “From ‘Hollow-eyed Pixies’ to ‘Team of Adults’: Media Portrayals of Women’s Gymnastics Before and After an Increased Minimum Age Policy. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise & Health 6, no. 3, (2014), 401-421.

Entman, Robert. “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm.” Journal of Communication 43, no. 4, (1993), 51-58.

European Parliament. “Gender Neutral Language in the European Parliament.” 2018. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/151780/GNL_Guidelines_EN.pdf

Ferrigon, Phillip. (2019). “Person-first Language vs. Identity First Language: An Examination of the Gains and Drawbacks of Disability Language in Society.” Journal of Teaching Disability Studies. (2019). https://jtds.commons.gc.cuny.edu/person-first-language-vs-identity-first-language-an-examination-of-the-gains-and-drawbacks-of-disability-language-in-society/

Fisher, Marc. (2015, April 5). “Baseball is Struggling to Hook Kids—and Risks Losing Fans to Other Sports.” Washington Post. April 5, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/baseballs-trouble-with-the-youth-curve–and-what-that-means-for-the game/2015/04/05/2da36dca-d7e8-11e4-8103fa84725dbf9d_story.html?utm_term=.2d552bd5d64a

Frederick, Evan and Pegoraro, Ann. “Scandal in College Basketball: A Case Study of Image Repair via Facebook.” International Journal of Sport Communication 11, no. 3, (2018) 414-429.

Frederick, Evan, Pegoraro, Ann, and Burch, Lawrence. “Legends Worthy of Lament: An Analysis of Self-presentation and User Framing on the Legends Football League’s Facebook Page.” Journal of Sports Media 12, no. 1, (2017) 169-190.

Frederick, Evan, Pegoraro, Ann, and Burch, Lawrence, “Echo or Organic: Framing the 2014 Sochi Games.” Online Information Review 40, (2016) 1-19.

Frederick, Evan, Pegoraro, Ann, and Sanderson, Jimmie. “Divided and united: Perceptions of Athlete Activism at the ESPYS.” Sport in Society 12, (2019), 1919-1936.

Frederick, Evan, Sanderson, Jimmie, and Schlereth, Nicholas. “Kick These Kids Off the Team and Take Away Their Scholarships: Facebook and Perceptions of Athlete Activism at the University of Missouri.” Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics 10, (2017), 17-34.

Frederick, Evan, Stocz, Michael, and Pegoraro, Ann. “Prayers, Punishment, and Perception: An Analysis of the Response to the Tony Stewart—Kevin Ward Jr. Incident on Facebook.” Sport in Society 19, (no. 10), (2016), 1460-1477.

Gamson, William and Modigliani, Andre. “The Changing Culture of Affirmative Action.” Research in Political Sociology 3, (1987), 137-177.

Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. “Reshaping, Rethinking, Redefining: Feminist Disability

Studies.” Women Enabled. 2001 https://www.womenenabled.org/pdfs/Garland-Thomson,Rosemarie,RedefiningFeministDisabilitiesStudiesCWPR2001.pdf

Gazda, Maureen. (2017, January 13). “Connecticut Assesses Law Updating Access Symbol.” New Mobility. January 13, 2017. http://www.newmobility.com/2017/01/connecticut-updates-access-symbol/

Howe, David. “From Inside the Newsroom: Paralympic Media and the ‘Production’ of Elite Disability.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 43, no. 2, (2008), 135-150.

Huang, Ying and Fahmy, Shahira. “Picturing a Journey of Protest or a Journey of Harmony? Comparing the Visual Framing of the 2008 Olympic Torch Relay in the US Versus Chinese Press.” Media, War & Conflict 6, no. 3, (2013), 191-206.

Hums, Mary, Wolff, Eli, and Legg, David. “Leadership in Disability Sport.” In Sport leadership in the 21st century. Edited by Laura Burton, G. Kane, and John Borland, 283-300. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett. 2019.

International Paralympic Committee. “Rio 2016 Paralympics Smash All TV Viewing Records.” 2017 https://www.paralympic.org/news/rio-2016-paralympics-smash-all-tv-viewing-records

Jimenez, Abdel. “The Spending Power of Americans with Disabilities.” Business Journalism. 2018. https://businessjournalism.org/2018/09/the-spending-power-of-americans-with-disabilities/

Kastel, Matthew. “Our National Pastime Collides with Political Correctness.” Newsmax. April 10, 2019. https://www.newsmax.com/matthewkastel/baseball-political-correctness-sports/2019/04/10/id/911083/

Kaufman, Peter. “Boos, Bans, and Other Backlash: The Consequences of Being an Activist Athlete.” Humanity & Society 32, (2008), 215-237.

Lapchick, Richard. “Racial and Gender Report Card.” TIDE Sport. 2020. https://www.tidesport.org/racial-gender-report-card

Laucella, Pamela. “Arthur Ashe, Privacy, and Media: An Analysis of Newspaper Journalists’ Coverage of Ashe’s AIDS Announcement.” International Journal of Sport Communication 2, no. 1, (2009), 56-80.

Laucella, Pamela. “Michael Vick: An Analysis of Press Coverage on Federal Dogfighting Charges.” Journal of Sports Media 5, no. 2, (2010), 35-76.

Le Clair, Jill. “Global Organizational Change in Sport and the Shifting Meaning of Disability.” Sport in Society, 14, no. 9), (2011), 1072–1093.

Liang, Limin. “Framing China and the World Through the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, 1984—2008.” Sport in Society 13, no. 5), (2010), 819-832.

Lindlof, Thomas and Taylor, Bryon. Qualitative Communication Research Methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oak, CA: Sage Publications. 2011.

Linguistic Society of America. “Is English Changing?” 2019. https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/english-changing

Major League Baseball. “10 Day Injured List.” 2019. http://m.mlb.com/glossary/injuries/10-day-injured-list

Mataxas, Panagiotis., and Twitter Trails Research Team. “Retweets Indicate Agreement, Endorsement, Trust: A Meta-analysis of Published Twitter Research.” Wellesley. 2017.http://cs.wellesley.edu/~pmetaxas/WorkingPapers/Retweet-meaning.pdf

Mather, Victor. “The ‘Disabled List’ in Baseball Gets Deactivated.” New York Times. February 8, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/08/sports/disabled-list-baseball.html

Meraz, Sharon and Papacharissi, Zizi. “Networked Gatekeeping and Networked Framing on #Egypt.” The International Journal of Press/Politics 18, (2013), 138-166.

NBA. “Collective Bargaining Agreement.” 2017. https://cosmic-s3.imgix.net/3c7a0a50-8e11-11e9-875d-3d44e94ae33f-2017-NBA-NBPA-Collective-Bargaining-Agreement.pdf

NBA Media Ventures. “Inactive v. Active List Rules.” 2018. https://www.nba.com/news/inactive_rules_0506.html

Neff, Jack. “Nielsen’s First Dive into Households with Disabilities Finds Poorer but Loyal Customers.” Ad Age. October 26, 2016. https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/nielsen-households-disabilitIes-skew-poorer-loyal/306474

New York State. “Governor Cuomo Signs Legislation Updating New York’s Accessibility Signage and Logos.” Governor of New York. July 25, 2014. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-signs-legislation-updating-new-yorks-accessibility-signage-and-logos

NFL. (2017). “Personnel (Injury) Report Policy”. 2017. https://operations.nfl.com/media/2683/2017-nfl-injury-report-policy.pdf

NHL. “Hockey Operations Guidelines.” http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=26377

Nightingale, Bob. “MLB to Implement New Rule Changes That Will Shake Up Look of Sport.” USA Today. March 14, 2019. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2019/03/14/mlb-new-rule-changes-roster-3-batter-minimum/3157226002/

Nisbet, Matthew. “Knowledge Into Action: Framing the Debates Over Climate Change and Poverty.” In Doing Frame Analysis: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives, edited by Paul D’Angelo and Jim Kuypers, 43-83. London: Routledge, 2010.

Passan, Jeff. “Major League Baseball to Rename Disabled List to Injured List.” ESPN. February 7, 2019. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/25947020/major-league-baseball-rename-disabled-list-injured-list

Pecararo, Grazia. “The Business Impacts of Inclusive Language.” Employment Law Matters. August 27, 2018. https://employmentlawmatters.com/health-wellbeing-eeo/the-business-impacts-of-inclusive-language/#.XUChpZNKi4s

Portnoy, Howard. “The Latest Victim of Political Correctness: The Disabled List in Baseball.” Liberty Unyielding. February 28, 2019. https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/02/08/the-latest-victim-of-political-correctness-the-disabled-list-in-baseball/

Rehabilitation Research and Training Center. “Disability Stigma and Your Patients.” No date. http://agerrtc.washington.edu/info/factsheets/stigma

Ruderman Foundation. “Episode 13: Diversity and Inclusion in Major League Baseball.” April 15, 2019.https://rudermanfoundation.org/podcast/episode-13-diversity-and-inclusion-in-major-league-baseball/

Reuters. “Tokyo Receives Unprecedented Demand for Paralympic Tickets.” The Guardian. December 10, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/dec/10/tokyo- receive-unprecedented-demand-2020-paralympics-tickets-athletics

Schmidt, Samuel, Frederick, Evan, Pegoraro, Ann, and Spencer, Tyler. “An Analysis of Colin Kaepernick, Megan Rapinoe, and the National Anthem Protests.” Communication & Sport 7, (no. 5), (2019). 653-677.

Serazio, Michael and Thorson, Emily. “Sports Fans Were Already Politicized. And Sports Culture is Deeply Conservative.” October 2, 2017. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/10/02/sports-were-already-politicized-and-sports-culture-is-deeply-conservative/?utm_term=.25671c966c26

Silva, Carol and Howe, David. “The (In)validity of Supercrip Representation of Paralympic Athletes.” Journal of Sport and Social Issues 36, no.2), (2014), 174-194.

Smith, Marc, A., Rainie, Lee, Shneiderman, Ben., and Himelboim, Itai. “Mapping Twitter Topic Networks: From Polarized Crowds to Community Clusters.” Pew Research Internet Project. 2014, http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/02/20/mapping-twitter-topic-networks-from-polarized-crowds-to-community-clusters/

Strauss, Anselm. Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists. London: Cambridge University Press. 1987.

Tewksbury, David and Scheufele, Dietram. “News Framing Theory and Research.” In Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research. Edited by J. Bryant and M. B. Oliver. 17-33. New York: Taylor & Francis. 2009.

Thorson, Emily., and Serazio, Michael. “Sports Fandom and Political Attitudes.” Public Opinion Quarterly, 82 no. 2, (2018). 391–403. https://doi-org.echo.louisville.edu/10.1093/poq/nfy018

Toback, Rebecca. “Explaining PUP, NFI, IR, and Other NFL Roster Designations.” Cincy Jungle. September 2, 2018. https://www.cincyjungle.com/2018/8/31/17797904/explaining-pup-nfi-ir-other-injury-nfl-roster-designations-cuts-53-man-roster

United Nations. “FAQs.” 2007. https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/faqs.htm

United Nations Office of Economic and Social Affairs. “Disability and Sport.” 2011. https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/issues/disability-and-sports.html

USDOJ. “Introduction to the ADA.” No date. https://www.ada.gov/ada_intro.htm

van Luijk, Nicollen and Frisby, Wendy. “(Re)Framing of Protest at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.” International Journal of Sport Policy 4, no. 2, (2012). 343-359.

WebMD. “Sports Injuries A-Z.” 2019. https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/sports-injuries-a-to-z

Notes

1 Dawkins and Glass, 2012.

2 Baseball-Reference.com

3 NFL, 2017; Toback, 2018.

4 NBA 2017, Article 1, 5; NBA Media Ventures, 2018.

5 NBA, 2017, 200.

6 NHL.

7 Major League Baseball, Official Rules, 2019.

8 Of note is the fact that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, MLB also created a COVID-19 related injured list, which specified no minimum stay. Any of three conditions could place a player on this list:“a positive test, exposure to coronavirus or symptoms that require isolation or additional assessment,” as quoted by Blum, 2020.

9 Author, personal communication, September 3, 2003.

10 Link20, personal communication, November 27, 2018.

11 Passan, 2019.

12 Bogage, 2019; Mather, 2019.

13 Mary Hums, as quoted in Allentuck 2019, 1.

14 Ferrigon, 2019.

15 APA, 2019.

16 Ferrigon, 2019.

17 USDOJ.

18 Cambridge University Press, 2019.

19 Bell, 2009.

20 Garland-Thomson, 2001, 2.

21 Rehabilitation Research and Training Center, n.d.

22 LeClair, 2011, 1078.

23 International Paralympic Committee, 2017.

24 Reuters, 2019.

25 Howe, 2008; Silva and Howe, 2012.

26 American Psychological Association, 2019.

27 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2011.

28 Entman, 1993.

29 Gamson and Modligliani, 1987; Tewksbury and Scheufele, 2009.

30 Angelini, et al. 2014; Billings, et al. 2014; Eagleman, et al. 2014.

31 Huang and Fahmy, 2013; Liang, 2010; van Luijk and Frisby, 2012.

32 Bishop, 2005; Eagleman, 2011; Laucella, 2009, 2010.

33 Nisbet, 2010.

34 Meraz and Papacharissi, 2013.

35 Burch, et al., 2015.

36 Blaszka, et al., 2016.

37 Frederick, Pegoraro, and Burch, 2016.

38 Billings, et al., 2015.

39 Frederick, Stocz, and Pegoraro, 2016.

40 Frederick, Pegoraro, and Burch, 2017.

41 Frederick, Sanderson, and Schlereth, 2017.

42 Frederick, Pegoraro, and Sanderson, 2019.

43 Schmidt, et al., 2019.

44 Cranmer and Sanderson, 2018.

45 Cranmer and Sanderson, 638.

46 Cranmer and Sanderson, 642.

47 Lindlof and Taylor 2011, 251.

48 Lindlof and Taylor 2011, 252.

49 Associated Press, 2019; Nightingale, 2019.

50 Serazio and Thorson, 2017.

51 Thorson and Serazio, 2018.

52 Kaufman, 2008.

53 Cunnigham and Regan, 2012.

54 Frederick, Pegoraro, and Sanderson, 2019.

55 Frederick, Sanderson, and Schlereth, 2017.

56 Kastel, 2019; Portnoy, 2019.

57 Rudeman Foundation, 2019.

58 New York State, 2014.

59 Gazda, 2017.

60 Hums, et al, 2019.

61 Atcheson, 2018.

62 Pecoraro, 2018.

63 Neff, 2016.

64 Jimenez, 2018.

65 European Parliament, 2018.

66 Linguistic Society of America, 2019.

On April 6, 1927, Florida State League president J.B. Asher extended an invitation to a group of community leaders headed by Louis K. MacReynolds to join the Class D league. Asher’s goal was to expand his league to the south and replace failed teams in Bradenton, Fort Myers, and Lakeland, Florida. Asher took advantage of the city’s rapidly growing population in order to increase attendance in his financially strapped league.1

MacReynolds, and other representatives from Miami, were quick to accept the offer to join the FSL. As part of the arrangement, the floundering Bradenton Growers would transfer to Miami to play their home games at Miami Field (formerly Tatum Park/Field).2

On April 11, a formal announcement by MacReynolds, declared that the Magic City would have its first officially recognized minor league team approved by the National Association, the governing body of minor league baseball. Under the direction of president W.B. Kirby, the team would begin play during the 1927 season featuring a split-season format with the first and second half leaders meeting in a best-of-seven series for the championship.3

In short order, the team received the moniker “Hustlers” and named new player-manager William “Bill” Holloway to lead the club. A first baseman by trade, Holloway previously played with Bloomington (1922) and Rockford (1923) of the Class-B III-League before moving to Florida and catching on with an independent team that moved fromDaytona Beach to Clearwater.4

Tryouts to fill the 14-man roster began in earnest with the opener set for April 21. The late start posed several problems—including the late arrival of equipment and uniforms as well as the hastily built roster—which the team paid dearly for during the first half of the scheduled split season.5

An overflow, standing-room-only crowd of 5,000 greeted the Hustlers for opening day at Miami Field (capacity 3,400). Pre-game ceremonies including a parade through town led by the Fireman’s Band, putting many of the locals in quite the festive mood.6 Miami city manager Frank Wharton, with his customary cigar clenched firmly between his teeth, threw out the first ball to a chorus of cheers.7 Unfortunately, for the hometown supporters, the Hustlers were not up to the task against the visiting Sarasota Tarpons. Miami starting pitcher Joe Domingo was chased early leaving Holloway to call on Dick Peel to finish the game. The Tarpons prevailed, 7–5, the beneficiaries of four Miami errors, two by shortstop Rip Turner.8

Early season results continued to be disappointing after the Hustlers dropped 16 of their first 22 games. Before closing out the first half, Miami experienced an 18-game losing skein and fell deeply into last place.

FIRST HALF STANDINGS

Wholesale changes were in order based on the disastrous first-half results. W.B. Kirby resigned as team president and Holloway stepped aside as manager. Taking over control of the club was Smiley Tatum, a prominent land developer and entrepreneur, who was the driving force in constructing Miami Field. With the intention of turning his club around, Tatum immediately recruited and named Henry “Cotton” Knaupp as his new manager.9 The 38-year old, flaxen-haired former mid-infielder brought with him a wealth of experience. He began his professional career as a player in 1910 with the Victoria Rosebuds of the Southwest Texas League. So impressive was the 20-year-old that the Cleveland Indians signed him to serve as their reserve shortstop. After a pair of campaigns with the Tribe, he returned to the minors for 17 more seasons, twelve with the New Orleans Pelicans of the Southern Association, where he became a local diamond legend.10,11

Knaupp brought immediate discipline to the club and dispelled the negative attitudes that had festered previously. He began by completely rebuilding the roster. One of his first moves was signing an upstart pitcher from the West Coast, “Lefty” Wetsell (sometimes spelled Wetzel). He followed by releasing infielders Eddie Dean and C.E. Vincent, pitcher Heinie Hymel, and outfielder J.W. Richards, and inked Benjamin Keyes from the Cotton States League, as well as pitcher “Hy” Meyer (sometimes spelled as “Hi” and Myers). He also shifted former Cincinnati Reds prospect Walter “Babe” Bennin from behind the plate to the outfield.12

Throughout the summer, Knaupp tinkered with the roster and made all the right moves. He accepted the resignation of Holloway, who had stayed on to play first base, and released infielder Mike Maloney. He recruited new blood, including new shortstop Clint Bingham, first baseman Cotton Tatum, and Matt Hinkle.13

Bingham and Tatum shored up the shaky infield defense, while pasture worker Fausto “Cas” Casares, one of the few to survive the changes, continued to drive the offense as their leading home-run hitter. At the same time, Miami developed the league’s top pitching staff, consisting of Chad “Georgia” Davis, Meyer, Dick Peel, and Wetsell.

The improved Hustlers played with newfound enthusiasm, engaging in a tight pennant race with the Sanford Celeryfeds (the colorful nickname referencing the city as the celery capital of the world) during the second half. Miami received a temporary setback on July 26 when Peel, the only pitcher remaining from the opening day roster, went down with a leg injury during a pre-game warmup. Knaupp moved quickly and replaced the injured hurler with pitcher Buster “Lefty” Brown.14 Later he would add Pryor “Chief” McBee, who had appeared briefly with the Chicago White Sox in 1926. The latter arrived from Jacksonville of the Class-B Southeastern League.15

On August 17, the Hustlers passed Sanford in the standings, pasting St. Petersburg, 7–2, while Tampa pummeled the Celeryfeds, 10–4. Bennin led Miami’s offense with a trio of base knocks while Davis earned another “W” with help from Meyer, to close out the game and seal the deal.16

Miami finished the season strong, winning 16 of their final 20 games, putting three games between them and Sanford. Knaupp did not rest on his laurels and continued to fortify his club in order to compete for a championship by acquiring two St. Petersburg stars, pitcher Jose “Joe” Hernández, and Saints hitter Bill Brazier, a minor league veteran.17

On September 4, Hernandez tossed a 5–0 shutout at Miami Field, clinching the second half championship for the Hustlers. The “Knauppmen” recorded only five hits. They made the most of their opportunities, plating all of their runs in the sixth inning, highlighted by Hernández helping his own cause with a triple. Miami had gone from the basement to the penthouse in the biggest turnaround in the short history of the FSL (established in 1919).18

Sanford, the previous year’s champions that fell short of qualifying for postseason play, felt slighted by Miami’s roster moves. The Celeryfeds lodged a complaint with the league’s offices pointing out that Miami broke a league rule that stated, “Only up to three players with higher level professional experience are allowed per team.” Wetsell, accused of being the fourth player with said experience, made Miami ineligible to compete for the FSL championship. Upon further review by league officials, the Sanford protest was overturned and Miami was able to meet Orlando to determine the league champion.19

SECOND HALF STANDINGS

On September 7, the championship series began under a canopy of dark clouds, as rain battered the opener at Orlando’s Tinker Field, leading to a postponement. The series resumed the next day under clearer skies, but with tempers running high between the two clubs. McBee, who joined Miami late in the season, squared off against the Colts’ best starter, “Red” Sweeney. The game featured several arguments and questionable calls by the umpires. The first of two major brouhahas came in the third inning on a tag up play, when Orlando’s Paul Kirby left second base too early and was called out. Manager Phil Wells (who also served as the team’s catcher) erupted at what he perceived as an obvious slight and engaged in a heated exchange with the umpiring crew. By the time the fur stopped flying, the angry skipper found himself ejected from the game.20

In the seventh inning, a second disturbance began. Fisticuffs ensued when Rollie Tinker (son of Hall of Famer Joe Tinker) received the benefit of a call on a close play. Miami’s Clem Foss blew a gasket, leading to another heated disagreement with umpire Fredericks. The pair soon traded punches that led to Foss getting the heave-ho. The exchanges on the field were so violent that police arrived to quell the disturbance. After the game, Foss received a 90-day suspension rendering him unable to play the remainder of the series.21

Orlando took the second game, 1–0, after a day off due to the previous day’s rainout.22 Miami bounced back to win game three. The Hustlers plated a run in the fifth on a Colts error, and an insurance run in the sixth, courtesy of a Tatum RBI single. Davis kept Orlando in check, twirling a one-hitter for the 2–0 win.23

The fourth game of the series found the Colts back in the driver’s seat. The contest turned into another pitchers’ duel between Wetsell and Sweeney. A Bingham error in the tenth inning proved costly as Orlando edged Miami, 1–0. The Colts held a commanding 3–1 edge and were poised to take the championship trophy home.24

After a day off, and some much-needed rest, The Hustlers offense came to life in game five, knocking around three Colts pitchers. Orlando absorbed their worst defeat of the year against the Hustlers, 12–4, at Miami Field.25 The Hustlers had their eyes on the next game to even the series.

The sixth game resulted in one of the most bizarre outcomes ever played out in the FSL. Going into the bottom of the ninth inning, with the Hustlers trailing, 1–0, the Colts looked poised to celebrate the championship. With one out, Casares took a lead off third. Keyes then hit a low line drive to second baseman Tinker. It appeared he had snagged it just inches above the infield dirt. Tinker was so confident that he had made the catch that he failed to make the customary throw to first, while Keyes raced down the line. To Tinker’s astonishment, the umpire ruled that the ball was trapped and Keyes was safe. A hysterical Wells bolted from the dugout. When his protestations with arbiters failed to change the call, he refused to let his team return to the field. Miami was rewarded the win by forfeit, thus forcing a deciding seventh game.26

What followed should have been the climax to the season, but instead it turned out to be a let-down. Orlando cruised to an easy 12–1 victory, taking the league crown on Miami Field. The Miami News and Metropolis called the Hustlers’ performance the poorest of the year. McBee turned in his worst start of the year, while the Colts immersed themselves in sweet celebration.27

Miami looked forward to play in 1928, but the season came to an early halt as the league ceased operations before finishing the schedule. The economy in Florida had been on a downturn since 1926 and the Great Depression loomed, bringing with it hard economic times.

Baseball did not return to the Magic City until 1940 when the Florida East Coast League was established. The Miami Wahoos and Miami Beach Flamingos joined the league. Miami would not experience a championship team until 1950 when the Sun Sox, led by their colorful skipper Pepper Martin, would capture their first Florida International League title.28

SAM ZYGNER has been a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) since 1997, and has served as the Chairperson for the South Florida Chapter of SABR since 2007. Zygner has written for the Baseball Research Journal, The National Pastime, and was previously a sports columnist for La Prensa de Miami. He is the author of the books “Baseball Under the Palms” and “The Forgotten Marlins.”

Notes

1 “Miami Offered League Berth,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, April 7, 1927, 11.

2 “Fifty Players Seeking Berths in Miami Team,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, Apri1 13, 1927, 11.

3 “State League Team For City Will Be Urged,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, April 11, 1927, 12.

4 Baseball-Reference.com.

5 “120 Game Play Opening Is Set For April 21,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, April 12, 1927, 11.

6 “Street Parade Will Precede Opening Game,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, April 21, 1927, 12.

7 “Opening Game Offered Fans Run For Money,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, April 22, 1927, 11.

8 “Opening Game Offered Fans Run For Money”.

9 “S.M. Tatum Is New President Of The Miami Baseball Club,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, June 16, 1927, 10.

10 Milb.com. New Orleans Baseball History.

11 Baseball-Reference.com.

12 “Sanford Plays Here Saturday With Hustlers,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, June 25, 1927, 9.

13 “Hustlers Play Tampa Thursday At Miami Field,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, July 7, 1927, 7.

14 “Visitors Have Another Field Day In Battle,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, July 27, 1927, 9.

15 Baseball-Reference.com.

16 “Sanford Loses To Tampa 10-4; Miami On Top,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, August 18, 1927, 9.

17 “Saints Release Cuban Hurler”, Evening Independent (St. Petersburg, Florida), July 8, 1927, p. 2.

18 “Double Header Monday Closes League Series,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, September 5, 1927, 5.

19 “League Moguls Find Against Sanford’s Club,” Evening Independent (St. Petersburg, Florida), August 7, 1927, 8.

20 “Orlando Wins Series Opener,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, September 9, 1927, 3.

21 “Orlando Wins Series Opener.”

22 “Hustlers Need Victory Badly In Flag Race,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, September 10, 1927, 10.

23 “Davis Pitches One Hit Game For Knauppmen,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, September 12, 1927, 6.

24 “Bingham Lets Orlando Score In The Tenth,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, September 13, 1927, 15.

25 “Orlando Loses Hectic 12 To 4 Tilt Wednesday,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, September 15, 1927, 16.

26 “Colts Forfeit Thursday Game In The Ninth,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, September 16, 1927, 16.

27 “Hustlers Lose Final Contest Of The Series,” Miami Daily News and Metropolis, September 17, 1927, 10.

28 Baseball-Reference.com.

This story has been around for over 100 years. For more than half that time, I have tried to find documentation of it. I learned of the tale in a 1966 article about Nicollet Park by Dave Mona in the Minneapolis Tribune, one that had a lasting effect on me.1 Through its anecdotes, the article sparked an interest in Nicollet Park that fit with my fascination for old ballparks. It created an obsession with the Minneapolis Millers, which led to hundreds of hours at microfilm machines to document every game played by the Millers. The result was my first book, On to Nicollet: The Glory and Fame of the Minneapolis Millers, as well as the revelation that no home run of this type ever happened at Nicollet Park.2

During my research on the Millers, I paid particular attention to 1903 through 1910—when Oyler played for Minneapolis—and I looked closely for any event approaching this story. Nothing emerged. Oyler hit only one home run for the Millers. It came in an 8-6 loss at Milwaukee on August 2, 1904, and the newspapers made no mention of anything special, something that would have been noted had the ball traveled only a few feet.

That didn’t keep the story from being told—and retold. It appeared the year after Oyler’s career with Minneapolis ended.3 The earliest mention found was April 20, 1911, in a Buffalo, New York, newspaper; hundreds of other papers—generally in small towns across the United States—picked up the story through telegraph services and repeated it. The story says the home run was a game-ender against the rival St. Paul Saints, replete with colorful descriptions such as, “Oyler rounded third like Casey Jones in his six-eight wheeler, making connections with the Santa Fe, and pulled up at home plate, scoring the winning run.”4

Oyler’s muddy home run has turned up in Catholic Digest in 1953 and, more than once, in Baseball Digest, including a 1958 article by Bill Bryson, a longtime sportswriter in Iowa. Bryson’s son, Michael G. Bryson, used it as the title story in a 1990 book, The Twenty-Four Inch Home Run and Other Outlandish, Incredible but True Events in Baseball History. Bryson embellished his version with a description of Oyler ducking an inside pitch with the ball striking his bat and landing in the mud in front of home plate.5

Good researchers know that sometimes the essence of a story may be true even if details of it get mangled over time. Could have it been a triple into the mud that, in multiple retellings, grew into a home run? Or even a single? The closest resemblance found came during a June 28, 1904, game. A reporter for the Minneapolis Journal wrote a whimsical account of a sixth-inning run by the Millers, driven in by Oyler when he “attempted to duck a wild throw, inadvertently hit it and it rolled fair.” The Minneapolis Tribune reported that rain threatened the game in the early innings but held off, and the field was dry in the sixth when Oyler topped the pitch in front of the plate. Nothing more happened than Oyler reaching base while driving home a runner from third.6

In 2005 I heard from Bob Kotanchik, a boyhood friend of John Oyler, Andy’s grandson. Kotanchik had read of the feat on the back of a baseball card in the mid-1950s and asked his friend about it.7 I also talked to John, who said he and Bob later got a first-hand account of the story from Andy.8

In January 2020, Oyler’s alleged ball turned up on Antiques Roadshow. Ted Oyler told appraiser Leila Dunbar that his grandfather sent the muddy ball to his family—scrawling an address on it, affixing a stamp, and putting it in the mail. “And then he followed it with a letter, explaining what it was,” said Ted. “We have a letter, I don’t have it on me, but there is a letter and it’s been rolling around in a desk drawer for a hundred years.”9

I tracked down that branch of the Oylers. As for the letter that was supposed to have explained everything, a family member acknowledged no such letter existed and attributed Ted Oyler’s claim of it as “ancestral elaboration.”10

I had a couple of phone conversations with Fred Oyler, Andy’s son and Ted’s dad, who lives in Carlisle in central Pennsylvania, an area where Andy lived most of his life. Fred is the owner of the ball and lent it to his son for Antiques Roadshow. Fred confirmed there was no letter that followed the ball and freely stated that the story may be “fact or fiction.”11

The Antiques Roadshow appearance sent me back to the archives of the SABR-L listserv, a longtime resource for me on this and other topics, and I found this gem of a response from 1999: “Sabermetric research has gone too far! Somebody stop Stew Thornley before he proves without a doubt that Oyler’s HR never happened. The story is far too beautiful to be potentially sullied by cold-hearted Truth.”12

Was this a tongue-in-cheek comment? I interpreted it as such although in ensuing years I’ve encountered serious opinions from people who don’t want their legends destroyed and who claim people like me have a “fetish” for accuracy. Anyone familiar with the movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance knows the sentiment: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

Before the Society for American Baseball Research—an organization founded in 1971 with establishing “an accurate historical account of baseball through the years” as one of its objectives—frivolous yarns ruled. Alfred H. Spink’s 1911 book, The National Game, includes a wild tale of a St. Paul pitcher losing a game to Minneapolis when a batted ball stuck on a nail high up on the outfield fence, allowing three runs to score before his teammates could get a ladder.13

Mac Davis in his 1958 book, Sports Shorts: Astonishing Strange but True, has equally implausible stories, including one of a dead man winning a game for a Benson, Minnesota, team “around the turn of the century.” According to the county historical society, “The story was a figment of the imagination of a railroad man here who got together with an umpire and concocted the story, sending it out on the telegraph wire.” Most stories emanating from thin air can’t be traced back to a source, if, indeed, the historical society version isn’t apocryphal itself.14

Hugh Fullerton, a writer deeply connected with the 1919 White Sox intentionally losing the World Series (itself the subject of widespread myths that have been debunked by SABR’s Black Sox Scandal Research Committee), had a reputation for whoppers. In his 2016 book, The Betrayal: The 1919 World Series and the Birth of Modern Baseball, Charles Fountain wrote that when accused of sacrificing accuracy for the sake of a good story, Fullerton replied, “You would sacrifice a good story for the sake of accuracy.”15

Perhaps no one got more mileage from fanciful anecdotes than Bill Stern, the sportscaster renowned for hyperbole and outright fabrications on his weekly radio show. Stern bristled at criticism of his mythmaking and, in his 1959 autobiography, wrote that his sports program was “strictly entertainment and being such was one in which I was entitled to unlimited dramatic license.”16

Entertainment allowing for dramatic license even when the stories are presented as fact? This question became central to a captivating SABR-L thread in 1995-1996 about Ken Burns’s Baseball.

An innocuous inquiry on the listserv led to a discussion of the accuracy of Baseball and eventually to questions of whether Burns had intentionally misrepresented information for the sake of the story. The topic came down to the primary question: “If Burns took such liberties, was it proper?”

A consultant on the Burns project, former Hall of Fame librarian Tom Heitz, responded with a post, “In defense of Ken Burns,” in which he wrote, “The art of myth-making in baseball journalism has unfortunately been largely lost by the current generation of broadcasters and scribes who have been subjected to ‘training’ in journalistic accuracy, etc.”17

Spirited debate followed from SABR stalwarts Larry Gerlach, John Pastier, Tom Wark, John Thorn, Marvin Bittinger, and Stewart Wolpin until Nancy Jo Leachman cut to the core with the question, “WHY, WHY, WHY is this a debate about choosing between historical accuracy and folkloric awe and wonder?”18

Over time, I have learned the value of colorful tales, even dubious ones, and that they can be told with a buyer-beware disclaimer. Dave Mona’s 1966 article on Nicollet Park sent me on a life-long journey of baseball research, fueled by stories that may or may not be true. Mona produced the “folkloric awe and wonder” that Nancy Jo Leachman wrote of while also noting, “Part of Nicollet’s lore exists in the realm of ‘hard to believe and verify’ anecdotes.”19

Matt Tavares, then a SABR member, contacted me in 2004 as he worked on a children’s book about the home run, Mudball. Tavares knew the story was suspect and acknowledged it in the book’s afterword: “…[M]any baseball historians believe that Andy Oyler’s muddy home run never happened. Over the years, the legend of Andy Oyler has grown. With each retelling, details have been added and altered. And what has emerged is a classic American folktale . . . Even though these stories might not be true, they endure because they give us heroes we can emulate and Everymen with whom we can identify.”20

On the other hand, Michael G. Bryson, who included “True” in the title of his book and referred to “professional baseball’s shortest bona fide homer,” presented no such disclaimer or caveat.

Skepticism is an essential quality in a researcher. So is sensitivity.

I learned a lesson in 1984 when I told Joe Hauser that 50 of his 69 homers in 1933 came at cozy Nicollet Park, ruining his recollection that he had hit at least half on the road. Researchers can be sensitive with the subjects of stories but remain true to facts they disseminate. Although I felt bad for the clumsy manner in which I diminished Hauser’s achievement in his mind, I didn’t doctor the details when I listed his home runs in On to Nicollet.

As I’ve been in touch with Oyler family members, I have avoided talking in terms of debunking the story. Instead, I focused on trying to get information to nail down the date of the event. Perhaps something of the sort happened sometime—when Oyler played baseball at Washington & Jefferson College or on an amateur team in Chambersburg or Newville in Pennsylvania—and the story morphed into a home run in professional baseball.21

My initial conversations with Fred Oyler, Andy’s son, in March 2020 indicated his own skepticism about the story. Three-and-a-half months later, Fred called me. In his dad’s trunk, Fred discovered an article by me with the news that the only home run Oyler hit with the Millers was definitely not a mud ball.22 “You answered the question,” he said. “It is definitely [just] a legend.”

Fred also recalled a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, newspaper talking to his dad and printing the legend. Fred asked his dad if the story was real. “He demurred. He didn’t deny it. He didn’t say it was true. He was a pretty straight-laced guy. He would have told me if it was true.”

True or not, the legend has been interesting for the Oylers and others. Fred worked in Japan for five-and-a-half years and told his dad’s story to a co-worker who was a baseball fan. Thanks to the co-worker’s connections, Fred ended up on a Japanese version of the television show I’ve Got a Secret.

Far from upset about the truth, Fred is at peace with it. He plans to donate the ball to the Cumberland County Historical Society. I told him when we were past the COVID-19 pandemic that R.J. Lesch, a SABR member who lives in Carlisle, was going to invite him to a SABR meeting. When I said I would come out there for such a meeting, Fred told me he would pay for my plane ticket (a kind offer that I declined).

The experience has been another lesson—the pursuit of facts doesn’t mean the end of a legend. It may even enhance it. After all, what baseball myth is more memorable than Abner Doubleday being the game’s creator? And the story behind it is even greater: a committee created not to learn the true origins of baseball, only that it was American in its roots, and its reliance on a 1905 letter written by a most unreliable source, Abner Graves.23

Andy Oyler’s alleged mudball has also taken on a life of its own, one more interesting than the original tale.

“I think we’ll put the story to bed . . . finally,” Fred Oyler concluded. “It will be in the historical society for people to enjoy that way.”24

STEW THORNLEY has been researching Minnesota baseball history for more than 40 years. His first book, “On to Nicollet: The Glory and Fame of the Minneapolis Millers,” covered the history of baseball in Minneapolis. He has been a SABR member since 1979. Stew is an official scorer for Major League Baseball and is a member of the MLB Official Scoring Advisory Committee.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to members and friends of the Oyler family—Fred (Andy’s son), John (Andy’s grandson), Bob Kotanchik (boyhood friend of John Oyler), and Steve Ruetter (Andy’s grandson-in-law)—as well as SABR members Ev Cope (who alerted me to the segment on Antiques Roadshow), David McDonald, Dave Mona, Rich Arpi, Tim Herlich, F.X. Flinn, Paul Ember, Cary Smith, Wayne McElreavy, Jim Wohlenhaus, Matt Tavares, Ed Morton, Bob LeMoine, Rod Nelson, and Curt Smith.

For more on Minnesota Sports Myths and the phenomenon of how myths can happen, see https://milkeespress.com/minnesotamyths.html.

Notes

1 “Nicollet Park: A Colorful Page in Baseball History” by Dave Mona, Minneapolis Tribune, November 6, 1966: 2, Home and Recreation.

2 Stew Thornley, On to Nicollet: The Glory and Fame of the Minneapolis Millers, Minneapolis: Nodin Press: 1988 and 2000.

3 Oyler had been beaned in 1909 and, unable to regain his former skills, retired in 1910. He did try a comeback with Kansas City in the American Association in 1912 but lasted only four games.

4 “Made a Home Run on a Bunt,” Buffalo (New York) Enquirer, April 20, 1911: 9.

5 “There Was Joy in Mudville,” Catholic Digest, Volume 17, June 1953: 12; “Inch-hit Homer!” by Jocko Maxwell, Baseball Digest, April 1953: 29-30; “The World’s Shortest Home Runs” by Bill Bryson, Baseball Digest, October-November 1958: 67-68; Michael G. Bryson, The Twenty-Four-Inch Home Run and Other Outlandish, Incredible But True Events in Baseball History, Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1990: 21-23.

6 O’Loughlin, “Kansas City Not in the Running,” Minneapolis Journal, June 29, 1904: 14; “Second Victory for the Millers,” Minneapolis Tribune, June 29, 1904: 9.

7 1955 Topps card, number 114, of Lou Ortiz.

8 Email correspondence and telephone conversations with Bob Kotanchik and John Oyler, 2005.

9 Antiques Roadshow, aired on PBS, January 20, 2020.

10 The term “ancestral elaboration” was used by Steven Reutter, the husband of one of Andy Oyler’s granddaughters. Emails with Steve Reutter, March 3, 4, and 24, 2020.

11 Telephone conversations with Fred Oyler, March 5-6, 2020.

12 Tod Powell on SABR-L, December 25, 1999. My sense that Tod’s comment was tongue-in-cheek is buttressed by his other sentence that follows: “Plugging my ears and singing ‘Pinball Wizard’ until it’s safe to unplug and shut up, I am Tod Powell, inventor, KARMA LEAGUE BASEBALL.”

13 Alfred H. Spink, The National Game, St. Louis: National Game Publishing Company, 1911 (Reprinted by Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000), p. 367. The pitcher who lost this game was Frank Isbell. Not surprisingly, nothing like this happened when Isbell pitched for St. Paul in the 19th century.

14 Mac Davis, Sports Shorts: Astonishing Strange but True, New York: Bantam Books, 1958: 143; “Sports of the County” by Lefty Ranweiler, Centennial History of Kandiyohi County, 1970: 323.

15 Charles Fountain, The Betrayal: The 1919 World Series and the Birth of Modern Baseball, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016: 114.

16 Bill Stern with Oscar Fraley, The Taste of Ashes: A Famous Broadcaster’s Courageous Comeback for Addiction and Disaster, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1959: 111.

17 Tom Heitz on SABR-L, December 23, 1995.

18 Nancy Jo Leachman on SABR-L, January 5, 1996.

19 Mona.

20 Matt Tavares, Mudball, Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press, 2005. Email correspondence with Tavares, 2004.

21 I found nothing resembling a hit into the mud in any college or amateur/semi-pro games Oyler played in.

22 Andy Oyler died in 1970, well before I wrote anything about the home run. Fred said the trunk was with his son for many years and then with his sister, who died in 2004. Likely a family member got this article/monograph at some time and put it in the trunk.

23 Graves’s 1905 letter claimed Doubleday had invented the game in Cooperstown in around 1939. Graves’s stories varied over time—from hearing of the creation second hand, to actually having witnessed Doubleday laying out a diamond, to even playing in the first game of baseball, as a student at Cooperstown’s Green College in 1840 (even though Graves would have been only six years old at the time). Many of the newspapers, like the commission, loved his stories and didn’t bother to check his claims, no matter how outlandish. Graves had twice been institutionalized before coming up with the stories about Doubleday and again in 1924, after murdering his wife in a fit of paranoia. More on Graves is available in “Mr. Abner Graves: Colorado’s Connection to the Doubleday Myth,” by David Block, Above the Fruited Plain: Baseball in the Rocky Mountain West, edited by Thomas L. Altherr, Souvenir publication of the 2003 Society for American Baseball Research national convention, Denver, Colorado: 9-12.

24 Telephone conversation with Fred Oyler, June 20, 2020.

We know it didn’t come to pass, but when Fenway Park was less than 10 years old, there there was discussion of disposing of it. The park was opened in 1912 and at the time had hosted the world champion Boston Red Sox in four of its eight years—1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918. But in October 1919, respected sports journalist I.E. Sanborn wrote in the Chicago Tribune that “according to the most authentic information obtainable” there was a plan that—by a “process of amalgamation”—“two, and possibly three, major league base ball plants will be dismantled next season.”1

In New York, the Polo Grounds was shared by the National League Giants and the American League Yankees.2 Sanborn declared that other such sharing arrangements were imminent: “Before another season opens it is more than probable the St. Louis National league (sic) club will be sharing the plant of the St. Louis Browns and the Philadelphia Nationals will be under contract to play in Shibe Park, the home of the Athletics. It is within the scope of the possible that the Red Sox will amalgamate with the Braves, so as to cut down the overhead by occupying one plant jointly.”

In both St. Louis and Philadelphia, the two competing ballparks were fairly near each other and in each instance there were compelling reasons to dispose of one in favor of sharing a facility. This came to pass in St. Louis, where the Cardinals did start playing in Sportsman’s Park in 1920, leaving Robison Field. From 1920 through 1953, the Cardinals and Browns shared Sportsman’s Park. In 1953, the park’s name was changed to Busch Stadium. After the 1953 season, the Browns departed to Baltimore and became the Orioles. The Cardinals continued to play games at the newly-named Busch, into 1966 when they started to play games in Busch Stadium II.

The Phillies and Athletics ultimately did share Shibe Park, but it wasn’t for nearly two decades after Sanborn’s assertion.3 In 1938, the Phillies began to play home games at Shibe and did so through the 1970 season, long after the Athletics had departed for Kansas City, following the 1954 campaign.4

Returning to look at the situation in Boston, both parks were fairly new and both were sizable. Fenway Park’s capacity was 24,000—though they managed to shoehorn in more than 34,000 fans for both Games Three and Five of the 1912 World Series. Several blocks away, Braves Field opened in August 1915 with a much larger capacity of 43,250.5 The two clubs had shared facilities at times in the past. The Braves, for instance, played the 1914 World Series against the Philadelphia Athletics with Fenway Park as their home park, because it was the larger venue than the South End Grounds. They had played a number of regular season games at Fenway, too, before Braves Field itself opened in 1915.6 (Fenway also hosted boxing matches and both high school and college football in the fall of 1918 and 1919.) And the Red Sox played their home World Series games in the larger Braves Field both in 1915 against the Phillies and in 1916 against Brooklyn. In later years, the Red Sox would also play a number of Sunday games at Braves Field, because of a local ordinance that prevented them playing at Fenway due to its closer proximity to a house of worship.7

Let us see what Sanborn said about Boston on October 20, 1919:

A ticklish situation exists in Boston, where both National and American league (sic) clubs are struggling to lift heavy overhead charges, due to the cost of their plants. The American league club, having built its plant several years ago, probably is in better condition as to its bonds than the National league is. Moreover, its grounds are better situated for commercial purposes, being in the heart of “automobile row,” but the American league park is better adapted to baseball because it is more compact than the plant occupied by the Braves.

The latter, with a seating capacity of 42,000 all on the ground level, is the biggest baseball plant in America, but it smothers the average crowd and stifles enthusiasm. It would be the rational solution, however, for the two Boston clubs to combine on the rental of the Braves’ park and dispose of the Red Sox grounds.8

On October 31, the Boston Post further reported that Red Sox owner Harry Frazee, Red Sox manager Ed Barrow, and James E. Gaffney of the Braves met in conference at Braves Field and “gave the place a thorough overlooking.” Because Fenway Park was “growing enormously valuable,” the Post declared, “In fact it has become far too hefty a real estate proposition to be used merely as a plant for baseball.”9 Combining under one roof was not a new idea. Melville E. Webb had published an article almost exactly a year earlier in the Post entitled “One-Park Baseball Likely to Come.” He declared the idea a good one.10 That same day, James C. O’Leary wrote in the Boston Globe that “The Fenway Park property is rapidly increasing in value and in time may be regarded as too valuable to be applied to its present use.”11

The day after the Post’s report of his visit to Braves Field, Frazee claimed the meeting was a coincidence, that he’d encountered Gaffney at a restaurant—never having met him before—and that it was the first time he’d ever seen Braves Field. He had no immediate intention of selling Fenway Park at the time; it would be at least two or three years, he thought, before he could realize enough to make it worth selling.12 Apparently Gaffney had proposed the two teams both play at Braves Field, but Barrow said Frazee was not going to accept the offer and that the Red Sox “will use Fenway two years more, anyway.”13

But Fenway changed hands early in 1920, with Frazee cutting a deal with a perhaps surprising source. In November 1916, when then Red Sox owner Joseph Lannin had sold the team to Frazee and Hugh Ward, he had taken a note for $262,000, which was secured by the capital stock of the Fenway Realty Trust, the company that owned Fenway Park. The note had come due on November 1, 1919, and had not been paid. Accordingly, Lannin was prepared to sell the stock at auction.14 Paul H. Shannon of the Boston Post wrote that Frazee “has always considered Fenway Park the chief asset of the Boston club, and many a time he has intimated that this land, increasing yearly in value, was the bulwark of the Red Sox assets.”15

That said, Lannin was owed the money. A number of court actions followed and Massachusetts Superior Court ruled that Fenway Park would be put up for sale via auction to secure payment to Lannin. The court ruling prompted Frazee to sell a mortgage on Fenway Park to Jacob Ruppert, owner of the New York Yankees, as part of the Babe Ruth deal.16 On March 5, 1920, a settlement was agreed upon. Jacob Ruppert, Inc. held a $300,000 mortgage on Fenway Park itself, not to be paid off until years later, after Tom Yawkey became owner of the Sox.17

The amalgamation Sanborn anticipated never came to pass and seems to have not attracted further comment or speculation in the Boston press. There was a brief note in the Denver Post, however, that said if the Red Sox team were sold “it is likely the new owners will abandon the Fenway park now used by the club. The grounds would be sold for other purposes.”18

The Braves and Red Sox played each in their own parks for the next 30-plus years. And 100 years later, Fenway Park still hosts Red Sox games.

BILL NOWLIN still lives in the same Cambridge, Massachusetts, house he was in when he joined SABR in the last century. He’s been active both in the Boston Chapter and nationally, a member of the Board of Directors since 2004 (a good year for Red Sox fans). He has written several hundred bios and game accounts, and helped edit a good number of SABR’s books.

Notes

1 I.E. Sanborn, “Major Leagues Plan to Cut Expense for Parks; Only One Field for Two Teams in Same Cities,” Chicago Tribune, October 20, 1919: 18. Irving Ellis “Sy” Sanborn” had been one of the founders of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America in 1908. Before working nearly 20 years at the Tribune, he spent dozen years in Massachusetts writing for the Springfield Union.

2 The Giants held the lease on the Polo Grounds, and the Yankees were a tenant; there was some form of paperwork in place to prevent the Giants from summarily evicting them. In February 1921, Yankees ownership would purchase land in The Bronx and Yankee Stadium would open on the site in 1923.

3 There had been occasional sharing, to accommodate circumstances. As Bob Davids noted, “When part of the Baker Bowl stands collapsed in a minor accident on May 14, 1927, the Phillies played a few home games at the Athletics’ field.” L. Robert Davids, “Baker Bowl,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, 1982. See https://sabr.org/journal/article/baker-bowl/

4 Shibe Park was renamed to Connie Mack Stadium in 1953.

5 Capacities are as noted in Philip J. Lowry, ed., Green Cathedrals, 5th edition (Phoenix: SABR, 2019), 47, 50. The Boston Braves did not own Braves Field. When James E. Gaffney sold the ballclub in early 1916, he retained ownership of the park. It was only in 1950 that then Braves owner Lou Perini purchased Braves Field from the Gaffney estate.

6 For a detailed listing, see Bill Nowlin, “The Time(s) the Braves Played Home Games at Fenway Park,” in Bill Nowlin, ed., The Miracle Braves of 1914 (Phoenix: SABR, 2014), 320-327.

7 The Red Sox played Sunday home games at Braves Field from April 28, 1929 through May 29, 1932, as well as the occasional holiday separate-admission doubleheader, such as Patriots Day in 1930 and 1932. After a May 8, 1926, fire destroyed a good part of Fenway’s third-base seats, the Red Sox were offered use of Braves Field. They expressed their thanks but declined. James C. O’Leary, “Sox at Fenway Despite Fire,” Boston Globe, May 10, 1926: 8. Attendance for Red Sox games in the 1920 was sparse enough they didn’t need the extra capacity.

8 Sanborn. As to whether or not Sanborn was confused as to the location of “Automobile Row,” SABR member Bob Brady, president of the Boston Braves Historical Association, explained, “Automobile row extended from Kenmore Square down Commonwealth Ave. Probably both team’s homes would be logistically in close enough proximity to be so categorized.” Email to author July 20, 2020. See also Patricia L. Kennedy, “A Trip Down Automobile Row,” BU Today, October 20, 2011, at http://www.bu.edu/articles/2011/a-trip-down-automobile-row/

9 “Shift of Red Sox In Sight,” Boston Post, October 31, 1919: 15. The shift in question was from Fenway Park to sharing the facility at Braves Field.

10 Melville E. Webb, “One-Park Baseball Likely to Come,” Boston Post, October 31, 1918: 7. The notion of the Red Sox departing Fenway Park was probably not pure fancy, given the stories by both Sanborn and Webb which were published just over a year apart. Webb was, like Sanborn, well-connected and a charter member of the BBWAA. See Charlie Bevis, “Melville Webb,” SABR.org, at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/melville-webb/

11 James C. O’Leary, “Red Sox May Join in Use of Braves Field,” Boston Globe, October 31, 1918: 4. See Bob Ruzzo’s Fall 2012 Baseball Research Journal article on the history of Braves Field at https://sabr.org/journal/article/braves-field-an-imperfect-history-of-the-perfect-ballpark/

12 Paul H. Shannon, “Frazee Denies Moving,” Boston Post, November 1, 1918: 19. He said, “Braves Field is certainly one vast plant but I don’t think it would ever be the popular resort that Fenway Park has become.”

13 “Sportsman,” “Live Tips and Topics,” Boston Evening Globe, November 8, 1918: 7.

14 “Seeks Settlement By Red Sox Owners,” Boston Globe, February 11, 1920: 7.

15 Paul H. Shannon, “Stop Frazee from Selling Red Sox,” Boston Post, February 11, 1920: 11.

16 “Court Enjoins Frazee,” New York Times, February 17, 1920: 10. One can find a public notice regarding the sale of Fenway Realty Trust shares at auction in the February 21, 1920, issue of The Sun and New York Herald on page 15.

17 For a contemporary explanation of the mortgage, and how it was not that the New York Yankees held a mortgage on Fenway Park, see “Here’s Version of Red Sox Lawyer on Ruppert Mortgage,” Chicago Tribune, December 2, 1920: 18, and “No Connection with Club,” New York Times, December 2, 1920: 18. On the Yawkey purchase of the mortgage, see Bill Nowlin, Tom Yawkey: Patriarch of the Boston Red Sox (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018), 7-10. In 1923, ownership of the Red Sox changed hands from Frazee to a group headed by Robert Quinn. See Rory Costello, “Bob Quinn,” SABR.org, at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bob-quinn/

18 “Boston Red Sox May Have New Park,” Denver Post, November 14, 1919: 30. See also “Ball Park May Be Given Up,” Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), November 24, 1919: 11. Why the possibility was being discussed in Chicago and cities further west, but there appeared to have not been more speculation in the Boston Globe is a little difficult to understand.

Five great baseball wars have been waged by outside organizations: the American Association in 1882, the Union Association in 1884, the Players League in 1890, the American League in 1901–02, and the Federal League in 1914–15. We could, should we wish to complicate matters, add various skirmishes between established major leagues, principally the American Association and the National League in 1891. And if we were to add abortive attempts to establish a challenger that never played any games, the list would be considerably longer. So too if we add “outlaw” minor leagues, acting within a limited scope and only challenging the system inasmuch as it claimed authority over them. But the five great wars stand out.

The American Association (AA) war was modest compared with its later counterparts. It should not be discounted because of this. The AA war of 1882 set the pattern for future wars, and the settlement bringing it to a conclusion set the pattern for how major league baseball would be organized in the twentieth century.

Objectives and weapons

A baseball “war” is, of course, a metaphor. How does the war metaphor translate to baseball? Combatants go to war seeking to attain objectives, and use weapons to achieve these goals. What, in a baseball war, are the participants’ objectives, and what weapons do they use?

Organized baseball in its mature form is a collection of leagues arranged hierarchically, with procedures regulating their interactions, principally control of geographical markets and movement of players. The leagues higher in the hierarchy claim exclusive control of more desirable markets, and mechanisms are enacted to move better players up the hierarchy. The top of the pyramid is occupied by one or more leagues, defined as “major,” while the various tiers below the top were occupied by leagues defined as “minor.” In this developed form, the wartime goal of an upstart league is to force its way to the top tier.1

This system did not yet exist in 1882. The top tier existed in the form of the National League (NL), founded in 1876, but the lower tiers were as yet inchoate. Professional clubs had always existed outside the NL, but the manners in which they organized among themselves and interacted with the NL had not yet evolved to their later forms. The issues in dispute in 1882 were similar to those of later wars, but where the later hierarchical structure bundled the areas of dispute into a package, in 1882 these were distinct. They fell into four categories: (1) territories, (2) exhibition games, (3) player discipline, and (4) player contracts.

Territories would play only a minor role in 1882, unlike the later baseball wars, but the issue was not entirely absent. There was, as will be seen below, some maneuvering with regard to New York and Philadelphia. The results would be important in the long term, but in the short term the fight was not yet over territory.

Exhibition games between NL and outside clubs were more important. These were a substantial source of revenue for both sides. The NL Boston Club, for example, had revenues of about $30,000 in 1877, with over $7,500 of that from games with non-League clubs.2 The League was only too happy to use its strength to demand favorable terms. It regulated when and where League teams would play exhibitions. The rules varied from year to year, but a typical rule was to ban exhibition games on NL fields, so as to avoid watering down the attraction of championship (i.e. regular season) games. This was a break from the tradition of “home and home” series where the two sides would play a game on each field. The result was to exclude the non-League teams from access to the larger populations of most NL cities. The most onerous requirement was that for a guaranteed payment, even if the game was rained out. The playing of exhibition games with the NL on equal terms would be one goal of the AA.

Player discipline was a major issue in this era. The infractions covered a wide range of seriousness. The most extreme were players throwing games at the behest of gamblers. Four members of the 1877 NL Louisville club were found to have thrown games and were banned permanently. The League held the moral high ground with the Louisville four, but it could not resist the temptation to expel players for lesser offenses, ranging from drunkenness and insubordination to poor play. The League had a point. The drunkenness of ballplayers was legendary, and poor play sometimes was the result of a player receiving a better offer and “playing for his release.” On the other hand, poor play was more often the result of a lingering injury or simply a slump. A heavy-handed club management could rapidly make the situation intolerable for the players.

Expulsions were issued by individual clubs for specific offenses. The NL in 1881 expanded the disciplinary regime with the instigation of the “black list” for “dissipation and general insubordination.” The process consisted of club officers at a special meeting of the League sitting down together and drawing up a list of names, unencumbered by any pretense of due process.3

These disciplinary measures would be ineffective if the player could simply go elsewhere. The League extended its reach to non-League clubs by refusing to play any club that included an expelled player. This would entail the sacrifice of gate receipts from these exhibition games, but the League clubs were better able to sustain this loss than were the clubs subject to the ban. The League further extended this regime beginning with the 1879 season, forbidding play with any club that had played a club that included an expelled (and later black-listed) player.4 Non-League clubs complained about the League presuming upon them, but the measure had the desired effect of driving most expelled players out of professional baseball.

There was a right of appeal, but this was largely theoretical. In practice, players were only reinstated in extraordinary circumstances after being expelled or black-listed, with these extraordinary circumstances having more to do with NL interests than any sense of equity. A notable example was Edward “The Only” Nolan, expelled in 1878 for insubordination. He went to California, the only locale with professional baseball beyond the League’s reach. This became a problem for the League in 1879, when the Chicago club made a post-season tour of California. Nolan’s play rendered the entire California League ineligible for games with the Chicago club, so the League hurriedly reinstated him. The hypocrisy was not lost on the rest of the baseball community.5

While the Nolan case showed the system to be arbitrary and self-serving, Charley Jones was the exemplar for League abuse of the system. Jones played for the Boston club in 1880. On September 3, while the team was in Cleveland, he demanded $378 in overdue pay, and refused to play when it was not given him. He was fined and suspended, and then expelled for insubordination. The club’s argument was that while his contract called for him to be paid on the first of the month, standard practice was to delay payment while on the road, and that he would have been paid upon the team’s return to Boston. The club further claimed that he was using this as an excuse to be released so that he could return to his home in Cincinnati and play there. In legal terms the club was claiming that while it was in technical breach of contract, the breach was not material. Later litigation, however, brought out that his monthly salary was $250, making it clear that his pay was in arrears more than merely the two days the club acknowledged.6 It is entirely plausible that, given the state of the Boston club’s finances, they were indeed behind in their payroll. He sued in Ohio, and a protracted legal battle followed, featuring a seizure and subsequent release of the club’s baggage while in Cleveland, garnishment of its share of the gate receipts, and eventually a final judgment against the club.7 Jones’s legal victory established his position as a victim of League abuse and called into question the entire system of expulsions and black listing.

While the NL demanded that other organizations respect and enforce its disciplinary measures, it refused to similarly recognize theirs. This was a source of complaint, but there was nothing other organizations could do about it.8 The AA did not have any principled objection to the system of discipline, whatever critiques it might have of specific instances, but it demanded equal standing.

As important as the other disagreements were, disputes over player contracts were by far the largest. Clubs and players routinely entered into contracts intended to be legally binding, but in actual practice rarely turned to the civil courts. This was partly due to the expense of litigation and partly due to uncertainty—which proved entirely justified—over whether the contracts were in fact legally enforceable. (The legal issues will be explored further below.) Owners instead developed a parallel “baseball law.”

Baseball law went back to the 1860s, when the National Association of Base Ball Players created a judiciary committee. The National League considered itself the keeper of baseball law, while using it to advance its own interests. This manifested itself immediately in 1876. The League freely poached players from non-League clubs without regard to any existing contracts. Examples include outfielder Dan Collins, who abandoned the St. Louis Red Stockings for the NL Louisvilles, and pitcher Dale Williams who left Indianapolis for the NL Cincinnati club on the pretext of visiting his parents.9 At the League’s December 1876 meeting, the member clubs committed to respect non-League contracts beginning March 15, 1877.10 The implication was lost on nobody that the League considered itself free to disregard outside contracts until then. Nor was this a genuine commitment to respect contracts after that. The League created the “League Alliance” in the hope of including all non-League clubs. Members of the League Alliance ceded dispute resolution to the League in return for a promise by the League to honor Alliance club player contracts, implying that the NL still felt free to disregard contracts between players and non-Alliance clubs.11 The League through the 1870s never acknowledged any general obligation to respect contracts, and player contracts would always be the principal dispute in any baseball war. That the NL respect the AA player contracts was the AA’s highest priority.

These were the objectives in the baseball war. The weapons used might be direct threats against these objectives. An upstart league might, for example, be willing to take in players expelled by the older league, thereby threatening player discipline. The most important weapon was brute financial muscle: the ability to offer players in the competing league higher salaries. Ultimately, every baseball war came down to financial wherewithal.

Baseball 1876 to 1881

The dominant fact about professional baseball in the second half of the 1870s was that the national economy had fallen into a depression following the Panic of 1873. The baseball economy was affected by 1875 and would not see serious recovery until 1881. Nearly every development of organized baseball in this era was a response to economic stress. This reaches even to the founding of the National League in 1876. The predecessor National Association had structural weaknesses that were no longer sustainable, the most important being that it was an open organization. Any club could declare itself professional and join, without regard to its competitive or financial strength. The eight most financially sound clubs reorganized themselves into the National League.

The NL in its early years had constant turnover. League clubs were financially sound only compared with non-League clubs. The years 1876–80 saw a series of club failures, usually following the end of the season but in a few cases during it. Only two of the original members survived to 1880: Chicago and Boston (respectively the modern Cubs and Braves). The rest of the League lineup had to be replaced from one year to the next.

This had geographic implications that would be important during the AA war. The original lineup of clubs had a geographical footprint that formed a rough quadrilateral with the corners at Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Chicago, similar to that of the major leagues in the first half of the twentieth century. As clubs dropped out over the next five years, the replacements were selected with an eye to minimizing travel expenses. By 1881 the League’s footprint was a line stretching from Chicago to Boston. Of the other six clubs, two were in modern major league cities (Detroit and Cleveland), two were in cities that were at least plausible (Buffalo and Providence—then the twentieth largest city in the country) while two were in cities obviously too small (Troy, New York, and Worcester, Massachusetts). This lineup would present the AA with the opening to form a more southerly circuit controlling larger markets.

Salaries were by far the largest expense for League clubs. They undertook various measures to reduce salaries. They repeatedly vowed to refuse to pay “fancy” salaries—a resolution that lasted only until a star player had multiple clubs bidding for his services. Various ideas were floated such as coming up with a system to rate each player’s ability and set a standardized pay schedule by position and skill class, or more simply to establish a salary cap for each position.12 Such schemes were never enacted, and in any case would have been unenforceable. The incentive to cheat on the salary cap would be too great.

Finally they arrived at the idea of the reserve system. (Today this is habitually called the “reserve clause,” but it was not yet a part of the player contract during the period in question, so it is here called the “reserve system” or simply the “reserve.”) Under this system the various NL clubs agreed not to negotiate with one another’s reserved players, forcing those players to sign only with the club that reserved them, negotiating salary from a weak position. The system started out modestly. It was limited to only five players per team, and no one claimed that this restriction prevented outside clubs from signing reserved players.

The reserve system was immediately criticized:

The plan said to be adopted by the League to prevent competition between the several clubs for the others’ players is open to criticism, as by it a League club could force a player who has been under contract with it the past season to either play at a reduced salary or play with no League club the coming year.13

Players understood exactly that the purpose of the reserve system was to suppress salaries, and they were not happy about it. The most prominent was George Wright, reserved by Providence. He refused to sign with Providence. Whether this was due to personal conflicts or merely money depends on whose version one believes. Either way, he became baseball’s first holdout.14

The reserve system would prove to be the foundation upon which organized baseball would be built, but that was in the future. Through 1882 it was a minor element of conflict. The NL’s reserved players were signed shortly after the close of the 1881 season, and were not pursued by the AA.

The National League clubs were comparatively well prepared to ride out the economic depression of the late 1870s. Non-League clubs had a harder time of it. This is not immediately apparent. The NA closed the 1875 season with eight active clubs. Six of these, along with two new organizations, formed the National League the following year, while the other two clubs also opened the season, for a total of ten openly professional clubs in 1876. The season of 1877 saw some forty or fifty.15 Superficially, this looks like a new golden age for professional baseball. The reality was different. Most of these were old clubs, which had been only nominally amateur. The NA had claimed to comprise all professional clubs, with all professional clubs competing for the national championship. Any club, therefore, that chose not to join the NA was by definition classified as amateur, regardless of the reality of paying players. The NL, being a closed organization, made no claim to comprise all professional clubs. This opened up the possibility of unaffiliated professional clubs. Developments in 1876 occurred too fast for clubs to take advantage of this, but going into the 1877 season clubs felt free to drop the pretense of amateurism.

This raised the question of how non-NL clubs would be organized, if at all. L.C. Waite, secretary of the Red Stocking club of St. Louis, circulated a letter dated September 23, 1876, to the various “non-League baseball clubs” to form an association.16 This would result in the International Association (IA—the “International” part reflecting its two Canadian members). Its main purpose was to prevent its members from poaching players under contract to another member. It also organized a championship, but with the key difference from either the old NA or the NL that participation in the pennant race was optional. A club could join the IA to protect its player contracts without incurring the expense of long-distance travel.

The mere existence of the IA presented a potential threat to NL hegemony. Exactly what form of threat requires skeptical scrutiny. Modern writers often present it as a direct challenger to major league status, like the upstart major leagues of later decades. They frequently point to IA clubs’ success against NL clubs in exhibition games. This misses the point. Later baseball history is filled with examples of major league clubs losing exhibition games to semi-pro teams. This doesn’t tell us those semi-pro teams were better, but that the major league clubs weren’t trying, often playing backups, particularly in the pitcher’s position. The major league club had nothing to lose. A victory would give the semi-pro club, on the other hand, collective prestige, and in the era before scouts these games served as tryouts for the individual players. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that the lesser club might win the game.

This was no mystery at the time, but the IA victories were publicized by Henry Chadwick, the foremost baseball reporter of the day. This mostly reflects Chadwick’s priorities. He had been cut out from the information loop when the NL formed. It took him a few years to get over the slight, and in the meantime used his bully pulpit to criticize the NL at every chance. Modern writers have taken Chadwick’s peeving at face value and concluded that the IA was a direct challenger to the NL. In reality its clubs mostly occupied second- and third-tier cities. Its best clubs often were tapped to fill vacancies in the NL, and almost always turned out to be tail-enders.17

The NL saw the IA as a threat, not to the NL’s superiority on the field, but to the NL’s hegemony. Were it to prove able to act collectively, it might be able to protect its player contracts against NL incursions and demand better terms for exhibition games.

The NL’s first response was to organize a competing organization, the League Alliance (LA). It promised the same protections as did the IA, with the added benefit of the NL’s promise to respect LA clubs’ player contracts, as well as the more questionable “benefit” of authorizing the NL to resolve any disputes. It also included a pennant race, but with the twist that it was determined strictly by wins in games between LA clubs, with no schedule. The individual clubs arranged as many or as few games as they saw fit.18 This gambit was partially successful, attracting most of the western clubs, while the IA was largely an eastern organization.

The LA in this form lasted only the season of 1877. The economy hit the LA clubs hard. Many folded, and those that survived did not bother to rejoin for 1878. The IA was also hit by the economy, but continued with fewer clubs. The NL devised a new gambit to play against the IA: divide and conquer. It imposed onerous conditions for exhibition games, then offered more favorable terms to select clubs. These terms were eagerly accepted, the IA lacking the cohesion to act for the common good.19 It was further reduced in 1879, and no longer having any Canadian clubs was renamed the National Association. 1880 was its last season, down to just two clubs by season’s end, the Rochester Club and the Nationals of Washington.

Midsummer of 1880 was the nadir of professional baseball. That August the Rochesters and Nationals played a series of games in Brooklyn. This was an act of desperation. Professional baseball was known to be thoroughly dead in the metropolis, killed off by a combination of the economy and the corrupt baseball establishment of earlier years. It was a surprise when respectable paying crowds turned out for the games. This led to the hurried formation of new clubs, formed by old players who had been laid off.

The most important of these was styled the Metropolitans. It was backed by John B. Day, a local cigar manufacturer who had been involved in amateur baseball. It was managed by James Mutrie, who had been kicking around minor clubs for several years. Day sublet a playing ground from the Manhattan Polo Association. The first game on the Polo Grounds, and in fact the first professional game played on the island of Manhattan, took place September 29, 1880, between the Metropolitans and the Nationals.20

The success of these late-season games led to a burst of baseball activity in 1881. The Eastern Championship Association formed with clubs from Washington to Albany, the Metropolitans taking the pennant easily, with only a reformed Athletic Club of Philadelphia as serious competition. Independent clubs played in the west, the most important in Cincinnati and St. Louis. This was the setting for the creation of the American Association in the fall.

The Coming of the American Association

The idea of a new association was in the air: not merely a regional association, but one of national scope. This association would be a true rival to the NL. Early canvassing started in August, when Horace Phillips and Charles Mason of the Athletics of Philadelphia journeyed west “on business appertaining to the club both for this and next season.”21 A report in September listed the prospective members as St. Louis, Louisville, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and New York.22 New York and Washington would not, in the end, be in the new league, but the list would prove otherwise accurate. These early efforts culminated in a preliminary meeting in Pittsburgh on October 10 with John Day of the Metropolitans elected president.23

The American Association was formally organized at a meeting in Cincinnati held over two days, November 2 and 3, 1881. Delegates were present from Cincinnati, St. Louis, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston, Brooklyn, and New York. Two developments beyond the act of organizing would prove critical.

The AA considered the question of eligibility of players expelled by the NL. They finally adopted a resolution that “they would always refuse to hire players expelled by the League for drunkenness, dishonesty or any venal offense, and believed that that body should similarly act toward their black sheep…” This language was crafted to allow for the Cincinnati club to sign local favorite Charley Jones, which it promptly did.24

The second development was the inaction of the New York delegation, represented by James Mutrie, manager of the Metropolitans, and W.S. Appleton, one of the club’s financial backers. They encouraged the new organization, but declined to join it at that time. Immediately after the meeting they took a train to Chicago and conferred with NL President William Hulbert. Hulbert told them that the Jones matter would prevent harmonious relations between the two organizations. The Metropolitans had made a lot of money the previous season playing games with NL clubs. This would not be possible if they joined the AA. In light of later events, we can also read between the lines and speculate that Hulbert promised a NL franchise when one next came available. In any event, the Metropolitans announced that they were not joining the new AA after all.25

In the event, the AA ended up backing off its policy on NL expelled players. It voted at its meeting in March to prohibit the hiring of any player blacklisted by the NL, forcing Cincinnati to default on the Jones contract. This allowed for spring exhibition games between the two leagues, cynics entirely reasonably suspecting this to be the reason for the change of heart.26 At the same time Baltimore replaced Brooklyn, where the financing had failed to materialize. Nothing had ever come of the Boston membership, resulting in a six-team circuit: St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.

The spring exhibition games proved a mixed blessing to the AA. While the revenue was important, the new league was embarrassed by an unbroken string of defeats at the hands of the senior circuit. While exhibition games generally are not a good indicator of relative strength, this applies more to a weaker side defeating a stronger one, the question being how hard the stronger side was trying. An unbroken string of victories by the presumed stronger league is especially embarrassing, suggesting that the stronger won effortlessly.

Baseball contracts and the law

The AA had made concessions about signing players on the NL blacklist. The NL did not return the favor. Its clubs poached several players already signed by AA clubs. The NL took the position of reserving the right to simply refuse to recognize the existence of the AA clubs. This was an expression of “baseball law,” unencumbered by the niceties of civil law. NL President Hulbert made this explicit in correspondence with Denny McKnight, the AA president, regarding the case of John “Dasher” Troy. Troy had signed with the AA Athletics before accepting a higher offer from the NL Detroit club. When McKnight protested, Hulbert responded:

For years the League has proffered the use of its machinery for the recording and enforcement of players’ contract to any and all Ball Clubs that chose to avail themselves of the conditions offered. Annually we have published in our book the form of agreement to be signed by Clubs that desired to avail themselves of the privilege. Not the slightest trouble has ever arisen between any League Club and League Alliance Club. … John Troy, by all our laws, is a player under contract with the Detroit Club, and no Club on earth can inflict any penalty on John Troy that the Chicago or any other Club in the League will recognize except it be inflicted by the Detroit Club or by the League.27

The AA, rather than endangering the spring exhibition season by expelling these players, determined instead to attempt to enforce the AA contracts through the civil courts, taking as their test case Sam Wise, originally signed by AA Cincinnati and then by NL Boston. This would be the first of a series of such cases stretching into the twentieth century. It would, like most of its successors, fail.

The legal point is that a court, under English and American law, cannot force someone to fulfill a contract. In legal language, this is “specific performance.” There are some exceptions to this principle, but contracts for personal service, such as to play baseball, clearly are not among them. The club need not pay the non-performing player, of course, but the court cannot force the player to play against his will.

This principle was well established and widely understood. The hope for the AA was not to force Wise to return to Cincinnati, but to prevent him from playing for Boston. There was an English case from 1852 in which a singer jumped a contract to sing at one theater after receiving a better offer from another. The court could not force her to sing at the first theater, but it issued an injunction restraining her from singing at the second.28

This hope proved futile, though the precise reason is unclear. The first round was in federal court, the court ultimately ruling in May that it lacked jurisdiction on technical grounds and this was a state matter. The matter was then moved to Massachusetts state court. A hearing was scheduled for June 5, but it never took place. Furthermore, the baseball press—after having followed the case closely—quietly dropped the matter. The usual explanation for litigation being quietly dropped before a hearing is that the parties have settled. This clearly was not what happened here. Rather, the Cincinnati Club expelled Wise two months later.29 What happened in the meantime? This is not reported. Perhaps the AA balked at the growing legal expenses. Perhaps it received legal advice that it would probably lose the case (as indeed it almost certainly would have, judging from the outcomes of later cases making similar arguments).

There was a second go-round in the fall, the player in question this time being Charlie Bennett. He had played the 1882 season for NL Detroit, then in August agreed to sign a contract for the 1883 with the AA Pittsburgh Allegheny Club, receiving $100 in advance money. Before signing the formal contract he jumped back to Detroit. The Allegheny Club sued him in federal court and lost on multiple grounds.30

The Wise and Bennett cases wouldn’t completely discourage clubs from turning to the courts to enforce player contracts. While these cases didn’t establish a precedent in the legal sense of the word, they set the pattern. Only rarely would the legal strategy prove effective.

The AA and NL Season of 1882

The AA’s actions in August, one of expelling Wise and the second of signing Bennett, constituted a declaration of war with the NL. The only alternative for the AA would have been to accept an inferior status, with whatever protection of player contracts the NL was willing to grant it. This was really no choice at all, so long as the AA had the ability to fight.

The AA was indeed able to fight, because the 1882 season had succeeded beyond all expectation. This is not merely an expression, but the literal truth. This is shown by the Cincinnati Club ownership question. A syndicate had been formed the previous summer to revive the sport in Cincinnati. Its documentation was, from a legal draftsmanship perspective, slapdash to the point of incoherence. This is not the act of businessmen expecting to turn a profit. Indeed, a cynic might suspect that they expected to lose money, and were entirely satisfied by vague personal responsibility for any debts. This changed when it became apparent that the club was going to turn a profit worth fighting over. It took two lawsuits for the courts to sort out the mess.31

The AA did very well. Exactly how well is hard to say. One report claimed profits ranging from $25,000 for St. Louis (saying that most of it was in beer sales) down to $5,000 in Baltimore. These numbers probably should not be taken too seriously.32 By way of comparison, and more likely to be accurate, the NL Worcester Club is said to have been slightly in the red, Boston about $4,000 in the black, and an actual financial statement from the Buffalo Club showed a profit of just under $4,000.33

While these numbers, especially the claims for AA profits, should not be taken as reliable, it is difficult to do better. On the revenue side, there are estimated attendance numbers, but they are even less reliable than their modern counterparts, and are difficult to convert to revenue. The NL charged fifty cents for general admission, while the AA charged only twenty-five cents. This does not mean, however, than the AA only got half per person. Both leagues charged an extra twenty-five cents for seating in the grandstand. Even with reliable attendance numbers, we don’t know how many fans paid for premium seating.34 Furthermore, the AA sold alcohol at games—the source of the “Beer and Whiskey League” nickname beloved of modern writers—while the NL did not, giving the AA an additional revenue source.35

On the NL side, finances were not quite so rosy. The rising tide of the economy lifted all boats, but the NL was not designed to receive the full benefit. It was laid out to minimize travel expenses, not to maximize revenue. The irony was that the improving economy of 1881 allowed Troy and Worcester, the NL’s weak sisters, to survive to play in 1882. This was the first time in the NL’s history that it fielded the same teams from one year to the next. Ordinarily one would take this as a sign of fiscal health, but here it meant that a quarter of the league wasn’t carrying its weight.

On the expenditure side, the AA again came out ahead. The previous year most of its players had been working day jobs while perhaps bringing in a bit on the side playing semi-pro ball. They were thrilled to be playing ball full time, and didn’t quibble over salaries. AA owners in later years looked back wistfully at the payrolls of 1882. But that was later. In 1882, the AA clubs benefitted from low salaries. The NL had the better players—players who had been negotiating their salaries upward for several years.

The upshot is that while we don’t know the true state of league finances, the AA did well enough that by August the AA owners found themselves in a position to fight. The Wise expulsion meant that postseason exhibition games were off the table. The Cincinnati Club, upon winning the AA pennant, arranged a series with NL clubs under the pretense that the club had actually disbanded and the players had been hired by an unnamed local businessman. Only four games were played, two with Cleveland and two with Chicago, splitting the results with each. The Cincinnati victories were the only games that year where an AA club defeated an NL club. The rest of the AA was unimpressed, and told the Cincinnati Club to end the games or be expelled.36

The NL realized that Troy and Worcester were no longer sustainable as league members, at least to the rest of the league. The league took the straightforward action of expelling both in a special meeting held September 22, adopting a resolution by a vote of 6 to 2 “declaring it the sense of the meeting that these clubs be not represented in the association next season.” This was in spite of neither club having violated any NL rule. Both complained, murmuring about taking legal action, but the writing was on the wall and both ended up submitting their resignations at the NL annual meeting on December 6.37

The NL now had two openings, which it used to good effect. New York and Philadelphia were the obvious locations to fill the slots. John Day’s Metropolitans filled the New York need. Alfred Reach, a former player turned sporting goods manufacturer who had fielded a Phillies team in 1882, took the second slot. Applications from both were received at the December meeting and promptly accepted.38

John Day of the Metropolitans then managed the neat trick of obtaining an AA franchise to go along with his NL franchise (the AA expanding to eight clubs, also adding Columbus, Ohio). Both leagues needed to enter the New York market. Day’s was by far the most established organization there, so both leagues wanted him. This put Day in the position to accept both offers. This, however, meant that he had two franchises with only one team. His solution was to sign the Troy players en masse, throwing all his players into one pool, and divvying them up again between his two franchises, the AA franchise ending up with the Metropolitan name. This is the source of the modern claim that the NL New York Club (eventually known as the Giants) was a transfer from Troy, and by the process of elimination the Phillies from Worcester. This would imply some compensation for the Troy and Worcester owners. They in fact received no such consideration.

The Peace Settlement

The AA’s newfound bellicosity, and their obvious ability to back it up, forced the NL to take them seriously. At the same time, the interests of both sides were for peace, especially with the potentially awkward New York situation, with its dual franchises under one ownership. Into this budding potential for peace stepped the newly formed Northwestern League. It had no desire to get involved in a fight with anybody, and so invited both leagues to meet with it to negotiate an agreement. The presence of an outside party might have had a calming influence. In any case, the NL made the overture, proposing a peace conference, which the AA accepted after much discussion—in the end only St. Louis voting for war.39

There were three major points of dispute: the sanctity of player contracts, the NL’s blacklist, and the reserve system. With everyone wanting peace, these proved susceptible to amicable resolution. The result was the first National Agreement, often called the Tripartite Agreement with the inclusion of the Northwestern League. This was the first of a series of such agreements that continue to today. Each party to the agreement agreed to respect the others’ player contracts. The NL reinstated the players on its blacklist except for those who had thrown games. The reserve was not only expanded to all three leagues, but expanded from five to eleven players per club—nearly the entire roster. This was a sticking point for the AA, as it would preserve the NL’s superiority on the playing field, but it was non-negotiable for the NL and the AA eventually came around. It also guaranteed member clubs exclusive territorial rights, apart from the fait accompli of shared territory in New York and Philadelphia. And so the first baseball war was over.40

Errors and omissions

No war is perfectly fought. Both the American Association and the National League made missteps. New York was the biggest prize. Either side might have had it to themselves, had they played their hand better.

On the AA side, they wavered over signing players on the NL’s blacklist, and Charley Jones in particular. It is entirely possible that New York would have joined the AA for 1882, had it not been scared off by the prospect of losing lucrative games with NL clubs. Had the AA early on declared the NL’s blacklisted players off limits, there would have been no barrier to these games. That they later reversed themselves showed indecision. Had the Metropolitans joined the AA for 1882 they likely would have done very well and taken a leadership role against the NL, blocking it from the New York market and possibly resulting in a very different later history of baseball.

On the NL side, they too could have had New York in 1882, and possibly Philadelphia as well. The Troy and Worcester problem was readily apparent in the fall of 1881. The correct move would have been to expel them then and invite Day and Reach to join the NL for 1882. This was before the AA was yet a fact, and the NL was the established and prestigious organization. Both Day and Reach would almost certainly have taken the opportunity. This would have blocked the AA entirely from New York, and even if it did not discourage the AA Athletics from even trying, it would have given the NL Philadelphia club a head start. (In the event, the Athletics would win the 1883 AA pennant, while the NL Philllies finished in eighth place, 46 games behind Boston. The net result was to firm up the Athletics’ fan base.)

Why didn’t the National League do this? There are two explanations frequently given. The first, which seems to be modern, is that William Hulbert, president of both the NL and the Chicago Club, had a grudge against the cities of New York and Philadelphia going back to 1876, when their respective clubs failed to complete the season. This explanation is highly unlikely. It makes Hulbert out to be petty and vindictive, and prepared to let these outweigh good business sense. He was cutthroat and ethically challenged, but not petty, and certainly not a bad businessman.

The second explanation has the benefit of coming from Hulbert himself. He gave an interview in July 1881 to a reporter about the prospects for 1882. The question of expelling Troy and Worcester in favor of New York and Philadelphia was discussed:

As one member of the League, he would never consent to any course toward any member of the body, no matter how weak, looking to securing its withdrawal, in order to let in any other organization, however strong, or however much it may promise in the way of patronage of the game. The present members, who had helped to build up and make the League the success that it is, had rights in it, and, as long as they did not see fit to withdraw from it, he would vote to retain them to the exclusion of all others. Whether all the eight would elect to remain in next year he did not know. If one of them, or two of them, should drop out, there would be so many places to be filled from the most available materials at hand; if not, he did not see any chance for outside applications.41

The problem with this explanation is that it is obvious nonsense. The NL under Hulbert had a history of kicking out member clubs to improve the circuit, and had never had any qualms about niceties such as its own rules, much less the club’s wishes. The most egregious was the Milwaukee Club after the 1878 season. The NL constitution at that time included a provision requiring a club to pay its players or be subject to expulsion. The Milwaukee Club ended the season with outstanding debts to some of its vendors, but its players were paid in full. Hulbert simply ignored the actual rule, pretending it said something it did not. Then following the 1880 season the NL made a new rule against liquor sales and expelled the Cincinnati Club (ignoring the procedures for this in the NL constitution) when it refused to agree. The idea that Hulbert and the other NL owners were so committed to high ideals as to sacrifice their own interests for the benefit of one of their members is simply untenable. Indeed, it would have been trivially easy to expel Troy and Worcester. The NL constitution required member clubs to be in cities of not less than 75,000 population, except by unanimous vote. Troy and Worcester were both well below that limit. The NL could simply have discovered a newfound commitment to that rule.

Why didn’t they? Hulbert was ill, and would die in April of 1882. This suggests the likely explanation is that he was off his game, and the rest of the NL followed along. Had he full command of his powers he would have foreseen what needed to be done and would have done it without hesitation. As it was, he had a moment of inattention and the moment passed.

Conclusion: What is a Major League?

Why did the American Association succeed? Of course it didn’t, in the long run, but in 1882 it was a resounding success. To explain this we turn to an apparently unrelated question: What is a major league? Most people would answer this with something along the lines that a major league is one playing at the highest competitive level. A league is major because it is good. This presents a paradox. The AA was a major league. It forced the NL to treat it as an equal. It is recognized as a major league by modern Major League Baseball, and this assessment rarely arouses controversy. Yet the AA in 1882 manifestly was not playing at the highest level. The humiliating exhibition games with the NL show this. The NL’s superiority is unsurprising. The NL, after all, had already picked its players before the AA starting hiring. NL managers were every bit as capable as AA managers at spotting talent. It is to be expected that the NL had the cream of the crop. The AA got better over the course of the decade, but this doesn’t answer how we justify classifying it as major in 1882. One fallback is that its major status is backdated from when it was actually good. The problem with this is that the American League of 1900 and the Federal League of 1913 are both classified as minor, then the following year as major. Why is the American Association not treated the same way?

We should instead regard major and minor status from a structural perspective. Organized baseball is a hierarchy of leagues, with one or more major leagues at the top and a descending ladder of minor leagues. Players move up the ladder according to their abilities, the best making their way to the majors. Why do the minor leagues allow their best players to leave? It is easy to take this for granted in the modern farm system, with major and minor league teams formally affiliating and with the major affiliate having complete control of all the players. But the movement of players is older than the farm system. So why were minor league teams willing to give up their best players?

The answer is brute financial force. Player contracts were not, as we have seen, legally enforceable. A major league team could simply offer the player more money. The minor leagues therefore took the best deal they could get, which the major leagues offered so as to maintain the flock of sheep to be fleeced. The majors could offer players more money because, in turn, they were located in larger markets and therefore had more revenue. A major league is one controlling major markets. This is why they have fiercely defended their territorial rights throughout the history of organized baseball.42 In other words, a league is not major because it is good. It is good because it is major. The system guarantees this. A league is major because it has the finances to act as a major league. This forces other leagues to respond to it, whether in peace or war, as a major league.

The system of major and minor leagues was not yet formed in 1882. The Tripartite Agreement is the founding document of the system, and also demonstrates its undeveloped state. The Northwestern League’s minor status is implied in the enactment of the reserve rule, which included a minimum salary for reserved players. This was not out of concern for the player’s wallet, but to prevent a team from stockpiling players it wasn’t actually paying. The AA and NL minimum was $1,000, while the Northwestern League minimum was $750. It was understood that the minor league would pay lower salaries. At the same time, the Northwestern League was a full signatory to the agreement and enjoyed full protections, as if it were of equal stature. This was not out of any great respect for the Northwestern League but rather a sign that the logic of the system had not yet been worked out, and in any case the AA and NL were not, in 1883, in direct competition with the Northwestern League for rising players. In any event, the national agreement would be renegotiated three years later, by which time the Northwestern League was defunct and the newer minor leagues were excluded.

This brings us to the explanation the American Association’s success, and spectacular success at that. The NL had abandoned the southern tier of major cities. This gave the nascent AA the opening to move in unopposed. Its control of major-league cities gave it the financial wherewithal to demand equal status with the National League. This was a nearly unique moment in baseball history. The only time like it would be 1900, after the NL reduced from twelve to eight clubs, abandoning both markets and players for the American League to snap up. It is no coincidence that the American League would become the only other successful new major league.

The AA would last ten years. The two major leagues merged following the 1891 season, with the AA the decidedly junior partner. This gives the AA the stench of failure. Why this came about is a topic for another day. In the meantime, we should not let later events obscure the triumph of the American Association of 1882 in the first baseball war.

RICHARD HERSHBERGER is a paralegal in Maryland and the author of the book “Strike Four: The Evolution of Baseball.” He has written numerous articles on early baseball, concentrating on its origins and its organizational history. He is a member of the SABR Nineteenth Century and Origins committees. Contact him at rrhersh@yahoo.com. 

Notes

1 The exception was the Players League of 1890, which sought to overturn the system entirely. Other challengers often used similar rhetoric, particularly with regard to the reserve clause, but showed little sign of meaning this seriously.

2 “Ball Talk,” New York Clipper, January 19, 1878.

3 “The League Meeting,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 1, 1881.

4 “The League Convention of 1878,” New York Clipper, December 14, 1878.

5 “Expelling Players,” New York Clipper, August 24, 1878; “The League Meeting” October 11, 1879.

6 “The Jones Case,” New York Clipper, September 18, 1880; “Jones Sues the Boston Club,” Boston Herald, May 15, 1881.

7 “Baseball,” New York Clipper, June 4, 1881, July 2, 1881; “Base Ball Notes,” Boston Journal, October 11, 1881.

8 “The International Association forbids the engagement of any player who has been expelled from any association, while the League declines to recognize any other association, and allows any of its clubs to engage a player who has been expelled from the Internationals, or any other association.” “Notes and Gossip,” New York Sunday Mercury, March 10, 1878.

9  “A St. Louis Revolver,” New York Clipper, August 19, 1876; “Expulsion of a Player” August 26, 1876.

10 “The Professional Arena,” New York Sunday Mercury, January 7, 1877.

11 “Mr. Spalding’s Plan,” Chicago Tribune, January 21, 1877.

12 “Grading Professional Salaries,” New York Clipper, April 20, 1878; “Meeting of the National League at Providence Yesterday,” New York Sunday Mercury, August 11, 1878.

13 “Baseball Notes,” New York Clipper, October 18, 1879

14 “George Wright’s Wrongs,” Cincinnati Enquirer, March 28, 1880; “The Wright Case,” Chicago Tribune, April 4, 1880. Some modern writers repeat a claim that players considered being reserved an honor, reflecting praise upon their skill. This was a piece of League propaganda, repeated today by the credulous.

15 The exact number is somewhat arbitrary, as the line between fully professional and semi-professional clubs was loosely defined. Spalding’s Base Ball Guide for 1878, pp. 33-39, lists 33 professional clubs, plus the six in the NL and an additional 14 clubs “employing part of all of their players.”

16 “A New Movement Out West,” New York Clipper, October 21, 1876.

17 See, for example, Harold Seymour Baseball: The Early Years (New York, Oxford University Press, 1960) in which chapter 9, on the IA, is titled “The First Outside Threat.” The exception to IA clubs doing poorly in the NL is the 1878 IA Buffalo club, which went 46-32 to place third in the NL in 1879.

18 The 1877 LA pennant winner was the Red Caps of St. Paul. This raises an intriguing possible explanation for the widespread but entirely baseless claim that the Boston club was known as the Red Caps. Boston won the 1877 NL pennant. Perhaps some later writer confused the LA and NL pennants and mistakenly attributed “Red Caps” to Boston.

19 “The National League at Buffalo,” New York Sunday Mercury, April 7, 1878; “The Buffalo Conference,” New York Clipper, April 13, 1878.

20 Richard Hershberger, “September 29, 1880: Metropolitan club opens new Polo Grounds with a win,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/september-29-1880-metropolitan-club-opens-new-polo-grounds-win

21 “Defeated by the Trojans,” Philadelphia Times, August 12, 1881.

22 “A New Association,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 12, 1881.

23 There is a widely told amusing story that when few clubs turned up for an initial meeting, Horace Phillips sent telegrams to the others reporting the meeting a huge success, with everyone present except the telegram’s recipient and offering the chance to correct this omission at the next meeting. Some version of this story might be true, but it is significant that its earliest known publication is from 1884, and in this version it is Justus Thorner of Cincinnati who sent the telegrams, with Phillips not present at all. “The American Association: Who Was the Originator?—A Bit of History,” Sporting Life, June 25, 1884.

24 “The First Run,” Cincinnati Enquirer, November 4, 1881.

25 “Sporting Events,” Chicago Tribune, November 6, 1881.

26 “Sporting Matters,” Cincinnati Enquirer, March 14, 1882.

27 “Hulbert’s Hobby,” Cincinnati Enquirer, January 1, 1882. The claimed perfect relations with League Alliance clubs is disingenuous. The NL expelled the Nationals of Washington from the LA after the 1880 season, and divided the desirable players among the NL clubs.

28 28. Lumley v. Wagner, 42 Eng.Rep. 687 (1852). It was unremarkable for American courts to look to English precedents.

29 “Crushed Again,” Cincinnati Commercial, May 13, 1882; “Heavy Hitting,” Boston Herald, May 17,1882; “Base Ball,” Cincinnati Commercial, June 4, 1882; “Base Ball,” Cincinnati Commercial, August 5, 1882.

30 Allegheny Base-Ball Club v. Bennett 14 F. 257 (C.C.W.D.Pa. 1882). This case is more widely known than the Wise case, with a hearing resulting in an opinion on the substance, reported in legal reports. It is nonetheless widely misunderstood, with many modern writers, including many who should know better, confusing its issues with the unrelated reserve clause. See, for example, Richard L. Irwin, “A Historical Review of Litigation in Baseball.” Marquette Sports Law Review 1, no. 2 (1991): 283-300. Irwin describes the case as “The earliest litigation regarding the reserve clause…”

31 For the initial formation, see “Clapps Detective Agency,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 16, 1881; and “Base Ball,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 24, 1881. For the lawsuits, see “John R. Mclean vs. O. P. Caylor” Cincinnati Gazette July 15, 1882; “Base Ballists at Outs,” Cincinnati Commercial, September 28, 1882; “Honors Easy,” Cincinnati Commercial, October 8, 1882; “The Courts,” Cincinnati Commercial, December 3, 1882: and “Base Ball,” Cincinnati Commercial, December 31, 1882.

32 “Battles at the Bats,” Philadelphia Times, September 3, 1882.

33 “Base Ball,” New York Clipper, October 7, 1882; “The Boston Club,” New York Clipper, December 30, 1882; “Base Ball,” Cincinnati Enquirer, December 24, 1882.

34 Scattered reports over the 1880s stating the number of people in the grandstand suggest that a reasonable approximation of average gate receipts per fan in the AA was about 5/8 that in the NL.

35 The NL Cincinnati Club prior to the 1880 season sold the refreshment “privilege” (i.e. concession) for $2,000. “Base Ball,” Cincinnati Enquirer, January 25, 1880. How much this would be, were alcohol not included, is unknown. So too is the profit the concessionaire made, though presumably it was enough to be worth his while. It is reasonable to estimate that alcohol sales to the larger crowds of 1882 resulted in several thousand dollars of profit per club, some clubs splitting this with a concessionaire and some selling alcohol directly.

36 “It Ended Well,” Cincinnati Commercial, September 24, 1882; “Base Ball,” New York Clipper, October 7, 1882.

37 “The Late League Meeting,” New York Clipper, September 30, 1882; National League minutes for the special meeting held September 22, 1882, and the annual meeting held December 6, 1882: Constitution and Playing Rules of the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs. Chicago, 1882. The minutes for the special meeting do not include the resolution, suggesting that it was unofficial, but no less effective for it.

38 National League minutes for the annual meeting held December 6, 1882: Constitution and Playing Rules of the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs. Chicago, 1882. A letter from Day dated September 22, 1882, applying for membership was sold at auction by Christies in 2016. Persistent reports claim that Reach was less eager to join the NL, preferring to field an independent team, but was persuaded that an NL franchise was going to be placed in Philadelphia with or without him, for which see “Seven Straights,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 28, 1882.

39 “The American Association Convention,” New York Clipper, December 16, 1882; “The League Convention,” New York Clipper, December 16, 1882; Cincinnati Commercial December 17, 1882.

40 “The Work of the Conference,” New York Clipper, February 24, 1883.

41 “League Figures,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 11, 1881.

42 Compare this with the English system pioneered by the Football Association, which lacks territorial rights and includes promotion and relegation of clubs. The combination of territorial and league franchise rights is inherent in the American system.

It is generally felt that both skill and luck are factors in determining success or failure. Being in the right place at the right time is considered a matter of luck. Preparation and ability are acknowledged to be skill factors. What constitutes skill and what constitutes luck in baseball? How do we assess the relative contribution of luck or skill in determining game outcome? The spectacular catch by Willie Mays in game one of the 1954 World Series is a prime example of superb skillful performance. The bad hop over Fred Lindstrom’s head in the 1924 World Series is a clear example of extremely bad luck. On the other hand, how do we evaluate the ground ball off of Billy Loes’s leg in the 1952 World Series that he said was lost in the sun? All of these illustrate key events in determining game outcomes. The problem to be addressed is finding out the relative contribution of luck or skill to victory or defeat.

In order to solve the problem, we must consider identifying the variables that are related to game outcome. Insofar as we can identify performance measures that relate to team outcome, we have potential indicators of skill. After such measures are applied to predict outcomes, we can observe how much variability in outcomes remains. Such variability may result from in part luck and in part skill. Here is where it is important to be able to assess how much variability in performance would occur if only randomness or “chance” (which we call luck) determines the outcome. My approach includes such an assessment, as we will see.

There is a long history of trying to find the factors that account for team success, to specify how they work, and separate them from luck. Perhaps the most notable is Bill James’s Pythagorean expectation, named for its resemblance to the well known Pythagorean Theorem.¹ His basic formula is

       rs²       
(rs² + ra²)

where rs is runs scored and ra is runs allowed. Runs scored and runs allowed are two very direct measures of team effectiveness that are combined in the formula for predicting team success. The formula is used to estimate how many games a team “should” have won, with any difference between actual and estimated values attributed to luck. The rationale for the exponent 2 is based upon the use of the ratio rs/ra as a measure of “team quality,” with reciprocal of the ratio used as the measure for a generalized opponent. However, searches were made to find an exponent that better predicted winning percentage (for example, the work of Clay Davenport and Keith Woolner,² and David Smith³). Insofar as values are based on empirical fits, they do not represent a theoretical basis for explaining the process.

Since systematic differences between actual and expected winning percentages using the formula occur (e.g., big winners “should” have won less, and big losers “should” have won more), other measures that could relate to team performance have been introduced into the formula. After all, runs may be scored as a result of luck as well as skill. Variables such as on base percentage and earned run average may help get around the luck factor. Having a measure of the possible effect of a luck factor may help us.

Using a different approach, Pete Palmer examined the variability between teams in win records over many seasons and compared it with what would be expected if teams were all equal in skill, and all variability between teams was a matter of luck.⁴ Palmer concluded that since 1971 the contribution of luck and skill have become nearly equal. The apparent decreasing relative contribution of skill may reflect a trend toward parity. Luck would then play an increasing role in determining outcomes. I deal with this a little later and consider changes in the game other than increased parity.

THE HEAD-TO-HEAD PERFORMANCE VARIABLE

I have looked at the possibility that another factor related to skill contributes to differences between teams in outcomes: head-to-head competition. John Richards has developed an approach that predicts head-to-head outcome probabilities using relative overall season success of the two competing teams.⁵ However, I show that a team may produce significantly more or fewer wins against a given team than would be expected by its overall season performance. Such a result may well be attributable to unique differences between teams in terms of relative strengths and weaknesses. I test the hypothesis that head-to-head performance variation may be something more than chance variation over a season.

A season for a given team may be considered as a set of “mini seasons” consisting of the season’s series for two teams in contention for the pennant. In this light we may look at a team’s win record as the sum total of average total season performance and performance over and above (or below) its average total season performance against certain teams. If the hypothesized impact of specific factors related to particular team matchups is found, another variable may be added to total season performance. Insofar as this factor is identified, the contribution of the skill factor is increased, and the relative contribution of luck is thereby decreased. Here is where the assessment of the skill-luck relationship becomes tricky. Although, as we will see, we may be able to calculate the variation that would exist if only pure luck determines outcomes, we can always potentially find different performance variables associated with skill that increase the contribution of the skill factor. Hence, the contribution may always increase relative to luck.

To illustrate how assessment of the head-to-head factors would work, Figure 1 shows the season win record of the Chicago White Sox against each of its seven opponents in the 1954 season. The 1954 White Sox present a clear example of overall superior performance save for unusual difficulty in beating the Yankees. Their general pattern of victories against other opponents suggests some head-to-head effects. The seven opponents are denoted in the chart in positions corresponding to the number of White Sox victories against them in their season series. The White Sox won 94 games for an average of 13.43 wins per opponent.

We would expect the average victories per opponent to converge to that value over many repetitions of the 1954 season, assuming the White Sox performance was independent of opponent played, and luck was the only factor causing variation from that average. It is, of course, assumed the White Sox remain a .610 team over all replications. The solid horizontal line from the vertical axis reflects the chance baseline value of 13.43 games. The distances from this line may represent variation attributable to either luck, skill, or some combination of the two.

To make the appropriate assessment, we need a measure of how much variation— such as shown in Figure 1—is attributable to pure random variation or luck. We also need a comparable measure of actual variation. Using Figure 1 as an example, we can find the average of the squared differences between number of White Sox victories against each of the seven teams and the mean of 13.43. The resulting value is 11.39. To generalize, we can find a measure of variability between teams for a season by subtracting mean number of victories for all teams from the number of victories for each team, and averaging the resulting squared differences for all teams. The resulting value is called the variance, which we will see has important properties.

A measure of the variability expected if only luck determines outcomes can be computed using the binomial distribution. The binomial distribution is produced by the sum of a number of independent observations on a variable that assumes two possible values: zero or one. In our example, one stands for victory and zero for defeat. For a large number of such observations, the binomial distribution approximates the normal bell-shaped distribution. Suppose p is the probability of victory for a team, and hence (1−p) the defeat probability. The expected number of victories for a team in a season is then number of games × p.

In the White Sox example, the best estimate of the value is 154 × .610 victories for their season total. If luck dominates, p = .50. In a 162-game season, the expected number of wins for all teams is then 162 × .50 = 81. The variance for a binomial distribution is number of observations × p × (1−p). In our White Sox example, the expected variance of White Sox victories in 22 games against a given opponent if only chance variation from their usual level determines outcome is 22 × .61 × .39 which equals 5.23.

Although the variance has analytic advantages, the square root of the variance, the standard deviation, produces a value in terms of games, which allows for comparisons of interest. The standard deviation in our example is 2.29. The dashed lines above and below the horizontal line in Figure 1 define a band between + and − one standard deviation from the 13.43 mean. In the bell-shaped normal distribution it is expected that values would occur about 68% of the time in this band. In this case, with Cleveland just outside the band, only three of seven teams show results that fell within the range expected by luck alone, which suggests something more than luck might be at work.

So far we have some measure of the independent effect of the head-to-head variable, insofar as variation from the average performance of a given team is measured independently of variation between teams. However, we have neglected to account for the impact of the difference between two teams in overall season performance upon the relative success in matchups between those two teams. Returning to the 1954 White Sox example, the White Sox won 17 of their 22 games against the Red Sox, 3.57 more games above the season average number of wins per opponent. However, the White Sox won 13 more games than did the Red Sox against the other six teams in the league. Dividing by six shows that on average the White Sox beat each of the other six teams in the league 2.17 times more often than did the Red Sox. Thus, 2.17 of the White Sox victories over the Red Sox could be attributed to overall superiority, and the remainder to unique factors related to the head-to-head matchup. The 3.57 games above the per-team average is reduced accordingly to produce a measure of the head-to-head factor for the two teams.

As another example, consider the season series between the Yankees and the White Sox. The White Sox record against the six American League teams other than the Yankees was 87 victories and 45 losses, while the Yankees were 88 and 44 against the same six teams. Thus, the White Sox won one fewer games that did the Yankees against the rest of the league. This means that they averaged .17 fewer victories against each of the other teams than did the Yankees. This difference is a measure of general superiority of the Yankees over the White Sox, and the White Sox would be expected to lose on average .17 games more games than the Yankees against common opponents on the basis of overall team strength. The necessary adjustment would be to add .17 to the White Sox victory total of seven for their season series to reflect a compensating head-to-head factor. We note that making adjustments to victory totals is equivalent to making adjustments to deviations from the per-opponent average in terms of calculating a variance attributable to the head-to-head factor. Table 1 shows the White Sox victories against the seven other teams together with victory values corrected as above. Standard deviations of corrected and uncorrected values are shown for comparison.

LUCK, SKILL, and HEAD-TO-HEAD PERFORMANCE PRIOR TO 1969

I performed an analysis to assess the relative contribution of overall team performance, head-to-head competition, and the luck factor to variability in team performance. Table 2 shows average standard deviations by decades for total season team performance for each league from 1900 to 1968, the last year before divisional play was introduced. Standard deviations for head-to-head contributions are based on the adjustments for two competing teams differences in victories against the league. I examine the reasons for considering seasons after that separately later.

A measure that takes advantage of the additive nature of variances and sums of squared differences was used to calculate the variability attributable to head-to-head matchups. In general, the variance of a sum of independent variables is equal to the sum of their variances. The same cannot be said of standard deviations. It is possible to total the sum of squared differences, such as found in the White Sox example, over all teams in a league for a season. If we use an appropriate denominator for the sum, we get an unbiased estimate of a variance for the league season. The additive nature of variances makes it possible to estimate the relative contribution of head-to-head matchups in a way not possible for standard deviations. The measure corrects for overall team victories for each team, and hence is independent of the variance of overall team victories. It will later be used in a technique called the analysis of variance when other comparisons are made. Table 2 shows the average square roots of the values for each decade. These function as the mean standard deviations for head-to-head contributions. Standard deviations expected for pure luck are also shown for both the total season and head-to-head factors. Results showed a tendency for contribution of total season performance to be much greater than that of head-to-head matchups. I return to these results after considering the data for the era of divisional play.

Palmer noted a tendency for the relative contribution of the skill factor to decline after 1970. This coincided with the introduction of the divisional structure in each league. In the post-1968 era, each team within a division plays every other team in its division an equal number of times. Each team in one division plays each team in the other division an equal number of times, although usually less often than teams in its own division. The intra-divisional setup imposes the same constraints upon the schedule as was true in the pre-divisional era, where total victories must equal total defeats. This constraint does not exist in extra-divisional play. As an extreme example, all teams in one division might win all their games with all teams in the other division.

The comparison between intra- and extra-divisional play reflects an important property of variances relevant to assessing performance factors in this situation.⁶ Table 3 demonstrates the clear difference between intra- and extra-divisional play in variability of team records with intra-divisional standard deviations averaging about 1.5 greater than extra-divisional values. Variances related to each other as those in this case can always be expected to show the relationships found. Each extra-division standard deviation was based on a season’s competition between two divisions. The 1994 season was not included in the analysis, because the abbreviated season resulted in very large variations in number of games in head-to-head series that made meaningful analysis not feasible.

Most seasons featuring divisional play have schedules in which more games are played within a division than are played between two divisions. Hence, it is possible that intra-division overall variances for teams are merely larger because of this difference. I found that for the 93 cases in the two-division period in which more intra-division than extra-division games were played, the intra-division and extra-division variances were 59.44 and 32.93 respectively; for the 51 cases in which there were more extra-division games, the intra-division and extra division variances were 45.89 and 32.16 respectively. Thus, number of games within a division could not account for the observed differences in variances. The dynamic of an intra-division balanced schedule seems the most comparable to that for the pre-1969 season schedule. Since both intra- and extra-divisional records figure into the overall performance variance, the variance of overall team victories after 1968 would tend to give a lower estimate of the performance factor relative to that of pre-1969. Thus, intra-division performance should provide the most appropriate measure in making comparisons to pre-1969 performance.

A problem with using intra-divisional results stems from the fact that the smaller intra-division schedule relative to that for the full earlier seasons results in an intrinsically lower performance variance because of a smaller range of possible values. This problem can be dealt with by correcting the intra-division victories data with a constant that equalizes the range of values for all seasons. I used the 162-game season for all seasons from 1900. Using each victory record for all full seasons from 1900 to 1968, and the same data for intra-division play from 1969 on, I multiplied each victory record by 162/number of games played in a season or in a division. For example, for a 154-game season the correction factor is 162/154 = 1.052. This transformation preserves the pattern of team values for each season and produces a common scale of values for all seasons. The change in values produces variances equal to the correction squared times the original variances. A corresponding correction was made using 18 games as a reference number for head-to-head season series.

Since variances of independent variables are additive, the total variance of season victories minus the variance for pure luck for a 162-game season equals the variance attributable to skill. The square root then equals the standard deviation, an approximate average measure in games of variation attributable to skill. An analogous measure for head-to-head series is possible. Table 4 shows these skill measures by decade for total season victory record and for head-to-head series victory record, with corrected intra-division records used after 1968.

If the head-to-head factor plays no role in determining a team’s season record against each of the other teams, then we should expect that deviations of season records against specific teams from overall performance of a team should be a matter of chance. That is, when corrected for overall performance, teams would be expected to do equally well against each other on the average. Returning to the 1954 White Sox example, the number of victories corrected to reflect the head-to-head factor for each White Sox opponent produced an average of 11 games. The result reflects no advantage or disadvantage for one team against another on the average. It is possible to demonstrate that in general the expected value of number of season’s victories for one team against another is one half the games they play against each other⁷. For example, in a 162-game season two teams within a division generally play 18 games against each other with each team expected to win 9 games if no head-to-head factor is involved and there is no overall difference between the two teams. Thus, it is appropriate to use p =.50 to calculate variance attributable to luck in testing for significance of the head-to-head factor.

We can see that the skill standard deviation for total season wins per decades ranged from 11.01 for the 1980s to 17.55 for 1900–09. The corresponding ratio of skill to luck ranged from 1.73 to 2.76. Although there may have been a small drop-off in amount of performance attributable to skill post-1968, the skill factor still dominates, with a large part of perceived drop attributable to introduction of the divisional structure. The skill factor for head-to- head performance averaged 1.46 over decades. The values for the divisional decades may over correct for season length, and skill standard deviations without the correction are shown in parentheses. These values are somewhat lower than the corrected values. The analysis suggests that for a given team the unique matchup factor may account for between 1 and 1.5 games on the average in a given season’s series. This may prove significant when considering a team’s matchups against all the other teams.

However, it is necessary to consider the net effect over a season. For example, the White Sox in 1954 fared poorly against the Yankees, winning only seven games, but they compensated by beating the Red Sox 17 times. Overall season records conceal much of the dynamics of a season. A team’s season win record gives a smoothed-over description of a season’s performance. It is true that the net sum of variations in head-to-head victories from a team’s average is zero. However, the comparison of a team’s head-to-head profile to the performance of its opponents against each other presents a complex picture of a season. Unlike total season record, the head-to-head factor is only a little less than half of the luck factor of 2.12 standard deviations.

Measures of the effects of performance factors become meaningful only if they are reliably greater than would be expected by luck or random variation. Pearson’s Chi Square distribution provides a test of significance that allows us to determine the probability that the head-to-head factor is nothing more than the product of luck or random variation. A conservative statistical test was derived to determine this probability.⁸ Results for the head-to-head factor are shown in Table 5. All the results are significant at the .01 level. This means that it is very unlikely that the head-to-head factor reflects nothing more than luck. It is apparent that the head-to-head factor contributes a significant amount to performance differences. Corresponding chi square tests were done to test whether total season differences between teams are a matter of chance. For the total seasons’ records all results for decades through the 1970s were significant at the .01 level, the 1990s and 2010s were significant at the .05 level, and the 1980s and 2000s were nonsignificant.

Next, I examined the relationship between overall season performance for teams and head-to-head performance. The analysis of variance enables us to see if the variance of season victory totals is significantly greater than that for head-to-head performance. This appears obvious, and the analysis of variance confirms it. The 387 analyses of variance found that variance for total season victories was significantly higher than that for head-to-head variance at at least the .05 level in 217 of the cases. Random differences between the two factors would predict significance for between 19 and 20 of such cases.

PREDICTING HEAD-TO-HEAD PERFORMANCE

What is the importance of the small variation in performance attributable to the head-to-head factor? Each game is, after all, a head-to-head contest and the outcome should at least in part depend upon the specific pattern of relative strengths and weaknesses of the two teams, in addition to the overall abilities of the teams in competition with all other teams in the league. I return to the 1954 White Sox example and their record against each of the seven other teams in the league. The White Sox only won seven of their 22 games against the Yankees. The deficit, corrected for overall difference between teams of 6.26 games, may have something to do with the unique matchup between the teams in addition to the difference between the teams in overall ability. Except for their head-to-head performance, the teams were nearly equal. Of course, both finished behind the Cleveland Indians, who won 111 games (and proceeded to be swept by the Giants in the World Series, perhaps more evidence for a specific head-to-head factor?)

The problem of explaining the 6.26 game corrected deficit on the White Sox part may be of interest to those who wish to predict how teams will fare against each other apart from their overall competitive records. A natural way to approach the problem is to examine how differences between the teams in important performance variables predict differences between the teams in the unique head-to-head performance factor. An extensive exploration is beyond the scope of this article, but I made an initial try using four seasons that indicated a strong effect of the head-to-head factor with two prime performance measures which seemed to be good candidates: AERA, park adjusted earned run average, and AOPS, a park adjusted measure of on base average and slugging. These statistics I used were from the 2005 Baseball Encyclopedia.⁹

Pete Palmer did extensive work demonstrating the effectiveness of OPS as a predictor of wins and why it works.¹⁰ ERA would seem to be an appropriate complement to that. In our White Sox example, the difference between the White Sox and Yankees in these two measures would be used to predict the White Sox disadvantage against the Yankees, 6.26 games. The difference in 1954 between the two teams in AERA was 122 – 105 = 17 favoring the White Sox; however the difference in AOPS favored the Yankees, 103 – 118 = –15. The Yankees that year were first in AOPS, a power-laden team that out-homered the White Sox 133 to 94. The White Sox defense, on the other hand, had an advantage. In this matchup the offensive factor seemed to outweigh the defense. It is necessary to see how these variables relate to each other and to the head-to-head factor.

I used season data for the 1905, 1909, and 1962 National League seasons and the 1954 American League season to test the predictive value of the two above performance measures for the head-to-head factor. The selected seasons seemed promising because the contribution of the head-to-head factor was strong for these seasons. Of course, further research would be necessary if results generalize. Stanley Rothman used runs scored minus run allowed as a predictor in a linear regression analysis predicting overall winning percentage.¹¹ His analysis was able to account for nearly 95% of variation in winning percentage. However, the predictor variable includes chance variation as well as variation attributable to skilled performance such as AOPS and AERA.

Multiple regression was used to generate a prediction equation of the form

a + b. (AOPS_{White Sox} − AOPS_Yankees) + c.(AERA_{White Sox} − AERA_Yankees)

using our White Sox-Yankees example for predicting the head-to-head effect in this case. Value predicted would be compared to the observed value of −6.26 in this case. The equation for a season would be arrived at by determining the values of the weights in the equation that best fit the set of head-to-head performance values for all pairs of competing teams. There were 28 pairs of teams in 1905, 1909, and 1954; and 45 such pairs in 1962. The prediction equations for each season contain weights that produced the highest multiple correlation between those equations and the head-to-head performance measures.

Table 6 shows the multiple correlation squared, weights for the two predictors, and correlation between the two predictors for each of the four seasons. Multiple R² was used, because it measures the proportion of total variance attributable to the two predictors. The correlations between the two predictors, r(AOPS, AERA), are shown, but the predictive weights indicate the contribution of each predictor apart from that of the other predictor. Although the number of team pairs in a season was not large, the multiple correlations between prediction equations and head-to-head measures were highly significant for all of the four seasons. Multiple correlations range from .515 to .697, where 1.000 is the maximum possible value. Standardized weights are shown, which makes the values comparable in terms of units of the variable measured. It is noteworthy that the AERA variable outweighed the AOPS variable in three of the four cases which highlights the importance of pitching in head-to-head matchups.

In exploring the variables that may correlate with the head-to-head factor it is well to be aware that the pattern of measures of this factor for teams at the top or bottom range of the standings differ from the pattern for teams near the middle. Teams near the top have a smaller chance of showing a positive head-to-head value over a given team than do teams lower in the standings. By the same token, losing teams have a better chance of showing a head-to-head advantage than do teams above them. The ceiling or floor in season performance makes this intuitive.

To illustrate for a winning team, consider the 1954 White Sox example again. The White Sox were 15 and 7 against the Orioles, demonstrating dominance. However, their score of 9.67 victories adjusted for relative performance of the two teams against the rest of the league placed them 1.33 games below the expected 11 game average against the league given no head-to-head effect. This, of course, results from the fact that the overall performance of the White Sox against teams in the rest of the league was on the average 5.33 games better than that of the Orioles. Thus, it appears that the White Sox underperformed against the Orioles.

As a counter example substitute a middle of the pack team with a 77 and 77 record for the White Sox which produces an average of 11 victories against each team in the rest of the league. This hypothetical team would have won half a game more on average against each of the rest of teams than did the Senators. If the hypothetical team beats the Senators 15 times, it has a four game advantage over its average. Subtracting the half game from this value produces a healthy 3.5 game head-to-head effect. Analogous comparisons to those above for losing teams would tend to result in apparent over performance. The above comparisons should be considered in evaluating head-to-head competition.

The results give support to the idea that unique factors associated with competition between certain teams can be assessed in understanding the dynamics of a season. Certainly, if measures associated specifically with head-to-head competition reflect only random variation, we could not expect any variables to provide significant predictive ability. Having an edge over another team in performance variables in five-team divisions assumes great importance.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge Rodger Payne for his helpful comments as I prepared this article.

Notes

8. Pythagorean expectation, “Pythagorean theorem of baseball,” Baseball-Reference Bullpen, https://baseball-reference.com/bullpen/pythagorean
9. Clay Davenport and Keith Woolner, “Revisiting the Pythagorean Theorem,” Baseball Prospectus, June 30, 1999, http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=342
10. “W% Estimators,” http://gosu02.tripod.com/id69.html
11. Pete Palmer, “Calculating Skill and Luck in Major League Baseball.” SABR Baseball Research Journal 46, no.1 (2017): 56-60.
12. John A. Richards, “Probabilities of Victory in Head-to-Head Team Matchups,” SABR Baseball Research Journal 43, no.2 (2014): 107-117.
13. In general, twice the variance is equivalent to the average of all the squared differences between each of the possible paired observations in the distribution of values. If the correlation between pairs of observations is negative, it can be shown that the variance is greater than would be the case if observations were independent. In the period before 1969 and in intra-divisional play each team plays every other team an equal number of times, and the total number of victories within a division is fixed. The expected correlation between pairs of teams is then negative. Thus, the variance of team victories can be expected to be greater for intra-divisional play than for extra-divisional play, where observations are independent of each other.
14. Consider corrected head-to-head values for a given team against another team in the same league or division, e.g., the White Sox against the Senators. Let x_i be total victories for team i, and let y_j be total victories for team j. Let x_i,j be the number of victories for team i against team j, and let y_i,j be the number of victories for team j against team i. Further let n be the total number of teams, e.g., eight in the 1954 American League. Then, the head-to-head correction for team i against team j is

    

    Next, consider average corrected head-to-head value for team i against the other n-1 teams. The average × (n-1) is,

    

    where the subscript j is used to designate teams other than team i. Let N equal the number of games two teams play against each other in a season, e.g. 22 games in the 154 season. Next consider the following:

    

    Using these equivalences in the expression for the corrected head-to-head value and collecting terms gives us a value of (n-1) N/2. Thus, the average corrected head-to-head victories for a given team over teams in the rest of teams in the league is N/2.

15. The additive nature of the Chi Square distribution allows us to aggregate sums of squared differences as is in the White Sox example over all teams in a season and all seasons for a decade in order to make a comparison to the variance expected by pure luck. The significance test requires the assumption that observations are independent of each other. Because number of victories for one team in a series is inversely related to that for the other, there is a strong dependence between those values. If we hypothetically consider numbers for only one member of each pair, we can make a very conservative calculation by assuming a Chi Square value half as large as the one made for the complete set of values for each decade and use the Chi Square value needed for significance one half as large as that required for significance for all values. This adjustment plus the use of .50 in estimating chance variation likely produces an underestimation of the degree of statistical significance.
16. Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette, eds. The 2005 ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia (New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2005).
17. Pete Palmer, “Why OPS Works,” SABR Baseball Research Journal 48, no.2 (2019): 43-47.
18. Stanley Rothman, “A New Formula to Predict a Team’s Winning Percentage,” SABR Baseball Research Journal 43, no.2 (2014): 97-105.