THE COURT HOUSE
This is that theater the muse loves best.
All dramas ever dreamed are acted here.
The roles are done in earnest, none in jest.
Hero and dupe and villain all appear.
Here falsehood skulks behind an honest mask,
And witless truth lets fall a saving word,
As the blind goddess tends her patient task
And in the hush the shears of fate are heard.
Here the slow-shod avengers keep their date;
Here innocence uncoils her snow-white bloom;
From here the untrapped swindle walks elate,
And stolid murder goes to meet his doom.
O stage more stark than ever Shakespeare knew
What peacock playhouse will contend with you?

Wendell Philips Stafford, the composer of “The Court House,” was a federal judge in Washington, D.C., for almost twenty-seven years. One of the thousands of trials Judge Stafford presided over was a 1919 antitrust suit brought against Organized Baseball (O.B.) by the Baltimore club of the defunct Federal League — a suit that threatened to loosen O.B.’s monopolistic hold on the national pastime.

Antitrust litigation is rarely colorful or dramatic enough to be the stuff of poetry, and it is doubtful that Judge Stafford had Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore vs. National League in mind when he wrote his verse. But a reading of the testimony given in the two-week-long trial does bring to mind a number of the poem’s phrases. There were few if any heroes to be seen, but “dupe and villain” were well represented in Judge Stafford’s courtroom. Certainly “falsehood skulk[ing] behind an honest mask” was present in abundance at the trial, as well as “untrapped swindle.”

But more than anything, the evidence presented by the Federal Baseball litigants tells the story of a “stolid murder” — the murder of O.B.’s last serious competitor, the short-lived Federal League.

THE FEDERAL LEAGUE WAR

Late nineteenth century professional baseball was plagued by wars between the established National League and a succession of upstart leagues. The American Association war of 1882, the Union Association war of 1884, the Players League war of 1890, the American League war of 1900 — all these bitter conflicts resulted in huge losses for almost everyone involved, not to mention widespread public disenchantment with the professional game.

More than two decades of strife ended in 1903, when the National League and the American League signed a peace treaty. American League President Ban Johnson testified at the Federal Baseball trial that the purpose of the peace treaty was to restore “normal conditions” to professional baseball.

Q. Then your purpose was to eliminate competition between the two leagues for players?

A. … I don’t think we cared for competition at all.

Later that year, the two major leagues and several minor leagues adopted the “National Agreement,” which provided for mutual respect for player contracts, reserve lists, and territorial rights. It also established a “National Commission,” consisting of the major league presidents and a third man selected by them, to rule the sport.

Peace — or, to put it another way, the lack of competition between the two leagues — brought prosperity. Attendance and profits reached unprecedented heights, and the World Series added greatly to the public interest in the pennant races. That prosperity attracted the attention of potential rivals. In 1913, several wealthy businessmen organized the Federal League of Professional Baseball Clubs. Prior to the start of the 1914 season, Federal League President James Gilmore asked Ban Johnson if O.B. would allow the Federal League to operate under the National Agreement as a third major league. Johnson told Gilmore that “there was not room for three major leagues.”

The Federal League owners declared war. They quickly erected brand-new stadiums in seven of the league’s eight cities: Baltimore, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Chicago, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. They also declared that the reserve clause in O.B.’s standard player contract was unenforceable, and began to sign up players under reserve by existing major and minor league clubs.

THE RESERVE CLAUSE

Lawyers for the Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore hoped to persuade the jury that the purpose of the “right of reservation,” a key feature of the National Agreement, was to enable O.B. “to eliminate the possibility of competition by establishing an absolute monopoly” over the supply of professional baseball players.

Much of the National Agreement and many of the rules and regulations issued by the National Commission dealt with the right of reservation, which National Commission chairman and Cincinnati Reds president August “Garry” Herrmann described as “absolutely necessary” to O.B. For example, Article 8, Section 1 of the National Agreement provided that: “[N]o non-reserve contract shall be entered into by any club operating under the National Agreement until permission to do so has been first obtained …. “ Article 6, Section 1 of that document stated that no club could “negotiate for the purchase or lease of the property” — that is, players — “of another club without first securing the consent of such club.” The title of a team to its “property” lapsed only when a team released a player or failed to include the player’s name on the reserve list it was required to submit at the end of each season.

The reserve clause itself, which was found in section 10 of the standard player’s contract, provided that:

In consideration of the compensation paid to the [player] by the [team], the [player] agrees and obligates himself to contract with and continue in the service of[the team] for the succeeding season at a salary to be determined by the parties of such contract.

What happened if the player and his team couldn’t agree on a salary for the succeeding season? According to Herrmann, the player was free to go elsewhere.

Q. And if he does not want to sign, what happens?

A. That ends it. He becomes a free agent.

Q. Could he go out and play for any other club in Organized Ball?

A. If he got employment, yes. There is no rule against it.

But on cross-examination, Herrmann admitted that the player would have a hard time finding a job with any other team.

Q. Could he get employment with any other club in Organized Baseball? ..

A. I do not imagine any other club would take him, because I have always felt, and we all feel, that reservation is absolutely necessary to keep the game alive.

Baltimore Federals director and stockholder Ned Hanlon, a veteran baseball man who had managed Baltimore and Brooklyn to five National League pennants before the turn of the century, described what happened if a player didn’t agree on contract terms with his team.

Q. At the end of a man’s term of employment, under the Organized Ball system, it is provided in these contracts that the club shall have a right to negotiate with him for employment for
another year, or another season, upon terms to be agreed upon. Suppose they could not agree on terms, on a salary, for instance, for the next year? What happened?

A. He could not play professional baseball. If they did not agree on terms, he could not go anywhere else, could not play anywhere else under professional baseball.

Q. How long could he be kept in that situation without employment?

A. For year after year.

Q. It would not prevent him from going to blacksmithing or plowing or anything like that, would it?

A. No, sir. If they put him on the reserve list, they could not agree on terms, and they did not see fit to sell him or exchange him to somebody else, they would reserve his reservation year after year, continuously. That is what it means.

The experience of former major leaguer Jimmy “Runt” Walsh supported Hanlon’s claim that the right of reservation could last forever. Walsh was a Phillies utilityman who decided to sign with the Baltimore Federals after Philadelphia sold his contract to Montreal after the 1913 season. After the Federal League folded, Walsh spent the 1916 season with Memphis. When he and that team could not agree on a salary for 1917, Walsh quit baseball and went to work at a Baltimore steel mill. Walsh had not played professionally since then, but he still heard from the Memphis club in following years.

Q. …They tendered you a contract at the end of the season of 1916 for the following year for $250 a month, and you would not accept that. Did they tender you another contract at the end of the year 1917?

A. I got a contract from them again this spring, yes, sir, this past spring, February, I think.

Q. At the end of each year they have been offering you contracts, have they?

A. Yes sir.

Q. Why do they do that? Do you understand why?

A. I do not understand the reason why, no, sir, with the exception that they still reserve me to their club.

Q. The object is to reserve you, so that you cannot make any other contract without their consent. That is the purpose of their offering you these contracts every year?

A. Yes, sir.

Connie Mack described the situation of holdouts like Walsh very graphically.

Q. Suppose you cannot come to an agreement with him?

A. I will tell you. If a player is at all reasonable we come to terms.

Q. But suppose you don’t think he is reasonable; suppose you can’t agree?

A. There are cases of that kind.

Q. What happens?

A. We just let him lay there.

THE BLACKLIST

Other rules of O.B. were intended to discourage players under reserve from jumping to “outlaw” organizations that were not parties to the National Agreement, such as the Federal League. Articles 22 and 23 provided that any player who signed a contract or even entered into negotiations with an outlaw team “shall be declared ineligible” for at least three years. Any National Agreement team that signed an ineligible player could be drummed out of O.B. Any playerwho even appeared in an exhibition game with an ineligible player was himself subject to blacklisting.

As several of the plaintiffs witnesses testified, players were reluctant to sign with the Federal League because they knew that they might be blacklisted for the remainder of their playing days. On November 12, 1913, Herrmann had told the annual meeting of minor league teams that “there will be no place in Organized Baseball” for players who did not respect their contractual obligations, including the reserve clause. According to Hanlon, his fellow director and part-owner of the Baltimore Federals, L. Edwin Goldman, and Baltimore’s player-manager, Otto “Dutch” Knabe, the team had to offer excessively large salaries and long-term, guaranteed contracts to attract players. Moreover, they alleged, most of the players who did take a chance with the new league were veterans who knew they were nearing the end of their playing days.

“Runt” Walsh’s testimony supported those witnesses’ statements. After the 1913 season, Walsh learned through the newspapers that the Phillies had sold his contract to Montreal of the International League. He had never been to Montreal and was not consulted whether he would care to go to Montreal, so he signed with Baltimore.

Walsh demanded a three-year contract without the usual provision that allowed a team to release a player on ten days’ notice. He wanted the security of a guaranteed, long-term contract because he believed there was little if any chance that he would be permitted to return to O.B. A letter he received from Montreal president Sam Lichtenheim after signing with Baltimore proved that Walsh’s concern was justified.

Dear [Mr. Walsh]:

…. I am very much surprised … you signed with the Federals….

… [I]fyou start to play with them, you are blacklisted from Organized Ball for three years, and if their league blows up I don’t know what you will do for three years.

… I don’t think you want to throw away three years of your future for the sake of a few hundred dollars advance money which you may have received, and which if it is not too much I may be willing to pay back for you ….

… So don’t be foolish and let these people blindfold you, which they have done with several players, and which players would be very glad to come back to Organized Ball but it is too late, because their clubs won’t take them back, but in your case I will take you back, if your terms are not too much, before you make this fatal jump, but once you have made the jump and played one game for them, I could not take you back if you were willing to play for me for $100.00 per month, as you must stay out of Organized Ball for three years, the same as any other player who plays one game for the Federal League.

Lichtenheim’s letter to Walsh was very helpful to the plaintiff’s case. The Montreal team president did not just threaten Walsh with blacklisting. He also encouraged Walsh to break his valid contract with Baltimore and generally libeled the new league.

[I]f the amount that they have advanced you is not too large, perhaps we could arrange to pay it back for you to them, when you report to us, and sign you to a contract, because … you know they will not go to the courts.

I am quite sure that Manager Knabe, or any of these other managers, would not do anything for you if you get hurt, or if you took sick, whereas in Organized Ball we have to take care of you, and I think you must know by now that this Federal League started out to be a Major League. I think you have already seen enough to know that they won’t even be as good a league as ours, as they have only obtained very few Major League players, and the big bulk of their players come from our league and lower leagues, and I am quite sure that you know the public will not look on them as a Major League.

Don’t you see that their whole trick is to get you signed to a contract so as to be taken over by Organized Ball, which will never be the case, but if they were taken over by Organized Ball, you would be in a worse position with them than you would be with us, because they would chop you down quickly, knowing that you could not go anywhere else.

Now just think this over and you will see that it is best to send them back their money, if they advanced you any money … and sign another contract with your real employers, who have always taken care of you, and who have made you what you are, and if you sign [a] contract with us we will protect your interests.

….

… [T]here is nothing to stop them throwing you out at any time, and cancelling your contract as soon as they know you cannot get back to Organized Ball for three years and which you know is the case. So I think you are much better off with Organized Ball, and which is the devil you do know, instead of Outlaw Ball, which is the devil you don’t know, and it must sound sensible to you, that Organized Ball, for whom you have worked for many years, can and will do more for you, than your new owners, who are only speculators, and who have started out to bluff the public right from the jump, because they have promised Major League Ball, which you know they will not have.

They also promised to have a club in Toronto, which they will not have, and I think you will find before you get through that they have made a great many other promises, which they will not carry out, whereas with Organized Ball we must carry them out, and if you know of any promise I ever made, of any kind, which I did not carry out, I will be glad to hear of it.

….

P.S. … [Y]ou must understand that you have a chance of being captain or manager here later on, whereas with them as soon as your usefulness as a player is finished, or you meet with an accident, which I hope you won’t, they would throw you on the street, and you could not work for them…. So don’t throw the substance away for the shadow, and get caught by these alluring offers which cannot materialise, and you know as well as I do that they cannot pay these salaries and take it at the gates by playing Minor League Ball, and you also know that they will play nothing but Minor League Ball, and will also have to play when we are away, in other words they will have to take our leavings, so I don’t see how your future is in any way secure with them…. [O]utlaws in business have never been successful, and without organization there cannot be any success, and if we were not organized your position as a player would not be secure, and I think they don’t know from week to week what cities they will play in and every week sees them change their cities, so you see they are only making a stab to be taken into Organized Ball, but they have guessed wrongly, and Organized Ball will never recognize them, and I think you know this already, and if you don’t know it you may write to President Ban Johnson or [National League President John K.] Tener, and get their reply and find out for yourself that what I tell you is correct.

JOHNSON FIGHTS BACK

Walsh never wrote to American League president Ban Johnson, as Lichtenheim had suggested. But only two weeks after Lichtenheim had written to Walsh, Johnson made his opinions known. In a March 5, 1914, interview with a New York Evening Sun writer, Johnson “declared war” on the Federal League.

There can be no peace until the Federal League has been exterminated … [W]e will fight these pirates to the finish. There will be no quarter.

Yes, I’ve heard that peacemakers are at work, but they are wasting their time. The American League will tolerate no such interference ….

This Federal League movement is taken too seriously, why, the whole thing is a joke. They are holding a meeting once a week to keep from falling to pieces. Quote me as saying that the Federals have no money in Buffalo, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh. They have no ball parks in any of their cities, except an amateur field in Kansas City and a ramshackle affair in Pittsburgh. There are some wooden bleachers put up on Hanlon’s Park in Baltimore, I believe.

We hear from day to day that the Feds have millions behind them. If that is true they ought to build half million dollar stadium[s] in a few weeks. But getting down to brass tacks, they have neither grounds nor players that amount to anything.

When the list of players is finally announced the baseball public will realize what a bluff these fellows have been putting up. They have many unknown players, taken offthe lots[,] and a bunch of Bush Leaguers with a sprinkling of big fellows. But the American League will lose not more than ten men ….

We are going to cut and slash right and left from now on. We intend to show up the four flushers and the bluffers in the proper light.

The Johnson interview appeared in print the day before fifty-odd major leaguers returned to New York on the “Lusitania” after an around-the-world trip. According to the plaintiff, Johnson’s tough talk was intended to frighten those players away from the Federal League as well as to destroy the new circuit’s credibility with the public.

THE 1914 SEASON

In spite of Organized Baseball’s opposition, the Federal League opened the 1914 season confident of success. Opening day attendance was high, with Baltimore’s home opener attracting a standing-room-only crowd of 19,000.

The 1914 pennant race was a close one: Indianapolis, led by outfielder Benny Kauff (who hit .370, stole 75 bases, and scored 120 runs) and pitcher Cy Falkenberg (a 25-game winner with a 2.22 ERA and 9 shutouts), edged Chicago by one and a half games, with Baltimore a close third. Still, total Federal. League attendance did not approach that of either the American or National League. The Chicago Federals led the league in attendance, but drew fewer fans than the sixth-place White Sox. The established leagues suffered as well; AL attendance fell from 3.5 million in 1913 to 2.75 million in 1914.

The players were not complaining about the competition between the rival leagues. The Federal League eventually signed 81 major leaguers and 140 minor leaguers to contracts, nearly all of them at much higher salaries. Other players used the threat of jumping to get more money from teams in O.B. Several players — including Ray Caldwell, Walter Johnson, “Reindeer Bill” Killefer, and Ivy Wingo — signed contracts with Federal League teams but were persuaded to jump back to their former clubs. Caldwell made $2400 in 1913, but the Yankees gave him a four-year contract paying $8000 annually to bring him back into the fold. Killefer’s and Wingo’s salaries also more than doubled while Johnson’s went from $7000 to $12,500.

Several times, disputes over who had rights to a player ended up in court. Organized Baseball did not take legal action against players who were reserved but not under contract, but it did go to court to restrain players who had signed contracts for the 1914 season from jumping leagues. Early that season, pitchers Dave Davenport and George “Chief” Johnson and outfielder Armando Marsans of the Cincinnati Reds jumped to Federal League clubs. A Missouri federal judge granted the Reds’ request for an injunction against Marsans, but a court in Illinois refused to issue a similar injunction against Johnson because the contract lacked “mutuality.” On similar grounds, a New York court denied a White Sox request for a court order to prevent first baseman Hal Chase from jumping to the Buffalo Federals.

The tables were turned in the Killefer case. Killefer’s 1913 Phillies salary was $3200. On January 8, 1914, he signed with the Chicago Federals for $5800; only twelve days later he signed a new Phillies contract for $6500. A federal appeals court refused to order Killefer to stand by the contract with Chicago on the grounds that the Federal League team, which had induced Killefer to ignore his reserve clause, came into court with “unclean hands.” George Wharton Pepper, who represented O.B. in that case as well as in the Baltimore Federal Club litigation, persuaded the court that while the reserve clause was not legally enforceable by Philadelphia, the Chicago Federals had no business luring Killefer away before the Phillies had a fair chance to sign him to a contract for the 1914 season.

On January 5, 1915, the Federal League took the legal offensive by filing an antitrust suit against Organized Baseball. The Chicago federal judge assigned to hear the case was none other than Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who had the reputation of being a committed trustbuster. The trial of that case ended on January 22, and the Federal League hoped for a quick decision from Judge Landis. But the future commissioner seemed to be in no hurry to act. In March, Brooklyn Federals owner R.B. Ward approached Ban Johnson and again asked O.B. to allow its rival to become a party to the National Agreement.

1915: THE WAR CONTINUES

The Federal League opened the 1915 season with high hopes. Over 27,000 fans were on hand for opening day in Newark, where oilman Harry Sinclair had moved the Indianapolis Federals. But attendance fell off rapidly and losses began to mount. By the end of the league’s second season, Brooklyn’s Ward had lost $800,000; the Kansas City and Buffalo clubs were insolvent. Baltimore lost $35,000 in 1914 and almost $30,000 in 1915.

According to President Gilmore, the league’s financial ills became apparent early in the season.

A. [I]t was probably in May that some of us realized that it was going to be a very poor season from a financial standpoint, and I know along about the middle of July we started to hold meetings to discuss the situation, because previous to that time I had been called to Buffalo, and I had been called to Kansas City, in an effort to induce other people to invest money. Their overhead was far in excess of their receipts, and they were all beginning to complain.

Q. When did you say you reached the conclusion that the Federal League was doomed?

A. Along about the middle of June or the first of July…. [M]y opinion was that we were fighting a hopeless task. There were two clubs that had practically given up the fight, Kansas City and Buffalo. I had already received an opinion from the other members of the organization that they would not continue with six clubs….

Q. You had no idea from June on that the Federal League would be able to prepare for the next season at all?

A. I did not see any opportunity at all, no sir.

Q. Were you absolutely convinced of that?

A. I felt satisfied in my own mind to the extent that I began to figure out some way that we could at least save the ball players, and save our own reputations.

“IT WAS ONE BIG BLUFF”

Gilmore approached Sinclair and Ward with an audacious plan. First, they rented a suite of Manhattan offices and purchased an option to buy some vacant land at 143rd Street and Lenox Avenue. They then asked Corry Comstock, a New York City engineer and architect who was also the vice-president of the Pittsburgh Federal club, to draw up plans for a grandiose, 55,000-seat stadium. Gilmore then announced to the press that the Federal League planned to “invade” New York in 1916.

The purpose of all this? According to Gilmore, “[i]t was one big bluff,” a trick to force O.B. into “coming around and making some kind of offer.”

Q. Your real purpose was to get Organized Baseball to buy you out?

A. To reimburse us for some of our expenditures, yes, sir.

Q. To buy you out. Did not they have enough ball parks for the American and National Leagues at that time?

A. I presume they did.

Q. You expected them to buy you out and get rid of you as an annoying competitor; is that the proposition?

A. I think so, yes, sir.

Q. You had statements and interviews in the papers about it [the N.Y. stadium]?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. You said you were going to build it?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And you had no idea of building it?

A. None at all. We did not know where the money was coming from unless some angel came along.

Q. You mean some devil; you were not associating with angels. Do you mean to tell this jury that you gave out interviews to the papers that you were going to build this stadium, employed an architect and manifested all of the different things that were necessary to accompany a real good faith act and had no idea of building a stadium at all?

A. It was one big bluff.

Q. That is the word you used for it?

A. Bluff, yes, sir.

Q. Might you not also characterize it as false pretense?

A. I do not know what you characterize it.

Q. Were you not engaging in false pretense?

A. We were trying to be protected to the best of our ability.

Comstock described the threatened invasion of New York by the Federal League as a “holdup”; he said there was “not a word of truth” in the announcement of the plans to build a stadium.

Gilmore and his co-conspirators did not tell the other Federal League owners about their scheme. According to Gilmore,

A. . .. [T]he bluff that we had formulated, the plan we had formulated, to put this thing through, was an absolute secret between Mr. R.B. Ward, Mr. Comstock, Mr. Sinclair and myself ….

Q. You were putting up a bluff on Baltimore?

A. Baltimore did not know one thing about the plan we were putting up in New York …. [W]e decided to keep it a secret from everybody. Mr. Weeghman [of Chicago] knew nothing about it. Mr. Ball of St. Louis knew nothing about it.

Gilmore’s machinations certainly fooled the Baltimore club. While he was trying to bluff O.B. into buying out the Federal League, Baltimore officials were naively making preparations for the 1916 season. Colonel Stuart S. Janney, a prominent Baltimore attorney who held stock in the team and served as its lawyer, testified that the club’s directors and stockholders had not expected to turn a profit overnight and were prepared to supply whatever additional financing was necessary for the 1916 season.

These preparations were encouraged by a series of letters Gilmore wrote to club officials in the fall of 1915, all of which contained some implication that the Federal League would be alive and well enough to operate in 1916. In an October 13 letter, Gilmore wrote:

[I] hope that your club is signing up some good talent for the coming year. I have wonderful faith in Baltimore as a Major League city, and know if you can get a fighting team there and keep it in the race, you will draw wonderful crowds and easily pay expenses.

On November 1, he wrote:

I also want to suggest that in view of your experience the last year that you make out a statement of the approximate cost to operate your club during the next season. In other words, I would like an idea of how much cheaper you think you can operate in 1916 than you could in 1915. This will be valuable information for our Board Members, and I want you to get it as accurately as possible.

On November 30, Gilmore forwarded to Baltimore club president Carroll W. Rasin a letter from a Williamsport, Pennsylvania fan recommending that the Federal League sign up for the 1916 season a local star who was a “natural-born hitter … fast on his feet; a sure catch and a ‘find.’” And on December 3, Gilmore wrote again to request the financial information that he had asked for in his November 1 letter.

PEACE TALKS

Baltimore officials did hear rumors that some Federal League owners were negotiating a settlement. At a November 9 league meeting in Indianapolis, Baltimore President Rasin asked Gilmore, Weeghman, and Sinclair point-blank if there was any truth in newspaper reports to that effect. All three denied that they were in communication with Organized Baseball, but Rasin suspected at the time that their denials “might not be frank.” In early December, Rasin saw more “newspaper talk” that O.B. and the Federal League were about to cut a deal. When he called Gilmore, Gilmore again assured him that there was no truth to the rumors.

On December 12, Gilmore ran into three National League officials in the lobby of New York City’s Biltmore Hotel. One of them asked Gilmore to “come around and take this matter up” at the National League owners’ meeting scheduled for the next day. Gilmore turned down the invitation. “Absolutely nothing doing,” he said. “We have gone too far and made too much progress on our New York invasion.”

The next day, the same men called Gilmore and asked him to “come over and fix this thing up.” Gilmore — hoping to hook his adversaries a little more firmly before reeling them in — feigned disinterest. “I told you the other day I would not have anything to do with it,” he said, “and I will not talk about it.”

Gilmore then turned to Harry Sinclair and said, in a voice loud enough for his caller to hear, “Harry, these people want [us] to come over and talk to them. Do you want to go?” Also intending the caller to hear him, Sinclair replied, “We might as well go and hear what they have to say.” The two of them went to National League President Tener’s office to discuss the situation.

Gilmore, Sinclair, and the National League representatives came to a tentative peace agreement. First, the NL agreed to make all blacklisted Federal League players eligible to play in O.B. and to let the Federal League owners sell their players’ contracts to the highest bidders. Next, the NL owners offered to buy the Brooklyn Federals’ park for $400,000, subject to the American League owners agreeing to kick in half of that sum. They also promised to approve the sale of the Chicago Cubs to Chicago Federals owner Charles E. Weeghman and put up $50,000 of the purchase price. The NL owners then agreed to buyout the Pittsburgh Federals for $50,000. Sinclair was a close friend of St. Louis Federals owner Phil Ball, and he assured the conferees that Ball would be satisfied if he could buy either the Cardinals or the Browns. The Buffalo and Kansas City clubs were no longer members in good standing of the Federal League — their owners had run out of money before the season ended, and the other teams had provided funds to pay their players in order to keep the league’s financial problems a secret — so there was little need to worry about them. There was apparently no discussion concerning the Newark franchise, even though owner Sinclair was present.

That left only the Baltimore club. Gilmore testified that he asked for $200,000 for Baltimore’s owners, but was laughed at. He later told Sinclair that he thought it was wise “to start high.” The meeting then broke up.

On December 16, 1915, Rasin received a telegram from Gilmore: “You and Hanlon be at Biltmore in morning. Important.” Rasin, Hanson, and Janney took the midnight train to New York, and went to Gilmore’s apartment at the Biltmore Hotel on the morning of December 17. Gilmore explained that he had summoned them to New York to tell them that the 1916 Federal League season was “all off.” Gilmore then told the stunned Baltimore officials about the tentative peace agreement of the 13th.

Janney and Rasin asked why Gilmore and the others had agreed to sell out, but Gilmore did not reply. They then asked what arrangements had been made concerning the Baltimore club’s interests. None, said Gilmore; however, he was sure that Baltimore would be “taken care of” before the settlement was made final.

Later, Sinclair, Weeghman, and representatives of other Federal League teams joined the meeting. They told the Baltimoreans that the opportunity to make peace had arisen suddenly and unexpectedly, and no one then present in New York felt he had authority to speak for Baltimore; however, like Gilmore, they were all sure that the National Commission would give due consideration to Baltimore’s claims.

The Baltimore officials were in no mood to take Gilmore’s advice and “accept the situation philosophically.” According to Janney, the discussion “grew rather bitter.” When Sinclair defended his and his allies’ actions, “quite a dispute arose” between him and Janney; “his words and mine,” Janney testified, “were not always of the smoothest.” Janney argued that the Federal League clubs should get some share of the proceeds of any agreement to dissolve the circuit, but Sinclair said he “would have none of that.”

Gilmore and his allies hoped to finalize the December 13 agreement at a meeting with American and National League club owners that evening at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. According to Gilmore, Comstock, and Ward, Rasin moved that a committee of three — Gilmore, Sinclair, and Weeghman — be authorized to represent all the Federal League clubs at that meeting. Rasin denied that he made such a motion.

THE WALDORF MEETING

The Waldorf meeting was called to order by National Commission president August Herrmann at 9:10 P.M., Friday, December 17, 1915. Among the thirty or so baseball men present at the meeting were American and National League presidents Johnson and Tener; Federal Leaguers Gilmore, Sinclair, Weeghman, and Rasin; American League owners Charles Comiskey (White Sox) and Colonel Jacob Ruppert (Yankees); and National League owners Charles Ebbets (Dodgers), James Gaffney (Braves), and Barney Dreyfuss (Pirates). A stenographer was present, and a transcript was produced.

The conferees quickly ratified those parts of the tentative peace agreement of December 13 that provided that the National League would put up $50,000 toward Weeghman’s purchase of the Cubs; that Organized Baseball would pay R.B. Ward’s heirs $20,000 a year for twenty years in exchange for the Brooklyn Federals’ stadium; that Organized Baseball would pay $50,000 to the owners of the Pittsburgh Federals; and that all Federal League players would be eligible to return to O.B.

Gilmore was asked if his committee was empowered to enter into a binding agreement on behalf of the Federal League.

Gilmore: I can say for the Federal League that the committee represented here tonight was appointed with full authority to discuss this proposition with you, and conclude any agreement that we might come to, and we are ready to open up the talk and see what can be done.

Herrmann: I understand, Mr. Gilmore, you state now that you have authority to act on behalf of the Federal League; that is, your committee?

Gilmore: We have full authority, Mr. Herrmann.

Rasin did not challenge Gilmore’s assertion. At about the time the meeting was beginning, a Baltimore Sun reporter went to the Biltmore to tell Janney that it looked as if Baltimore might be able to get a National League team. Janney hurried to the Waldorf, where Rasin also told him that Baltimore had a good chance of landing an established franchise if they asked for one. Herrmann then gave Janney the floor.

We feel just as I suppose everyone feels, that peace is the very best proposition in baseball and for baseball. We are all willing to concede that, and we hope it will come about. There is in the proposal which has been adopted, and which has been signed by certain parties — the situation in Baltimore is not touched upon, and it seems to me important in several aspects. In the first place, Baltimore has a population of seven hundred and fifty or eight hundred thousand people, including the suburbs ….

We are willing to purchase and pay for a franchise in the major leagues, if we can get it, and we want that to be the main keynote of our situation this evening ….

….

We are not venturing to suggest to you gentlemen just what franchise we think that would be. You could work that out probably better than ourselves, but that is our starting point, and that is what we would like to see, and which we lay before you.

Baltimore is not mentioned in the proposals that you have heretofore considered, and we think that, that is — we want to be taken up with every consideration, and … if you state or suggest that Baltimore would not pay the rest of the teams what the city does from which the franchise might be moved, we would be willing, and we will say that [we] will guarantee to pay as much as the city from which it is moved. In other words, the patronage there, we are willing to stand back of. We know it is there. We know that the people [will] attend the games, and we know we can produce the same revenue for a visiting team that has been produced by the city from which it will be moved ….

….

We represent a large body of representative citizens there, and we will see to it that suitable guarantees are given to back up every word that I have said. That is our position, gentlemen; and … we do not ask anything if we could be given the privilege of buying and locating a major league club in Baltimore, at a reasonable price, a franchise in … either one or the other of the two major leagues which you represent. We do not ask anybody to sacrifice anything or contribute to us. We are willing to stand in our own position and come forward and back our words with deeds and give you suitable guarantees.

Several of the major league owners present ridiculed the notion that Baltimore could support a major league franchise.

Comiskey: Well, what would you give for a franchise in Baltimore? Suppose we could blow life into McGraw and Kelley and Jennings and all those players that you had there that you could not support …. What would you give for those players if we would guarantee that they would play good ball in Baltimore for ten years, what would you pay for them and how loyally would you support them?

Janney: We would support them well.

Comiskey: What crowd would you draw?

Janney: We would draw sufficient to enable us to pay $250,000 for a franchise.

Comiskey: That is just the proper price for a minor league franchise …. Baltimore, a minor-league city, and not a hell of a good one at that.

Ebbets: That’s right.

Comiskey: As sure as you are sitting there now, and your friends will tell you. Charlie, show them what you have got in Baltimore. You are the best evidence in the world. Tell them what you drew in Baltimore ….

Ebbets: When [Ned Hanlon] quit Baltimore and came to Brooklyn, he said, “Baltimore is not a major league city.” We lost money in Baltimore operating the club with the same players that Mr. Comiskey speaks of.

Janney: There are very peculiar circumstances that brought that about.

Ebbets: Nothing peculiar about it; it is a minor league city, positively and absolutely, and will never be anything else.

Janney: That is your opinion.

Ebbets: Sure that is my opinion, because I had a piece of experience and lost money down there.

Janney: But money has been lost in other towns also in baseball.

Ebbets: Not in major league cities.

Janney: Yes, they have been lost in other towns that are major league cities.

Ebbets: It is one of the worst minor league towns in this country.

Janney: It will never be a minor league town because the people feel naturally —

Ebbets: You have too many colored population to start with. They are a cheap population when it gets down to paying their money at the gate.

Janney: They come across, I think, in good shape. This is perfectly futile, of course. It requires your consent and I am not going to try to convince you when you are so set in your ways.

Janney was right to call further discussion futile. Under both American and National League rules, the transfer of any franchise to Baltimore would require the unanimous consent of the league owners. From the statements of the owners at the meeting, it is clear that any motion to give Baltimore an existing team — Janney and Rasin had thought the Cardinals might be available — would have been met not with unanimous consent, but unanimous refusal.

The two sides agreed that a detailed settlement, including something for Baltimore, should be worked out by the National Commission and a Federal League committee of three. Gilmore proposed that himself, Sinclair, and Weeghman serve as that committee, and neither Janney nor Rasin objected.

There was then some discussion of the Federal League’s pending antitrust suit against Organized Baseball, which Judge Landis had still not decided. National League counsel John C. Toole felt that the suit should be withdrawn before any more negotiating was done:

[I]t seems to me that the very first thing that should be done, and that should be done very promptly, to show that the thing is moving along, is that both sides should agree that that action be discontinued, and prompt steps should be taken to discontinue it and get it out of the way. That ought to be done before you have any meeting of the [National] Commission with this committee.

Janney objected that Toole was putting the cart before the horse.

Janney: I think that should be part of the agreement ultimately reached, that the suit be discontinued. It would not certainly be any discourtesy to the Court for parties to a litigation to discuss its composition, and when they come to a composition, then to have the dismissal of the action as a part of the composition.

Toole: You are not settling that suit, that is the difficulty. If you were settling that litigation, that is another thing, but you are settling a multitude of things in no way involved in that, and reaching agreements on them and this decision has been in abeyance. He may decide it tomorrow, and all this go to nothing, and put you all in a very embarrassing position, although you do not, perhaps, get into contempt of court.

Janney: I think the most that could be done, so far as I can see, would be to wire our respective counsel to appear before the Court tomorrow and advise him that there are matters under discussion which may ultimately result in an agreement, and if this agreement is effective, it will involve the discontinuance of the action before him, and suggest it would be proper for him to delay rendering a decision in it until this could be seen, whether the composition was effected, and that would be perfectly compatible with every possible legal or courteous principle…. What we do here will be subject to the dismissal. It is not usual to dismiss the case and then compose it. You compose it and then dismiss it…. You do not dismiss your suit and then agree how to settle it. That is that whole settlement. You settle this thing, and then, with your settlement, go and dismiss it. I have no objection, of course, to notifying the attorneys and telling them to do everything that is necessary to be courteous and pleasing to the Court.

When the meeting was adjourned, Toole telegraphed Organized Baseball’s Chicago attorney:

Negotiations are pending, which if carried out will result in an agreement to withdraw the action brought by the Federal League. Please bring the matter to the attention of Judge Landis, if you think it advisable, and secure his approval of situation. Communicate with attorneys for Federal League, who will be advised by their client.

The Federal League was dead, but Gilmore and his allies weren’t shedding any tears over its demise. Fearful that the league was doomed anyway, they decided to cut their losses rather than fight to the finish. Organized Baseball was happy to offer the Federal League a generous peace settlement. After all, there was still a chance that Judge Landis would issue a damaging verdict in the Federal League’s antitrust action. The rival league’s New York bluff also raised the specter of even more bitter competition for players and fans, with plenty of red ink to go around.

Ban Johnson would have preferred not to call a truce. The Federal League’s threat to put a team in New York may have fooled the National League, but the American League knew better: It had considered building a new stadium on the Lenox Avenue property years earlier, but found that it was absolutely impractical to locate a park there. Johnson was characteristically blunt in describing his feelings about the peace pact.

Q. Can you tell us without any lengthy answer why did you pay $50,000 for [the Pittsburgh park]?

A. That was a tentative agreement that the National League entered into, and we abided by their decision in the matter. I could not see any reason why Pittsburgh should be given
$50,000. As a matter of fact I did not want to give a five-cent piece to Pittsburgh.

Q. What you wanted to do was to knock them out?

A. Knock them out; that is it.

Q. Not to pay a cent?

A. Not a nickel.

Q. You were not as generous as Mr. Herrmann. Mr. Herrmann said yesterday he wanted to help them out.

A. I did not want to help them out. I am very frank in that regard.

The National Commission and the Federal League committee signed a peace treaty in Cincinnati On December 22. Before the agreement was concluded, Gilmore called Rasin to ask if Baltimore would accept $75,000, but Rasin said no. Another meeting to discuss Baltimore’s claims was held in Cincinnati on January 5, 1916, but no settlement was reached. A day or two later, Baltimore filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice, but Assistant Attorney General Todd announced on January 11 that he had no reason to believe that Organized Baseball had violated the antitrust laws.

THE WAR MOVES TO THE COURTROOM

On January 27, the Baltimore stockholders voted to authorize the club’s directors to spend up to $50,000 on “litigation in such form as they deem advisable” to protect the stockholders’ interests. They eventually filed suit in Washington on September 20, 1917.

After a year and a half of legal skirmishing, a jury was sworn in On March 25, 1919. The testimony summarized above was presented, the judge gave his instructions, and the jury retired to deliberate On April 12. Given the judge’s instructions to the jury — which, in essence, told the jury that O.B. had in fact violated the federal antitrust laws, and that the Baltimore club was entitled to recover for any damages it suffered as a result — the verdict came as no surprise. The jury found in favor of the plaintiff and assessed damages at $80,000. The antitrust laws provide that guilty defendants pay three times the amount of the actual damages plus attorneys’ fees, so the final judgement was for $254,000.

Organized Baseball’s lawyers immediately appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. They attacked the trial court’s decision on a number of legal grounds, but focused most of their attention on a single key issue:

By far the most important question presented by the assignments of error is whether professional baseball is interstate commerce.

In his memoirs, George Wharton Pepper, O.B.’s top lawyer, described his appeal strategy.

I raised at every opportunity the objection that a spontaneous output of human activity is not in its nature commerce, that therefore Organized Baseball cannot be interstate commerce; and that, it not being commerce among the states, the federal statute could have no application….

… [T]he case came on for argument … on October 15th [, 1920]. I mention the date because of the coincidence that on the same day there was being played the final game in the [Dodgers vs. Indians] World Series of that year ….

. . . Counsel for the Federal League made the grave mistake of minimizing the real point in the case (the question, namely whether interstate commerce was involved) and sought to inflame the passions of the Court by a vehement attack upon the evils of [Organized Baseball], a few of which were real and many, as I thought, imaginary. I argued with much earnestness the proposition that personal effort not related to production is not a subject of commerce; that the attempt to secure all the skilled service needed for professional baseball is not an attempt to monopolize commerce or any part of it; and that Organized Baseball, not being commerce, and therefore not interstate commerce, does not come within the scope of the prohibitions of the Sherman [Antitrust] Act.

If the business of professional baseball was not interstate commerce, it was not subject to the Sherman Antitrust Act or any other federal regulation, even if all of the Baltimore club’s allegations of monopoly and conspiracy were found to be true.

On December 6, 1920, the Court of Appeals issued its decision, which was written by its Chief Justice, Constantine J. Smyth. Chief Justice Smyth first stated that interstate commerce “require[s] the transfer of something, whether it be persons, commodities, or intelligence” from one state to another. But, Smyth wrote,

A game of baseball is not susceptible of being transferred…. Not until [the players] come into contact with their opponents on the baseball field and the contest opens does the game come into existence. It is local in its beginning and in its end. Nothing is transferred in the process to those who patronize it. The exertions of skill and agility which they witness may excite in them pleasurable emotions, just as might a view of a beautiful picture or a masterly performance of some drama; but the game effects no exchange of things. . . .

It didn’t really matter that baseball players traveled across state lines, or that the players carried their bats, balls, gloves, and uniforms across state lines with them.

The players, it is true, travel from place to place in interstate commerce, but they are not the game ….

….

The transportation in interstate commerce of the players and the paraphernalia used by them was but an incident to the main purpose of the appellants, namely the production of the game. It was for it they were in business — not for the purpose of transferring players, balls, and uniforms. The production of the game was the dominant thing in their activities ….

. . . So, here, baseball is not commerce, though some of its incidents may be.

Suppose a law firm in the city of Washington sends its members to points in different states to try lawsuits; they would travel, and probably carry briefs and records, in interstate commerce. Could it be correctly said that the firm, in the trial of the lawsuits, was engaged in trade and commerce? Or, take the case of a lecture bureau, which employs persons to deliver lectures before Chautauqua gatherings at points in different states. It would be necessary for the lecturers to travel in interstate commerce, in order that they might fulfill their engagements; but would it not be an unreasonable stretch of the ordinary meaning of the words to say that the bureau was engaged in trade or commerce?

Chief Justice Smyth then cited with approval cases holding that those who produce theatrical exhibitions, practice medicine, or launder clothes are not engaged in commerce.

The Baltimore club tried to persuade the United States Supreme Court to reinstate the original verdict in its favor. But Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, writing for a unanimous Court, upheld the decision of the Court of Appeals.

[E]xhibitions of base ball … are purely state affairs. It is true that, in order to attain for these exhibitions the great popularity that they have achieved, competitions must be arranged between clubs from different cities and States. But the fact that in order to give the exhibitions the League must induce free persons to cross state lines and must arrange and pay for their doing so is not enough to change the character of the business…. [T]he transport is a mere incident, not the essential thing. That to which it is incident, the exhibition, although made for money would not be called trade or commerce in the commonly accepted use of those words. As it is put by the defendants, personal effort, not related to production, is not a subject of commerce. That which in its consummation is not commerce does not become commerce among the States because the transportation that we have mentioned takes place. To repeat the illustrations given by the Court below, a firm of lawyers sending out a member to argue a case, or the Chautauqua lecture bureau sending out lecturers, does not engage in such commerce because the lawyer or lecturer goes to another State.

The Supreme Court’s decision was issued on May 29, 1922 — almost seven years after the Baltimore Federals played their last game.

Given the legal doctrines of its day, the Federal Baseball case was correctly decided. The courts of that era applied the federal antitrust laws only to businesses that were primarily engaged in the production, sale, or transportation of tangible goods.

It is popularly believed that Organized Baseball was given immunity from the antitrust laws because baseball was a sport, not a business. That belief has grown out of a passage in the Court of Appeals opinion:

If a game of baseball, before a concourse of people who pay for the privilege of witnessing it, is trade or commerce, then the college teams who play football where an admission fee is charged, engage in an act of trade or commerce. But the act is not trade or commerce; it is sport. The fact that [Organized Baseball] produce[s] baseball games as a source of profit, large or small, cannot change the character of the games. They are still sport, not trade.

But a close reading of that language and the rest of Chief Justice Smyth’s opinion shows that the key to the decision was not the fact that baseball was a sport. The more crucial fact was that baseball — as well as the practice of law or medicine, the production of grand opera, and the other nonsporting activities cited in the opinion — was not commerce.

Antitrust doctrines have changed radically since Federal Baseball was decided in 1922. The cases that the Supreme Court relied upon in holding that baseball wasn’t interstate commerce have long ago been overruled. By 1960, the Supreme Court had held that doctors, theatrical producers, boxing promoters, and even the National Football League were subject to the federal antitrust laws.

But baseball has somehow retained its uniquely privileged status. In 1953 and again in 1972, in the celebrated Curt Flood case, the Supreme Court affirmed the holding of Federal Baseball. Justice Blackmun, in Flood vs. Kuhn, noted that baseball’s antitrust immunity was “an anomaly” and “an aberration.” But, he noted,

Remedial legislation has been introduced repeatedly in Congress but none has ever been enacted. The Court, accordingly, has concluded that Congress as yet has had no intention to subject baseball’s reserve system to the reach of the antitrust statutes….

…. If there is any inconsistency or illogic in all this, it is an inconsistency and illogic of long standing that is to be remedied by the Congress and not by this Court.

Is the Federal Baseball ruling of any consequence today? After all, the players’ union has managed to decimate the reserve clause through collective bargaining. Free agency, arbitration, limits on trades without consent — no longer is the major league player, in Curt Flood’s words, “a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of [his] wishes.”

But what about the owners? Al Davis and Robert Irsay could move away from Oakland and Baltimore because the antitrust laws prevent the other NFL owners from taking concerted action against such moves. What if Calvin Griffith, rather than selling the Twins, had decided to move them to Tampa — or back to Washington, D.C. — without American League approval? If the other owners simply refused to schedule any games with the Twins and Griffith sued them, would Federal Baseball still control?

Or what if the USFL owners decided to start a baseball league, too? (Perhaps they would play in the fall and winter.) If Organized Baseball threatened NBC that it would never again sell broadcast rights to that network if it televised the new league’s games, would the “USBL” win the antitrust suit that would undoubtedly follow?

Surely then Federal Baseball — a case decided over sixty [today ninety — ED.] years ago, long before television, jet airplanes, free agents, and night baseball — would finally be laid to rest. Of course, that was what Curt Flood’s lawyers thought would happen in 1972. Federal Baseball may be an anomaly and an aberration — but it may also outlive us all.

GARY HAILEY, a 1977 graduate of Harvard Law School, is a partner in the Washington, DC office of Venable LLP. He is also a father of four, a basketball referee, a biker, a voracious reader, and the author of many articles on sports and music.

But baseball is not just the romance of victory and defeat on the playing field; it is also a business. The game was intertwined with business promotion. Following the Cotton States Exposition of 1895 in Atlanta, town fathers, elected officials, and chambers of commerce across the state were under local pressure to get on board with the growing industrialization of the South and to attract Northern business investment to their communities. Among other tools, they sought to use baseball as a national calling card for their cities. The local team was the public face of the town. A city with a professional baseball team was a city to be reckoned with; a city with a winning professional team was a winner. This, too, was South Georgia baseball in 1913.

THE LEAGUE 

The Empire State League did not emerge fully formed and without precursors. The sandy soil of the region had proved to be fertile ground for baseball. The sport was long popular in South Georgia, and amateur nines had been playing the game for several decades before the league was organized. Amateur and semipro teams played in many South Georgia cities by the last decade of the nineteenth century. Most towns had a local team, as did many churches and schools. The larger towns and county seats also had teams sponsored by local businesses and associations (YMCA, Elks, etc.) or organized around certain professions (waiters, firemen, etc.). It was the “town” team, however, that proved most important to the fans. These groups of home-grown talent would play nearby towns for prizes and bragging rights, and the contests were often part of a larger celebration. The teams were organized to take on all comers and typically looked for challengers of equal status and ability, most often from a similarly sized town. County seats, such as Thomasville or Valdosta, often met one another for contests that had repercussions beyond the playing field, not unlike modern-day high-school football in the region. 

Attempts to organize these “town” teams into a league went back at least to 1900, when a Southeastern Base Ball League was proposed; it never began play. In 1903, two attempts failed: a Wiregrass League and a South Georgia League. In 1906, the Georgia State League, Class D, got off the ground, played a partial schedule, and then collapsed as teams failed and dropped out. Five of the towns that would later make up the Empire State League—Americus, Brunswick, Cordele, Valdosta, and Waycross—were members of this six-team league.[fn]Seven cities were represented in the 1906 league; Columbus and Albany were the other two. The Columbus franchise relocated to Brunswick in June. Albany and Columbus were in the South Atlantic League in 1913. Thomasville’s Empire State League entry was that town’s first minor league team.[/fn] The breaking point for the 1906 league was the Fourth of July holiday. Traditionally, teams would play a doubleheader on this date, sometimes traveling between towns for a home-and-home series. With most workers off for the day, box-office receipts could be high, as games were played amid picnics and other outdoor events. Excluding any postseason play, this holiday was a team’s largest payday. For the Georgia State League, this was also the time to cash out. Following the holiday, the 1906 league collapsed, with Waycross left as the lone solvent team, issuing a challenge to other nines in a bid to keep going. It would be six years before another attempt was made to assemble a league. 

Population and employment growth, spurred by civic promotion, may be the least recognized component of the drive to professionalize the town teams. New jobs, especially in the timber and related industries, attracted workers to the area; banking and other services followed. Between 1900 and 1910, population in each of the six towns that would make up the league grew by an average of 49 percent; between 1910 and 1920, each town continued to grow by an average of 26 percent. Even with high growth rates, these were still small towns, with populations ranging from 6,000 (Cordele) to just over 15,000 (Waycross). The “boomtown” of the group, Waycross, had increased in population by 145 percent between 1900 and 1910. Brunswick (11,000 residents in 1913) and Valdosta (8,300) had population growth rates of 41 percent from 1910 to 1920, and employment in Brunswick grew by 93 percent between 1909 and 1914. These high growth rates were partly the result of, and further argument for, the self-promotion of the region, with the towns vying with one another to attract Northern investment. In general, business in this era and region meant employment based on extracting natural resources, such as cotton and timber, in order to provide raw materials to Northern factories. Much like the contemporary view that a modern city is “major” if it has a major sports franchise, the presence of a professional baseball team became part of the self-image of these towns. 

The Empire State League was the brainchild of one man—James Sinclair—carried to success by many other men. An executive with the South Atlantic Line Railroad in its Waycross offices, Sinclair sought to gain entry for his local team into the South Atlantic League (Sally) for play in the 1913 season. The Sally, stretching from South Carolina to Florida and including four teams in Georgia, had no room for another member, and no team was looking to be replaced. By August 1912, the rebuffed Sinclair was publicly contemplating creating a new league in the southern part of the state. He envisioned a six-team circuit that would include five of the cities that were later part of the league, with Tifton, Moultrie, or Fitzgerald originally considered instead of Thomasville. At Sinclair’s invitation, representatives from the interested cities met several times in different locations to discuss the idea. James Sinclair was elected chairman of the committee formed at these meetings. The circuit would be named the Empire State League.[fn]Georgia’s Empire State League should not be confused with the longerlived league of the same name in New York, which was operating as an “outlaw” league in 1913. The league names are the same because the root nickname is the same. New York is and long has been referred to as the “Empire State.” Georgia business promoters adopted the nickname “Empire State of the South,” a sobriquet in common use from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. The National Association denied entry to the New York Empire State League, based on the reputation of the proposed owners, at the same session where it allowed entrance to Georgia’s Empire State League.[/fn] Teams would pay $100 to the league as an entry fee, demonstrate that they had at least $300 on hand, and post a $500 bond to guarantee compliance with the salary cap. Each team was required to have local ownership. Six teams, representing Americus, Brunswick, Cordele, Thomasville, Valdosta, and Waycross, raised the required funds and formally joined the league by the end of February. In a hint of things to come, however, Americus had a difficult time raising sufficient funds in these early months. 

Following their initial meetings, the group assembled in Valdosta to continue their talks, formalize the organization of the league, and elect Sinclair to the office of league president. It would be a short reign. The league’s board of directors, made up of a representative from each of the member cities, scheduled a meeting for February 19 in Brunswick to finalize plans for the season. Sinclair, however, was done. Citing his growing need to attend to his business matters, he announced his impending resignation. In Brunswick, the league quickly moved to fill his place, electing a local businessman, C. C. Vaughn, to the presidency. Oscar Groover of Thomasville was elected vice president, and L. J. Leavy of Brunswick was elected to the post of secretary/treasurer. Leavy was immediately instructed to contact the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues in order to apply for entry on behalf of the league. 

An important step for the nascent league was to seek membership in the National Association, which was granted in March. The Empire State League could have gone into the season as an “outlaw” league simply by organizing a schedule for the member teams. This would not have been much different from the current situation. But the teams would still just be playing for bragging rights, not national recognition. Membership in the National Association provided a level of stability that was important to the league’s organizers. As a member of the association, the league gained protection for its players, because all association members were required to respect the contracts of other member leagues. In addition, only a limited number of players could be drafted by leagues with a higher classification, and only at the end of the season. The league was admitted as a Class D minor league; teams in this class made up about half of all the professional leagues in 1913.[fn]The classifications of minor leagues in the National Association in 1913, and the total number of leagues at each classification level, were: Class AA (3 leagues), Class A (2 leagues), Class B (9), Class C (6), and Class D (22). In all, there were 130 Class D teams, representing 47 percent of the total number of minor-league teams.[/fn] 

Empire State League rosters were limited to twelve players, and no more than three of the men could have prior service with higher-classification minor-league teams (C or above). Salaries were capped at $1,000 for the season (about $21,000 in today’s dollars), though few if any of the players received the maximum allowable salary.[fn]Based on the cost to enter the league and operating costs during the season (including travel and lodging), the 10 percent of gate receipts that went to the league, and accounting for the average attendance and admission price, each team would have roughly $3,000 to $3,500 to spend on player salaries and/or retain as profit.[/fn] Because of these constraints, we can reconstruct some of the organizational logic behind the make-up of team rosters. This was the era of the player-manager, so the highest-paid roster spot would presumably go to such a player. For most teams, this accounted for one of the three spots limited by “prior service.” Any remaining “prior-service” spots, and the higher salaries that would go with them, might be used for pitching or hitting, depending on the manager’s preference. A player-manager would also typically be a position player, rather than a pitcher, meaning that seven more roster spots would be taken by position players. This leaves four roster spots, which were taken up by four pitchers or three pitchers and a utility player. Many of the pitchers could play the outfield when they weren’t on the mound, providing a little flexibility in the roster. In this league, an injury generally meant the end of a player’s season, as a roster spot could not be held while the man recuperated. 

More than 180 men played in the Empire State League—enough to fill the team rosters two-and-a-half times over. Most of these players were from other Class D leagues, “on loan” or released from higher-level minor-league teams, or trying to break into professional baseball for the first time. There was no formal arrangement between the Empire State League and any other leagues, though many of the teams entered into agreements on a player-by-player basis. For example, Tom Bowden, property of the Boston Braves, was “farmed out” to Cordele, and Americus’s “Mr. Popularity,” Dick Manchester, was property of the Albany, Georgia, South Atlantic League team. Several players from Macon (Sally) “rehabbed” with a league team. During the season, more than forty men from higher-classification leagues found playing time in the Empire State League. 

The creation of the Empire State League should be seen as a “professionalizing” of the game in South Georgia rather than as introducing something entirely new. Many of the players from a 1912 “town” team roster played for the same team in the league the next year. The towns that made up the league had been playing each other for years, and rivalries were well established. Some of these were continued in the Empire State League, but some, such as the fierce rivalry between Thomasville and Monticello, Florida, faded out when one of the teams involved was not part of the new league. In the seasons leading up to the creation of the league, Americus, Brunswick, and Waycross fielded the strongest teams in the region. Ironically, these three finished out of the running in 1913. 

THE SEASON 

The Empire State League scheduled a 90-game season, with teams playing three home and three away games each week, taking every Sunday off. No doubleheaders were scheduled—save for the Fourth of July holiday—though several would be held in order to make up rainouts. Games would typically start around 3:30, and a nine-inning contest lasted an average of just under two hours. Average take at the ticket booth was a bit less than 50 cents per person.[fn]The per-ticket average is based on contemporary attendance and receipt accounts. The teams charged different rates for grandstand and pavilion seats and frequently held special promotions, such as “Ladies’ Day,” which introduces some variability into this average.[/fn] Teams traveled by train and dressed for the game in a local hotel or boarding house. Based on available evidence, the parks can charitably be described as “unrefined,” with sandy ground that made growing grass difficult. Seating was provided in covered band-box “pavilions” and open-air grandstands, set to one side of the field, usually along the first-base line. Bullpens didn’t exist; pitchers warmed up down the foul lines. The ballpark might also be used for other events. In Valdosta, the field was within a dirt track oval used for motorcycle races. 

The Empire State League began play on May 1, with Waycross visiting Brunswick, Americus appearing in Cordele, and Valdosta hosting Thomasville. Businesses closed early, parades were held, city officials strutted, and the ballparks were mobbed. Special trains ran from each visiting team’s city and the surrounding towns. But even before the season was properly underway, there was controversy. The league had announced a contest to award a trophy to the city that had the largest home-opener crowd; determining the winner became clouded by allegations of over counting by some teams. Brunswick claimed the opening-day attendance title with 3,000 fans—exactly 3,000—and over 2,700 were claimed by Waycross for its opener on May 5. Given that the other teams reported more realistic figures for the period and ballpark sizes (1,200 to 1,500 fans), and given that the postseason games averaged 770 spectators, it seems likely that some over counting did, in fact, occur. Still, the opening-day scenes must have been impressive, and the overflow of fans would have been accommodated along the foul lines and in the outfield. When Thomasville held its first game at home, the team reported almost 1,200 fans in attendance in a park that was described to have a capacity of about 800. 

The league scheduled a meeting to discuss the attendance prize, but more important matters took center stage. Two weeks into the season, it was time to change league presidents again. On May 19, C. C. Vaughn, who had been elected to the position just three months earlier to succeed James Sinclair, gave notice of his intention to resign. Actually, Vaughn had tried to get out earlier but had withdrawn his previous resignation. Now he had a good excuse—he was moving to New Orleans. Vice President Groover was elevated to the presidency and would retain that post for the remainder of the season. (And no attendance trophy was awarded.) 

Like the rest of the teams, the Americus Muckalees,[fn]Team nicknames were seldom if ever used in press accounts of the games. Four of these teams would keep the same names for the 1914 season; Cordele changed its team name to the Ramblers, and Waycross became the Grasshoppers or Moguls.[/fn] named for a local tributary of the Flint River, actually began play before the regular season was underway, facing off with minor-league and college opponents in a sort of preseason exhibition tour. Americus’ 13-game schedule was more ambitious than most. In addition to the practice time, the team may have needed the gate receipts just to start the season. The Americus team was an uneven nine. They had the bats, but not the arms, to be successful. Numerous four- and fivegame losing streaks, along with a few winning streaks, gave the team a certain mediocre consistency. Three managers came and went over the course of the season: Harry Weber, Hal Griffin, and Bill Kuhlman. Weber quit after two weeks; Griffin then took over but shortly gave way to Kuhlman. The team finished fourth in both halves of the season, and its overall record also placed it fourth among the six teams of the league. The season for Americus was not without its bright spots, however. Late in the season, catcher Dick Manchester was voted the “most popular player” in the league by the fans; he won the title, and a loving cup, over the second-place finisher, Valdosta’s Otto Jordan. 

With the offensive prowess of outfielder Henry Chancey, Americus should have fared much better. Chancey led the team—and the league—in batting with a .386 average and also led in home runs (10), hits (142), total bases (212), and extra base hits (46).[fn]The batting, fielding, and pitching statistics in this article include appearances in the postseason and/or tie games. The author is currently at work on calculating more accurate regular-season figures based on contemporary box scores. Suffice it to say that whether or not postseason or tie games are counted, the individuals identified here were the best on their respective teams.[/fn] He was second in the league in doubles (32) and third in runs (68). Third baseman Grady Bowen was close behind, batting .324, and was ranked fifth in the league in hits (118). The team’s pitching was led by “Red” Dacey, with a 9–3 record, and Pratt, who went 9–6. First baseman Hal Griffin led the league in putouts (983), with Bowen at third base and Kuhlman at second ranking fourth and fifth, respectively. 

The Cordele Babies played in the smallest city in the circuit but in front of some of the most rabid fans in the league. “Babies” seems like an unusual team name to us today, but was a common nickname around the country for teams of the period and was also used in 1913 by the South Atlantic League (Class C) team in nearby Albany, Georgia.[fn]No formal relationship between the two teams has been found, and it is unlikely that one existed, as the two cities were bitter rivals in attracting businesses and industrial development.[/fn] The team was managed by Eddie “Rip” Reagan, a former Sally and Southern Association player.[fn]Reagan played in a different league every year from 1906 to 1912.[/fn] Reagan was well known to Cordele fans, having played for the city in the 1906 Georgia State League. The team’s strength was its pitching, led by Cleo “Kid” Wilder (16–10) and Dana Fillingim (15–10), who pitched back-to-back no-hitters in a doubleheader against Waycross on July 23.[fn]The two games of the doubleheader were each seven innings, and both games were umpired by another pitcher—Gentle of Valdosta. Also of note, Cleo Wilder has been misidentified in at least one source (Johnson and Wolfe) as “Percy” Wilder. Percy, manager of a team in Jacksonville in 1913, did play a role in the creation of the league, as a member of the committee assembled by James Sinclair, but he was not on the roster of any Empire State League team.[/fn] Evidently, the Babies had that team’s number; Wilder also recorded 15 strikeouts on May 17 against Waycross. Wilder and Fillingim had faced each other as pitchers on top high-school teams in 1912; ten years after being teammates in Cordele, Dana would be in the majors and Wilder would be pitching against Shoeless Joe Jackson in an outlaw league. However, pitching was also Cordele’s weakness; no other moundsman on the staff posted a winning record. With a 12–16 record, Hall recorded the most losses in the league. Outfielders Brazier (.308) and Wassem (.306) led the team in batting. Catcher Carl Eubanks finished fourth in the league in putouts, the only player in the top five in that category who was not a first baseman. 

By the third week of the season, Cordele and Valdosta separated themselves from the rest of the league and stayed close to each other in the standings for the next several weeks. After 45 games, the halfway point of the schedule, the two teams were well out in front of the others. They seemed destined to leave the rest of the field behind, fighting it out to the end for the league championship. However, there was concern among league directors that only two teams—three if the strong Thomasville nine was included—were really in a race for the championship. At the midpoint of the season, Brunswick, Waycross, and Americus were all within a few games of each other, grouped together seven to ten games behind the leaders. The lack of interest in noncontending teams could have a negative impact at the box office. On June 11, President Groover announced that the league’s directors would gather to discuss splitting the season. At that point, Cordele trailed Valdosta by one game in the standings. 

League officials met on June 13; up for discussion were possible changes to the playing schedule. The proposal for the league champion to meet the champion of the South Atlantic League in a postseason series had died on the vine. With the teams in relatively good financial health and with no other postseason opponent available, the league decided to extend the schedule from 90 to 102 games, splitting the season in order to set up a championship contest between the first- and second-half winners. There was also some hope that, by dividing the season, currently weak teams would have an opportunity to compete for the second-half crown and thus build interest—and ticket sales—in their cities. Whether or not that would be the case, the decision did have an immediate effect on the race to win the first half. At the time the new format was announced, Valdosta’s lead over Cordele was only two games, with fewer than two weeks left to play in the first half. 

The Empire State League directors had more on their minds at that June meeting than just adjusting the season schedule. Umpiring had become a problem. For league officials, the math was simple. With six teams in the league, there would be three games going Professional Baseball on at any one time. Thus, to their in Georgia – 1913 minds, just three umpires would be required, with perhaps a few more identified as potential substitutes. Lamar Ham, who had played in the 1906 Georgia State League, Robert Carter, and M. J. McLaughlin were the first “men in blue” for the league. Umpires were hired and paid by the league and, given the financial uncertainties before play began, it made sense to be conservative. For the umpires, however, facing potentially hostile crowds alone, without knowing what level of support to expect from the league, could make their jobs unnecessarily difficult and sometimes dangerous.[fn]On June 28, 1913, an umpire was killed by a bat-wielding player at an amateur game in Louisville.[/fn] The umpires pushed for two-man umpiring crews, but the season began with umpires working games alone. The league turned out not to be a weak partner in this arrangement; President Groover handed out several player suspensions for actions on the field during the season. Even so, the issue of crew size came to a head in mid-June, and the umpires disappeared from the field. Players filled in, at least fourteen of whom umpired games from June 11 to June 27. Typically, these were two-man umpiring crews, drawing a player from each team, though a few games featured three-man crews. One of the players—the Valdosta pitcher Gentle—evidently found the task to his liking, and he quit his team to finish out the season as an umpire. As the season progressed, the league, recognizing that it was in good financial shape, capitulated. More umpires were hired, and two-man crews became the norm. By the end of the season, about a dozen umpires, not counting players, had worked for the Empire State League. 

The Valdosta Millionaires, led by player-manager Otto “Dutch” Jordan, a former major leaguer and Southern Association All-Star,[fn]Otto Jordan played in the New York State League from 1901 to 1903; with Brooklyn (National League) from 1903 to 1904; and in the Southern Association from 1905 to 1913, mostly with Atlanta. As captain of the Atlanta Crackers, he was once arrested in New Orleans for stealing a baseball from the Pelicans during a game—but that’s another story.[/fn] were one of the best teams in the league. Jordan replaced opening-day manager “Whitey” Morse just one week into the season, to the delight of the locals, who welcomed the “prince of the second sackers.”[fn]Atlanta Constitution, 8 May 1913, 11.[/fn] The “Millionaires” nickname was the result of a newspaper contest; the team was more often referred to locally as “Otto’s Otters.” Jordan paced his team in batting with a .344 average in 96 games, but the defense showed some unevenness. Jordan at second base was second in assists in the league with 262, while third baseman Leininger was second in the league in errors (45). Valdosta’s best pitcher was Winges, who compiled a 17–7 record; also notable was pitcher “Rube” Zellars, who posted a 15–13 record, tied for the second-most losses in the league. 

With a week to go in the first half, Valdosta held a two-game lead over Cordele. But was there just a week left to play? Back on June 13, Secretary Leavy had identified July 3 as the starting point for the second half. But that would have resulted in an uneven schedule, putting more games in the first half than the second. President Groover issued a statement on June 25 that the end of the first half would be June 28—three days hence. This caused an immediate outcry in Cordele. With three games left to play, Valdosta’s lead was down to one game. In the final series of the first half, Valdosta would host Cordele, who would have to win two of the three games to gain a postseason berth. In the end it wasn’t much of an issue, however, since if the first half ended on July 3 as originally announced, Cordele would have had to play three more games against Valdosta, for a total of six straight, and would have had to win four of them. As it was, Valdosta won the first two games of the set and secured a place in the postseason championship series. The first half of the season ended on a good note for the league, with half of its teams finishing above .500. So far, so good.

The second half of the season began on June 30, with Americus in Waycross, Thomasville hosting Brunswick, and Valdosta visiting Cordele. Perhaps Cordele came out of the gate looking for a little payback; in the second game of the series they prevailed over Valdosta by a score of 13–0. It would be one of the few bright spots in what remained of their season, as the team— which had been vying for a playoff berth just a week earlier—would finish the second half in last place. With the first half of the season in the books, fans were now looking forward to that Friday’s Fourth of July holiday, which would feature home-and-home twin-bills between Thomasville and Valdosta, Americus and Cordele, and Brunswick and Waycross. Team owners around the league were also looking forward to the holiday payday. 

The Brunswick Pilots, their nickname derived from the river pilots who were hired to guide ships in and out of the town’s busy port, were the most poorly run team in the league. The Pilots had three managers during the season: Bert Kite, Charlie Moran,[fn]Beginning in 1902, Charlie Moran had a long and varied baseball career and was later a major-league umpire.[/fn] and “Whitey” Morse (who also had a brief managing stint with Valdosta at the start of the season). Brunswick fielded the largest number of players during the season in an ultimately frustrating attempt to find a winning combination. All the league teams rotated players on and off their rosters, but none did it with Brunswick’s verve. The team went through enough players to fill the rosters of three league teams. The Pilots had some good hitters, but many of them did not play with the team long enough to make a difference. First baseman/manager “Whitey” Morse was second in the league in putouts (873). Only one Brunswick pitcher— Hartner—had a winning record (15–8). In the first half of the season, the team had a six-game winless streak and two five-game winless streaks, which guaranteed a poor finish. The team performed better in the second half, avoiding any lengthy losing streaks, but they still could not consistently win games. Only the poor play of Cordele kept Brunswick from a last-place finish in the second half of the season. Cordele faded in the last third of the second half, suffering through an 11-game winless streak late in the season, followed by one win and then a six-game losing streak. When the 11-game streak began, the team was in second place; a week and a half later, Cordele was in last place to stay. 

When the Empire State League was created, attention was paid to ensuring a balanced geographic reach for the league. In doing so, obvious rivalries were created or, as in the case of Valdosta and Thomasville, were carried over into the new league. Cordele and Americus were separated by 30 rail miles; Brunswick and Waycross were 57 miles apart; Thomasville and Valdosta had just 44 miles to travel to meet one another. Because of these pairings, the league could celebrate the Fourth of July with games in every league city. Special trains were run so that fans could see their team in both cities where they played that day. Picnics and other events were scheduled to coincide with the games. 

Although the league made it past July 4 with all its teams in good shape, trouble was brewing in Americus, creating a crucial test for the league. For a number of other minor leagues, not just the aforementioned 1906 Georgia State League, the Fourth of July was often the make-or-break point. If the league lost a team now, no one could tell how far reaching the effects might be. Even if the season could be completed with a five-team circuit, the fact that South Georgia could not fully support a minor league would be embarrassing for business leaders and civic promoters, potentially affecting business recruitment in the region. Thankfully for all involved, Americus limped along, though it was forced to hold a fund-raising drive to sell subscriptions in order to keep the team in operation through the remainder of the season. 

The Waycross Blowhards represented the most populous city in the circuit, but the highest average attendance in the league couldn’t help a team with the worst batting average. The origin of the “Blowhards” nickname was the result of a fan contest and reflected the major industry in town—railroad-engine construction and repair. Waycross was managed for most of the season by Charlie Wahoo, formerly of the Carlisle Indian School. He was followed in the manager’s seat by Jack Hawkins and then Willie Clark. Infielder Charles Anderson was the standout on the team, batting .301 in 85 games. Outfielder Fenton batted just .259 but was second in the league in home runs, with 7 roundtrippers. Pitcher “Wild Bill” Clark led the team with a 16–9 record, tied for third most wins in the league; no other Waycross pitcher had a winning record. 

The league’s decision to split the season helped to make the races in the second half more competitive, as all the teams stayed within four or five games of each other. But with two weeks to go in the season, Thomasville took off, eventually finishing six and a half games ahead of second-place Valdosta. The team posted an 11-game winning streak from August 12 to 25, which put the top spot out of reach for any other team. The Thomasville Hornets—the nickname was literally picked from a hat—were managed by Martin Dudley, who played the previous few seasons in the Class D Cotton States League and had appeared in the South Atlantic League in 1910. Shortstop Herbert “Dummy” Murphy[fn]Murphy was deaf and received the standard nickname of the time for deaf players. His given name was Herbert Courtland, but he was called “Pat” by friends.[/fn] led the team in batting with a .338 average, followed by second baseman “Piggie” Parker, who batted .321. Murphy also led the league in errors (47 in 73 games). The team featured a strong pitching staff with three moundsmen posting winning records: Vincent Roth (18–8), who also batted .283 and led the league in wins; “Red” Day (16–6); and Larry Cheney (10–6).

Thomasville walked away with the second half of the season, which ended on August 27.[fn]The results shown for the second half of the season do not match those previously published in other sources. This variance is most likely due to several transcription errors in the Atlanta Constitution’s reporting. The Constitution’s final standings for the second half appear to have been directly copied by both Sporting Life and Sporting News. Simple addition demonstrates that the overall team totals for wins (150) and losses (149) do not agree in those results. (You can’t have a win without someone else having a loss, and vice versa.) From these sources, especially the oft-cited Sporting News, the erroneous results have been repeated in later publications. Baseball Reference cites a different set of totals also at variance with the results presented here. The “won/lost” figures shown in the included tables are based on game accounts from multiple contemporary sources. The corrections do not affect the order in which the teams finished for the second half of the season. It is also worth mentioning that one game in the second half was protested and officially dropped from the records by the league (July 9, Thomasville at Americus). The Atlanta Constitution correctly reflected this change.[/fn]

The average attendance for the regular season was about 400 fans per game, and all six teams were close to that average. Waycross led the league, with an average of 431 paid admissions per game, followed by Brunswick (411) and Thomasville (405). Cordele had the lowest average attendance for the season (364), with Americus (380) and Valdosta (394) doing somewhat better. To tell the whole story, however, these figures have to be considered in terms of the total population in each town. Waycross, for example, had the highest total attendance, but, being the largest city in the league, actually drew the smallest proportion of its population to the park on average (2.8 percent). Cordele, about one-third the size of Waycross and with the lowest total attendance, actually did the best in terms of the percentage of its total population attending its games (6 percent), with Thomasville, half the size of Waycross, coming in right behind (5.7 percent).

THE POSTSEASON

The championship series began on Friday, August 29, using a best-of-seven format. It was somehow appropriate that Thomasville and Valdosta were playing for the championship. Four months earlier, these two teams faced each other to open their seasons; they also faced each other on the Fourth of July. Since the two towns involved were so close to one another, the games were scheduled to alternate between the two cities, with Valdosta hosting the opener as winner of the first half of the season. That game attracted 741 fans. Otto Jordan had kept his team sharp, winning seven of nine games in the closing weeks of the regular season. In the first game, Valdosta walked away with a win. Thomasville pitcher Cheney loaded the bases in the first inning, which allowed the Otters to score a run on an error by shortstop Murphy. Thomasville came back in the next inning, scoring two runs to edge ahead. This score held up until the bottom of the fourth, when Valdosta erupted for five runs, assisted by two errors and several walks. Valdosta added two more runs in the fifth; Thomasville started a rally in the seventh but could only get two runs across. Final score: Valdosta 8, Thomasville 4. It was a good start for the Otters, and the series moved to Thomasville. 

The second game of the series was held on Saturday in Thomasville before a crowd of 595. This game would prove to be a bit tighter than the first one, but the outcome was the same. Both teams scored a run in the first inning; Valdosta’s Van Landingham hit the second pitch of the contest over the center-field fence for a home run—the first in the series. By contrast, Thomasville scored its first run on a walk, a sacrifice, and a double. The Otters went ahead in the top of the second, with Van Landingham, on his way to a three-for-five day at the plate, getting the RBI. The Hornets tied the score in the bottom of the third via a double, a bunt, and a single. Valdosta went ahead for good in the fourth inning, scoring a run and then building on this lead with two additional runs in the seventh, including the second home run of the series, this one hit by left fielder Jack Hawkins. Final score: Valdosta 5, Thomasville 2. Valdosta now led the series two games to none. 

There was no baseball the next day since it was a Sunday. However, it was not an off day for the Thomasville team. That day, Hornets shortstop Murphy got married to Miss Ella Sanford of Thomasville. It would make a nice story to report that Murphy, up to now hitting a combined two-for-nine, suddenly came alive at the plate. Or that he settled in and reduced his league-leading error rate. Unfortunately for Murphy, neither was the case. Fortunately for the team, on the other hand, the good spirits of the wedding party carried over to the next game of the series. 

On Monday, September 1, the two teams were back at it. If Thomasville wanted to stay alive, the team needed to start winning. The series had returned to Valdosta, and the largest crowd of the series—1,018 cranks—was present to root for the teams. Special trains from the surrounding towns ran for this game, and it was the Hornets’ turn to shine—although that wasn’t immediately apparent. Valdosta started the scoring off with a run in the bottom of the second inning and increased their lead with a second run in the fifth. But the Otters’ pitching failed them late in the game; Thomasville scored five runs over the final four innings. The Hornets tied the game in the seventh, chasing Vaughn, the starting pitcher. The relief pitcher, Zellars, walked in another run, giving Thomasville the lead, and allowed single runs in the next two innings. On the mound for Thomasville, Cheney, who had a rocky start in Game 1 of the series, came through for the Hornets, allowing just two runs on nine hits. Newlywed Murphy led all players with two errors; perhaps he was tired. Final score: Thomasville 5, Valdosta 2. The Hornets had made a good showing, although Valdosta still led the series, two games to one. 

On Tuesday, the contest returned to Thomasville. The 732 fans who turned out to see the game were treated to a pitching beauty. Vincent Roth went the distance for the Hornets, keeping Valdosta off the scoreboard and surrendering just two singles. He helped his own cause by swatting a home run in the third inning; Thomasville second baseman Murch also hit a home run, his coming in the first. The Hornets scored two runs in the opening frame and three in the third. The Otters, meanwhile, could not solve Roth, who struck out six, walked two, and stranded five on his way to a complete game shutout. Final score: Thomasville 5, Valdosta 0. The series was now tied at two games apiece. 

Game 5 was on Wednesday, September 3, in Valdosta, before a crowd of 742. Valdosta came out swinging, outhitting the Hornets through nine innings but ultimately falling short of victory. This game was a defensive gem, with Thomasville’s “Red” Day facing off against Winges for the Otters. Both men struck out three batters; Winges walked three to Day’s two. Valdosta opened the scoring in the third inning with a run scored off a single, a sacrifice, and another single. The Hornets came back in the sixth inning, scoring two runs on a walk, an error, a single, a sacrifice, and another single. This was the epitome of “small ball” in the Deadball Era. Day made those two runs hold up, going the distance for the victory. Final score: Thomasville 2, Valdosta 1. Thomasville now led the series three games to two—just one win away from a championship. 

Thomasville got that win the next day, September 4, at home in front of a crowd of 789. In his third start of the series, Cheney’s performance on the mound, combined with the defense behind him, cemented victory for the Hornets. Valdosta managed five hits off Cheney but produced no runs. The big bats of the Otters were generally silent; Jordan went one-for-four, as did Van Landingham. Thomasville got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the first, scoring one run on two singles and an error. The Hornets added another run in the second on two singles and a sacrifice and then put the game out of reach in the seventh, with three runs scored off a round-tripper hit by left fielder John Wagnon. It was his first home run of the entire season, and fans responded by collecting $30 in the stands, which they then delivered to the player. Appropriately enough, Hornets manager Martin Dudley caught a popup to end the game and the series. The Thomasville pitching staff had its second complete game shutout of the series. Final score: Thomasville 5, Valdosta 0. 

The City of Thomasville was ecstatic. The Hornets had won the “rag”—the championship banner—in the inaugural season of the Empire State League. People cheered, honked horns, and rang bells. There was also cause for celebration of a financial sort. Each team received $774 from gate receipts; players on the winning team received $266 to divide among themselves, while players on the losing team got $177 to split.[fn]Members of the winning team received about $22 apiece ($462 in today’s dollars); players on the losing team got $15 each ($315 in today’s dollars). Each team received over $16,000 in today’s dollars.[/fn] 

At a banquet on the day after the series win, Manager Dudley had more good news: his own wedding plans. Dudley’s announcement came in the form of a telegram; he was in Valdosta with his betrothed. Present at the banquet was the team’s shortstop, newlywed “Dummy” Murphy, who was now looking north to the major leagues. 

THE LEGACY 

The Empire State League made it to the finish line with all six franchises intact. This outcome was not always assured and was quite an accomplishment for a firstyear circuit. Sporting Life reported that the season “was an artistic and financial success, all of the clubs that entered the race finishing in good condition for another fling at the game next year.”[fn]Sporting Life 62, no. 1 (6 September 1913): 29.[/fn] The men who played in the league had demonstrated day in and day out that the desire to succeed at their craft could carry them through the rough times and muggy afternoons of South Georgia. More than 30 of them went on to play in higher-classification minor leagues; two— “Dummy” Murphy and Dana Fillingim—made it from the Empire State League to the major leagues.

In November 1913, the Empire State League changed its name to the Georgia State League for the upcoming season, a nod to the 1906 circuit.[fn]Two unrelated Georgia State Leagues, which operated in the Middle and Western Georgia regions, fielded teams in 1920–21 and 1948–56.[/fn] The salary limit was raised to $1,200. There was also a change at the top of the league. At the November 11 league meeting in Cordele, I. J. Kalmon of Americus was elected president, replacing Groover, who had retired. Kalmon was not the group’s first choice; J. B. Jemison, the brother of Atlanta Constitution sports editor Dick Jemison, was selected but turned down the offer. In a surprising turn, James Sinclair, the man whose idea had launched the league, returned to the fold, winning election as vice president. All six teams from the 1913 league stayed on as members of the Georgia State League, and 35 players from 1913 (70 percent of the 50 men on the “reserve” lists of the teams) returned for 1914. Seven players were drafted from the Empire State League to play in higher leagues for 1914, most going to Class C clubs. 

The 1914 season was a complete success and finished with Cordele beating Thomasville in four straight games for the championship. By 1915, however, problems began to overtake the league. The major liability of the circuit was the size of its member cities. Operating costs (equipment, travel, and lodging), player salaries, and team profits were all directly related to the number of people each team could attract to its games. Smaller cities had less of a population base to draw from, even though some of these cities were fairly successful at putting people in the seats. Cordele dropped out before play began in 1915 and was replaced by a franchise in Dothan, Alabama. Americus, again struggling financially as it had in 1913, disbanded three weeks into the season; the league filled its spot with a team from Gainesville, Florida. Bowing to the obvious, the circuit was renamed the FLAG (Florida-Alabama-Georgia) League on June 15. But the changes weren’t enough; the league folded on July 17, 1915. A playoff series was attempted but not completed. It would be 20 years before the Empire State League cities were back in professional ball to stay. Still and all, two years of sustained operations had convinced many that professional baseball could work in South Georgia. By proving that Class D baseball could be successful, the Empire State League laid the foundation for later minor-league ball in the region, though events conspired against an immediate continuation of the South Georgia Class D circuit. World War I, an influenza pandemic, the Great Depression, and a second world war, each in their way, delayed the return of the six cities to professional baseball, just as those events delayed the population and business growth of the region. By the end of World War II, five of the six cities once again hosted minor-league teams; in 1951, Brunswick became the last Empire State League city to welcome back minor-league baseball. The dream of professional baseball in the region turned into a nightmare in 1906; it was made a success in 1913. The Empire State League proved that business and sporting interests could come together to field professional teams in South Georgia. 

WILLIAM F. ROSS III is writing a book on professional baseball in South Georgia during the Deadball Era.

Sources

The majority of the information presented in this article is based on contemporary newspaper and other periodical accounts. Primary sources include the Atlanta Constitution, Sporting Life, and The Sporting News. The author also wishes to recognize the assistance provided by Ephraim Rotter, Curator of Collections with the Thomas County Historical Society. The following sources were also consulted:

Websites

• Baseball Reference: www.baseball-reference.com 
• Retrosheet: www.retrosheet.org 
• SABR Minor League Database: www.minors.sabrwebs.com 
• United States Bureau of Economic Analysis: www.bea.gov 
• United States Census Bureau: www.census.gov

Books

• Anderson, Alan. Remembering Americus, Georgia: Essays on Southern Life. Charleston, S.C.: The History Press, 2006. 
• Bell, John. Georgia Class-D Minor League Baseball Encyclopedia: A Statistical History of the Georgia-Alabama, Georgia-Florida, and Georgia State Leagues. Carrollton, Ga.: Vabella Publishing, 2003. 
• Caldwell, Wilber W. The Courthouse and the Depot: The Architecture of Hope in an Age of Despair. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2001. 
• Faber, Charles F., and Richard B. Faber. Spitballers: the Last Legal Hurlers of the Wet One. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2006. 
• James, Bill, and Rob Neyer. The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers: An Historical Compendium of Pitching, Pitchers, and Pitches. New York: Fireside, 2004. 
• Johnson, Lloyd, and Miles Wolff, eds. Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball. 3rd ed. Durham, N.C.: Baseball America, 2007. 
• McQueen, A. S., and Hamp Mizell. History of Okefenokee Swamp. Tallahassee, Fla.: Rose Printing Co., 1992 (reprint). 
• O’Neal, Bill. The Southern League: Baseball in Dixie, 1885–1994. Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 1994. 
• Rogers, William W. Transition to the Twentieth Century: Thomas County, Georgia, 1900–1920. Tallahassee, Fla.: Sentry Press, 2002. 
• Simon, Tom, ed. Deadball Stars of the National League. Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, Inc., 2004. 
• Simpson, John A. “The Greatest Game Ever Played in Dixie”: The Nashville Vols, Their 1908 Season, and the Championship Game. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2007. 
• Sullivan, Neil J. The Minors: The Struggles and the Triumph of Baseball’s Poor Relation from 1876 to the Present. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. 
• Utley, Francis Lee, and Marion R. Hemperley, eds. Placenames of Georgia: Essays of John H. Goff. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1975. 
• Wiggins, Robert Peyton. The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs: The History of an Outlaw Major League, 1914–1915. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2009. 
• Wright, Marshall D. The Southern Association in Baseball, 1885–1961. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2002. 
• The South Atlantic League, 1904–1963: A Year-by-Year Statistical History. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2009.

The Broadview Buffaloes in front of the Broadview, Saskatchewan, CPR Station, 1937. Back row: Buck Eaton, John Isaacson, Chris Edwards, Dick Webb, Gene Bremer, Mack Sinclair. Front row: Lionel Decuir, Red Boguille, Roy Schappert, Kitchie Bates, Ronnie Bates (manager). (Thora Anderson, Broadview)

Broadview is a Saskatchewan town of fewer than 1,000 people, 90 miles east of Regina on the southern Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) line. It’s a seemingly unlikely place to have hosted a powerhouse fully-integrated baseball team during the 1930s, but host such a team it did: the Broadview Buffaloes.

My father, Jack Wyatt, was born in Broadview, as was I. One of my father’s acquaintances, a local resident named Chris Edwards, had played third base for the Buffaloes.1 I was able to interview Edwards, along with a friend of his named Bus Conn,2 who had been a teammate of his on the Buffaloes. Edwards was able to put me in touch with an elderly Regina woman named Edie Maynard,3 who, along with her husband, Frank, had operated a Broadview hotel on the CPR line, and had helped to bankroll the team during the 1930s.

Mrs. Maynard had acted as the team’s treasurer, and still possessed the books from her ownership tenure. One interesting expense item therein was a $1,000 bond that the team had to pay at the international border each year to allow the Black players entry into Canada; the payment was then refundable upon the return of the same players at season’s end.

What was unusual about this arrangement was the number of players being imported en masse to represent a single team. Prior to 1930, there had been many documented cases of imported African American ringers coming to Canada from the US to play, but these were individuals for the most part. Usually, they were pitchers only, as in the case of the legendary lefty John Donaldson, who had thrown for semipro teams in the Saskatchewan centers of Moose Jaw and Radville in 1925.4 A single Black pitcher helping an otherwise White team was a common arrangement.

The Buffaloes were a semipro squad. It was typically the Black imports who were paid, while most of the local amateurs (who were still good ballplayers in their own right) were not. The Western Canada baseball landscape was a competitive one in that era. Every town and city wanted to win, and side bets were very common. Senior baseball in Broadview dates from 1934 and 1935, when the town fielded an all-White team called the Red Sox. Independent of any league, they played the lucrative tournament circuit (or as lucrative as prairie baseball during the Great Depression could be).

By 1936, still as independents, they took aboard a 21-year-old right-handed pitcher, Gene Bremer,5 and his catcher, Lionel Decuir. The two Negro League players, and their Shreveport Acme Giants teammates, had visited Winnipeg in 1935 for an exhibition series against future Hall of Fame pitching great Satchel Paige and his Bismarck Corwin-Churchills, an integrated team from across the border in Bismarck, North Dakota. (The Bismarck team captured the inaugural National Baseball Congress semipro title later that year.)6

Between 1936 and 1938, the Broadview roster featured Bremer, Decuir (who later moved to the Kansas City Monarchs), and others from the Negro Leagues, including pitchers Jimmy Miller and George Alexander, power-hitting Sonny Harris, and the versatile Red Boguille. (According to Edie Maynard’s records, Bremer was paid $45 a month plus housing expenses his first year in Broadview.) The team’s White locals, in addition to Edwards and Conn, included Roy Schappert, Kitchie Bates, Harold Horeak, Mack Sinclair, and Dick Webb. All were decent ballplayers, and well-known in the area.

The Red Sox won three major tournaments in 1936 with their beefed-up lineup. On June 11 they took the Broadview Annual Sports Day Tournament, beating the Moose Jaw Athletics, 5-0.7 On July 1 they won the Moosomin Dominion Day Tournament by defeating Virden, Manitoba, 9-3. (In the semifinal, the Red Sox had defeated Regina Nationals ace Myron Appell, a fireballer who was one of the province’s top pitchers.8 A month earlier, Appell, from Nebraska, had dominated the visiting Houston Black Buffaloes, striking out 14 in seven innings. The loss was the touring Black Buffaloes’ first in 27 games. They fared no better against Appell later in the month, victims of a no-hitter.)9 And on July 22, Broadview took the four-team Yorkton tournament, beating the host team 8-4 behind Jimmy Miller, after Bremer had pitched Broadview to an 8-2 victory over the Northgate (North Dakota) Yankees in the earlier game.10

Finally, on July 31, the Red Sox, with Miller again on the mound, made a real name for themselves by downing the famous House of David, the bearded White barnstormers from Benton Harbor, Michigan, in an exhibition game at Indian Head by a score of 8-5.11

In 1937 the Red Sox changed their name to the Buffaloes and joined the elite Saskatchewan Southern League, with the Weyburn Beavers, Notre Dame Hounds, and Moose Jaw Athletics as competition. Weyburn’s catcher was 19-year-old Elmer Lach, the future hockey Hall of Famer, and the Moose Jaw team featured brothers Doug and Reg Bentley, also of National Hockey League fame.12

The Notre Dame team was a group of students from the religious and educational institution located in Wilcox, Saskatchewan, some 30 miles south of Regina.13 The league’s deliberately light schedule allowed plenty of time for exhibition and tournament play.

The Broadview crew, preseason favorites based on their high-powered attack, did not disappoint, winning the pennant easily with an 8-1 record, their only loss early in the season to the young students of Notre Dame. As well, they captured four tournament titles, in Grenfell, La Fleche, Lemberg, and Regina,14 the last featuring a 17-1 whipping of the local Regina Pilsners.

In this prestigious Regina Exhibition Tournament, a six-day affair, shortstop Horeak and catcher Decuir led the Broadview attack, while Winnipeg natives Buck Eaton and John Isaacson handled the bulk of the pitching duties.15 In another tournament nine days earlier, Broadview had split the prize money with the Northgate Yankees after the two teams had battled to a 7-7 tie in Broadview in a game called because of darkness.

The league opted to skip in-house playoffs after the season, electing instead to compete in the provincials with the northern teams. Broadview, however, was denied any postseason competition when an allegation was made that one of its players had played professionally the year before. This was ironic, in light of the fact that there were professional ringers all over the prairies in any given year. Investigation into a further allegation revealed that the Buffaloes had also been playing against touring American teams without the proper SABA (Saskatchewan Amateur Baseball Association) permits.16

The Saskatchewan Southern League opened its 1938 season with only a single change of membership from the previous season, the Regina Senators replacing the Moose Jaw franchise, which did not reapply for entry. The Senators joined the Weyburn Beavers and Notre Dame Hounds in attempting to dethrone the defending champion and preseason favorite Buffaloes. Hard-hitting Broadview infielder Harold Horeak had moved to the Regina team, while Weyburn still featured 20-year-old Elmer Lach, then primarily an outfielder.17

The schedule had been expanded somewhat from 1937’s deliberately short one, but still featured gaps to accommodate the popular tournament play. When league play finished on July 31, the Buffaloes had won another pennant, finishing 16-5, their closest pursuers the Regina Senators at 9-9.18

By this time, the team was making a name outside Saskatchewan. A July 13, 1938, Winnipeg Free Press article reported, “A baseball classic of note is scheduled for Moosomin ball park … when the cream of western senior ball teams meet in the $300 tournament…. Broadview Buffaloes, with colored players from the Southern States, are a mighty machine that is tops in the Saskatchewan Senior League right now.”19 The Buffaloes didn’t win that tournament, finishing third, but they did win a number of other tournaments and important exhibition games.

In the annual Grenfell Tournament in May, the Buffaloes won a semifinal marathon in 14 innings behind eight shutout innings of relief from hurler Ramie (first name unknown). Lionel Decuir’s home run in the seventh inning tied the game, and his second won it in the 14th. The team missed out on the tourney’s top money, however, falling in the final to the Dunseith (North Dakota) Acme Giants before a crowd of more than 4,000. They rebounded days later with a 2-1 exhibition victory over the strong Northgate Yankees, first baseman Sonny Harris’s final-inning round-tripper providing the winning margin.20

A season’s highlight was another victory in the annual Broadview Sports Day Tournament on June 16, as they thumped the Northgate Yankees 12-4 in the final behind Red Boguille’s eight-hitter. Second baseman Sonny Harris had a double and a triple and scored three runs, while third baseman Don Sherran chipped in a triple and two singles. Broadview had blanked Liberty, 5-0, in the semifinal behind George Alexander’s four-hitter. Eight days later, they won a 16-team tournament in Watson, Saskatchewan, by defeating the hometown team 2-0.

They next claimed first-place money at the Dominion Day tournament in nearby Norquay. That summer, the Buffaloes beat the powerful Grover Cleveland Alexander House of David team twice, as well as the minor-league San Antonio Missions, also twice, and the colored House of David squad.21

The Buffaloes’ superiority over the rest of the league’s teams, however, proved to be the Southern League’s undoing. Before the July 31 end of the regular season, fans had become accustomed to seeing them win, and attendance was falling accordingly. By late July, teams stopped playing their scheduled games, failing to meet their commitments to the league.

The lost gate revenue had its expected effect on each team’s finances. An assessment of the league’s 1938 season suggests that while the league’s caliber of play was high, in fact as high as that of any other league in the province, the member teams seemed more interested in their individual agendas than in a commitment to the overall welfare of the circuit.22

With the bitter taste of the previous year’s postseason still lingering, and expecting similar treatment at the hands of the SABA authorities, Broadview decided to bow out of the 1938 playoff picture and continue on the tournament and exhibition trail into August, before calling it a season. After three impressive years, two of those in the Southern League, the Broadview Buffaloes disbanded. Their run was over.

Several of the White players left to join other prairie teams. Most of the Blacks returned to the Negro Leagues. Lionel Decuir caught for the Kansas City Monarchs23 in 1939 and ’40, where he had Satchel Paige for a teammate. In 1942 Sonny Harris found his way to the Cincinnati Buckeyes, who moved in midseason to Cleveland. His teammate there, Gene Bremer, was the most successful of the Buffaloes imports. Born in 1915 in New Orleans, Bremer was not a big man at 5-feet-8 and 160 pounds,24 but he could throw hard, using no windup and featuring a fastball that may have hit the low 90s. He was an excellent hitter as well: According to Baseball-Reference, his career OPS+ of 112 is the highest of any post-1900 pitcher (for at least 75% of their game appearances) with at least 100 plate appearances.

But tragedy struck Bremer, when he suffered a fractured skull in a car accident in late 1942 that killed two of his Cleveland Buckeyes teammates.25 Taking a year off from baseball in 1943 to recover, Bremer came back and still pitched well. He was a four-time Negro League All-Star,26 appearing in the years 1940, 1942, 1944, and 1945 in the East-West All-Star Game, the Black equivalent to the White major leagues’ All-Star Game. These games were held in Chicago, before crowds as large as 50,000.

Bremer was talented enough to play with and against such megastars in these games as Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, Josh Gibson, Roy Campanella, Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell, Sam Jethroe, Ray Dandridge, and Double Duty Radcliffe. With the Buffaloes, he had already been part of what may have been the first fully-integrated team in Canada in the mid-1930s; he seemed poised to repeat his feat nearly a decade later, when a war-time rumor had Bremer and two teammates, third baseman Parnell Woods and outfielder Sam Jethroe, about to receive tryouts with the American League’s Cleveland Indians. But the traffic accident then killed the tryouts, in addition to his two teammates.27 Had Bremer been signed by the Indians, he might have been a two-time trailblazer, once on each side of the border. Bremer retired as a Buckeye in 1948, and died in 1971 at the age of 54, still a Cleveland resident.28

The Broadview Buffaloes had a short but successful existence, dominating their competition in the southern prairies between 1936 and 1938. Their legacy is that they were one of the first fully integrated baseball teams in Canada, if not the first. The composition of their roster was not only rare for its time, but a harbinger of things to come in its similarity to the makeup of major-league rosters of 25 to 30 years later.

DANIEL WYATT is Canadian, born and raised on the prairies of Saskatchewan. Currently residing outside Toronto, he is the author of 12 books in the historical and historical fiction genres. He’s had articles published in various magazines, including The Hockey News and Baseball Digest, and has been a steady article contributor to TheNationalPastimeMuseum.com online baseball history website.

ANDREW NORTH is a retired developer of statistical software. He is a director of the Centre for Canadian Baseball Research and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal for Canadian Baseball. A SABR member since 1982, he lives in St. Marys, Ontario, where he maintains the research library at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Sources and acknowledgments

My father, Jack Wyatt, and local Broadview residents Chris Edwards, Edie Maynard, Bus Conn, and others were very accommodating to interview requests. A useful biographical reference was Barry Swanton and Jay-Dell Mah’s book Black Baseball Players in Canada. And of immeasurable help was Mah’s outstanding website www.attheplate.com, dedicated primarily to baseball in the Western provinces. Many of his accounts are from local newspaper archives. The site is a treasure trove of information and is recommended unreservedly.

Notes

1 Daniel Wyatt interview with Jack Wyatt, Regina, Saskatchewan, September 1975.

2 Daniel Wyatt interview with Chris Edwards and Bus Conn, Broadview, Saskatchewan, September 1975.

3 Daniel Wyatt interview with Edie Maynard, Regina, Saskatchewan, September 1975.

4 Barry Swanton and Jay-Dell Mah, Black Baseball Players in Canada (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2009), 59.

5 Different sources suggest different spell ings of Bremer’s surname. The Seamheads Negro Leagues data base uses Bremer. Swanton and Mah use Bremmer.

6 Swanton and Mah, 32.

7 Jay-Dell Mah, “Western Canada Baseball” website: http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1936_1k.html.

8 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1936_1k.html.

9 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1936_50i.html.

10 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1936_1k.html.

11 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1936_50i.html.

12 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1937_1j.html.

13 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1937_50i.html.

14 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1937_1k.html.

15 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1937_1k.html.

16 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1937_50i.html.

17 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1938_1j.html.

18 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1938_1.html.

19 Winnipeg Free Press, July 13, 1938: 15. Accessed July 9, 2021 via https://archives.winnipegfreepress.com/winnipeg-free-press/1938-07-13/page-15/.

20 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1938v1k.html.

21 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1938_1k.html.

22 Jay-Dell Mah, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1938_50i.html.

23 Swanton and Mah, 58.

24 Swanton and Mah, 32.

25 Swanton and Mah, 32.

26 Swanton and Mah, 32.

27 Swanton and Mah, 32.

28 Swanton and Mah, 32.

In an iconic moment from A League of Their Own (1992), Manager Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) asks Evelyn Gardner (Bitty Schram), “Are you crying? Are you crying? There’s no crying! There’s no crying in baseball!”

Baseball is not just a game for boys.

This was never more apparent than when A League of Their Own came to movie theaters in 1992.

Granted, the primary purpose of A League of Their Own is to entertain audiences and rake in profits for its makers. But in offering a fictionalized history of the first season of the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League, which Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley initiated after scores of major leaguers exchanged their flannels for khakis during World War II, the film casts a welcome spotlight on the AAGPBL’s then-long forgotten participants.

The two primary characters in A League of Their Own may be fictional ballplaying sisters, but they are very real products of their era. Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis) yearns for her husband’s return from the war and has no sense of the importance of the AAGPBL. Conversely, playing in the league allows Kit Keller (Lori Petty) a freedom for which she yearns but otherwise could not enjoy, given her gender and the prevailing culture. The film’s impact is summed up by film critic Roger Ebert, who observed, “Until seeing [it], I had no idea that an organization named the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League ever flourished in this country, even though I was 12 when it closed up shop [in 1954]….[Director Penny] Marshall shows her women characters in a tug-of-war between new images and old values, and so her movie is about transition—about how it felt as a woman suddenly to have new roles and freedom.”1

Almost two decades after its release, A League of Their Own remains memorable as much for rescuing the AAGPBL from oblivion as for its now-iconic line, spoken by Rockford Peaches skipper Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), an alcoholic ex-major leaguer who is an amalgam of Jimmy Foxx and Hack Wilson. After be- rating player Evelyn Gardner (Bitty Schram)—as any manager might—Dugan is aghast when Evelyn begins to cry. “Are you crying?” he asks, rhetorically. And he continues: “Are you crying? Are you crying? There’s no crying! There’s no crying in baseball!”

A League of Their Own is not the only film that spotlights females swinging bats and fielding grounders. But it easily is the best-known. Coming in a close second is the original (and best) version of The Bad News Bears (1976), in which Amanda Whurlitzer (Tatum O’Neal), a 12-year-old with a whale of a pitching arm, rescues an inept Little League nine. While stressing that the purpose of Little League is to have fun, the scenario emphasizes that a girl can play ball as well as a boy. Almost three decades later, a dumbed-down remake was released. Here, a girl who is the Pedro Martinez of Little League uplifts the Bears, but all the adult female characters are Playboy Playmate-like bimbos or caricatures of humorless, type-A personality 21st-century businesswomen. In the 2005 Bad News Bears, there is even product placement for Hooters.

If A League of Their Own shows how women once played pro ball in a league of their own, the point of Blue Skies Again (1983), a little-seen baseball fairy tale, is that a woman just might be able to compete alongside men. The one desire of Paula Fradkin (Robyn Barto), the film’s heroine, is “to play second base for the [major league Denver] Devils.” While by no means a great film, Blue Skies Again insightfully examines the struggles of women who attempt to upend the male establishment. At Paula’s first tryout, a white ballplayer tells a black counterpart, “I can’t see [team owner Sandy] Mendenhall being the one to integrate baseball.” When the black man glares at him, the white man begins to sputter. “You know what I mean…” he says, and “integrate” soon is replaced by a word not found in any dictionary, “interfeminate.”

An additional feature spotlighting women ballplayers is Girls Can Play (1937), which despite its proactive title is no ode to sexual equality. It is the tale of an ex-racketeer who organizes a girls’ softball team as a front for selling watered-down liquor. Eventually, he fatally poisons his girlfriend, the team’s catcher, because she “knows too much.” The “girls” of the title are cast primarily for their attractiveness, and are passive sex objects and victims. The film is of note only for the presence of young Rita Hayworth, playing the murder victim, who then was serving an apprenticeship as a Columbia Pictures B-film player. 

In Girls Can Play (1937), a young Rita Hayworth serves as catcher for a women’s softball team run by a crook who eventually poisons her with bad liquor.

Various short subjects highlight women baseballers. A typical title is Gracie at the Bat (1937), a comedy whose working title was Slide, Nellie, Slide. “Fireball Gracie,” the featured character, pitches for the Fillies, a girls’ softball team. Gracie has the oddest wind-up, but she literally throws smoke at an opposing batter. Unlike The Mighty Casey, she belts a game-winning homer. But her teammates are a temperamental lot who peruse romance magazines and powder their noses in the dugout. 

Similarly, in Fancy Curves (1932), an entry in the “Play Ball with Babe Ruth” series, the Bambino agrees to coach a sorority squad that has challenged a fraternity to a ballgame. “I’ve often wondered why girls haven’t played more baseball,” the Babe observes, adding, “It’s no more difficult than any other sport they take part in.” Nonetheless, his charges are tired stereotypes. After singling, one of the women produces a pocket mirror and powders her face while on first base. The girls inflict damage on the boys only when the Babe dons a wig, swishes up to home plate, and pinch hits a homer. This denouement also is employed in the animated Casey Bats Again (1953), in which a father organizes his daughters into a girls’ team and dresses in drag to enter the game and drive in the winning run.

Some high-profile on-screen baseball aficionados have been women. Easily the most celebrated is Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) in Bull Durham (1988), who memorably expresses her belief in the “church of baseball.” But Annie’s idea of baseball worship is not only spiritual. She is highly sexed, and readily sleeps with her ballplayers of choice. An altogether different female fan is Aunt Mary (1979), the fact-based account of a Baltimore spinster and die-hard baseball devotee (Jean Stapleton) who coaches a sandlot ball club. The story of Mary Dobkin shows how the unlikeliest of women can do a “man’s job” and function in her own modest way as an activist. Conversely, Gloria Thorpe (Rae Allen), a nosy female sportswriter, is a villain in Damn Yankees (1958). Gloria is determined to unravel the mystery of Joe Hardy, savior of the Washington Senators, and her snoopiness implies that women have no business in the press box.

Across the decades, bats, balls, and women have mixed in non-baseball films. An instant-classic baseball moniker is found in Whip It (2009), the saga of female roller derby players who are known to their fans by nicknames. The lead character (Ellen Page) chooses one that a baseball-lover will embrace: Babe Ruthless!

Then there is Katie O’Hara (Ginger Rogers), the heroine of Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942), an American who finds herself in Paris just before France falls to the Nazis. Upon being asked where she was born, Katie proudly replies, “Parkside Avenue, Brooklyn.”

“Near Ebbets Field?” is the response.

“Foul balls used to light in my backyard,” Katie quips, before sighing, “Dem lovely bums.”

In Woman of the Year (1942), all it takes is an afternoon at Yankee Stadium to transform highfaluting, baseball-ignorant political columnist Tess Harding (Katharine Hepburn) into an ardent rooter.

Marjorie Winfield (Doris Day) wants to play with the boys — for a while, at least — in the 1951 film On Moonlight Bay.

One of the most fascinating portrayals of a distinctly pre-feminist woman ballplayer is found in On Moonlight Bay (1951). Doris Day plays Marjorie Winfield, a tomboy jock. In a game in which her teammates and opponents are boys, she promptly bashes a triple. Then she steals home. But Marjorie’s athleticism is treated as a passing phase of her young life. One look at the handsome boy-next-door (Gordon MacRae) and Marjorie readily exchanges her mud-stained flannels for a frilly dress. Her mother shows her how to enhance her bosom, telling her, “Sometimes nature needs a little help.” As their first date concludes, the lad calls her “the most beautiful and the most feminine girl I’ve ever met.” As they kiss goodnight, Marjorie’s white-gloved left hand pushes aside forever the cap and ball that are resting on the table beside her.

Thankfully, not all pre-feminist women were so easily swayed away from sports. Leave it to Lucy—as in pre-I Love Lucy Lucille Ball—to play a 1940s woman who oozes spunk and swings a mean bat. In The Dark Corner (1946), Lucy is Kathleen Stewart, the newly-hired secretary of a troubled private detective (Mark Stevens). One evening, the pair visits a penny arcade. After swatting at pitches in a batting cage, Kathleen explains her prowess by noting, “My father was a major league umpire.” When her boss makes a pass at her, she quips, “I haven’t worked for you very long, Mr. Galt, but I know when you’re pitching a curve at me—and I always carry a catcher’s mitt.” He defends himself by noting, “No offense. A guy’s gotta try to score, doesn’t he?” She responds, “Not in my league.”

In Hollywood movies across the decades, baseball often has symbolized wholesome, mom’s-apple-pie Americana. This representation radiates from Cass Timberlane (1947), based on a Sinclair Lewis novel, which charts the evolving relationship between the title character, a widowed, middle-aged, small-town Minnesota judge (Spencer Tracy) and Virginia Marshland (Lana Turner), a much younger woman from the proverbial other side of the tracks. Clearly, the judge is respectable. But how do we know that the same can be said for Virginia? Because, early on, we see her immersed in a spirited softball game.

Despite the prevailing post-World War II culture, in which men were expected to rule the family and women to embrace femininity while staying home and baking cookies, an enlightened male still could be supportive of a female athlete. Virginia and Cass eventually marry. As Cass nervously awaits the birth of their child, he and a nurse peer through a hospital window at eight newborns. “You need one more for a baseball team,” Cass declares. “Ah, save that spot in the outfield for young Timberlane, will ya!”

The nurse poses a question: “Supposing the baby’s a little girl?”

“Oh, that’s so much the better,” Cass responds.

“Mrs. Timberlane’s a very fine ballplayer herself.” 

ROB EDELMAN is the author of “Great Baseball Films” and “Baseball on the Web”. His film/television-related books include “Meet the Mertzes”, a double-biography of “I Love Lucy’s” Vivian Vance and fabled baseball fan William Frawley, and “Matthau: A Life” — both co-authored with his wife, Audrey Kupferberg. He is a film commentator on WAMC (Northeast) Public Radio and a contributing editor of “Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide”. His byline has appeared in “Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game”, “Baseball and American Culture: Across the Diamond”, “Total Baseball”, “The Total Baseball Catalog”, “Baseball in the Classroom: Teaching America’s National Pastime”, and “The Political Companion to American Film”. He authored an essay on early baseball films for the DVD “Reel Baseball: Baseball Films from the Silent Era, 1899-1926”, and has been a juror at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s annual film festival. He is a lecturer at the University at Albany, where he teaches courses in film history.

Sources

• Edelman, Rob. “Baseball at the Movies.” culturefront, vol. 8, no 3 & 4 (Fall, 1999): 49–52.
• ———. “Baseball’s Cinematic Presence Mirrors America’s National Spirit.” Memories & Dreams, vol. 25, no. 2 (Spring, 2003): 5–8.
• Wood, Stephen C. and J. David Pincus. Reel Baseball. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, 2002.

Photo credits

National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY.

Notes

1 Roger Ebert. “A League of Their Own.” Chicago Sun-Times, July 1, 1992.

Holyoke was incorporated as a town in the year 1850, and the construction of a dam on the Connecticut began shortly thereafter.5 Immigrant labor from Ireland, Canada, Poland, Germany, and Italy was in no short supply. Holyoke truly thrived as a post-Civil War industrial city, making its mark most notably by producing high-quality paper products. The city’s population would increase from a mere 4,600 in 1885 to over 60,000 people just 35 years later. At one point, there were nearly 30 paper mills in operation, as well as factories that produced woolens, cotton, thread, silk, and industrial machinery.6

However, as was the case with other cities that were established purely on manufacturing during the industrial revolution, times would not always prove to be prosperous. Newer technologies and cheaper foreign labor would soon render many of these once-thriving mills obsolete. The first of the major employers to depart the city was the Farr Alpaca textile mill, which liquidated in 1939.7 Skinner Mill closed its doors in the late 1960s, although, as a slight consolation, the property site was eventually rehabbed and donated to the city to establish the now-popular Heritage State Park.8 Throughout the 1970s, most other major employers followed this lead, departing the city or closing altogether. As factory after factory shuttered — taking with them the employment opportunities that were once plentiful — the fate of a once-mighty industrial center would soon be in jeopardy.

While the closing of the mills was obviously the major factor leading to widespread unemployment in the city (16.7% by April 1975)9 and the concomitant social problems, a number of other factors also contributed. As the mills and the manufacturing jobs they provided became more of a scarcity, Holyoke also experienced a rather sharp increase of individuals entering the city looking for this exact type of employment. Throughout the first half of the 1970s, young servicemen would return home from the Vietnam War to discover that the jobs that had been available at the time of their enlistment were no longer in such supply. The guarantee of work opportunities that their parents’ generation had enjoyed in Holyoke had seemingly disappeared.

The city also experienced yet another tremendous ethnic migration during these years, as a large number of people from Puerto Rico and South America came to Holyoke seeking a better future for themselves and their families.10 Large ethnic migrations were nothing new to Holyoke — however, the employment opportunities that had been in great supply when the European and Canadian immigrants entered the city were no longer available. In fact, these migrants had the unfortunate timing of arriving at the exact period in the city’s history that these manufacturing jobs were disappearing. Couple this with the usual difficulties that face non-white migrants upon entering the United States — including barriers of language and culture, as well as hostility from those already residing here — and a great many tensions would prove to be inevitable.11

This is the backdrop that the Holyoke Millers of the Class AA Eastern League began playing ball in during the 1977 season. Elected officials believed that a minor-league baseball team in the city would lead to an increase in tourism revenue for Holyoke (it was estimated by multiple sources that a AA-level team would lead to an additional $250,000 for a community in 1977).12 Eastern League President Pat McKernan simply told city officials that if they could raise sufficient funds to complete necessary renovations to the municipally owned MacKenzie Field, he would deliver a franchise to Holyoke.13 A range of $65,000–108,000 was given to complete multiple tasks, including refurbishing locker-room facilities, construction of a concession stand, and the possible resodding of the field, while removing a cinder running track that cut through the outfield grass.14 As the city was in a bit of a down-and-out period, elected officials appeared willing to take a chance on something that could potentially reverse civic fortunes.

The city was able to muster the minimum $65,000 necessary to attract an Eastern League franchise. the Berkshire Brewers, a franchise that had been based in Pittsfield, Massachusetts 1965–1976, were convinced to depart the cozy confines of Wahconah Park for the “Paper City” of Holyoke. League president McKernan held true to his promise to deliver a team to Holyoke, aided no doubt by his connections that still existed with the Berkshire team. (He had formerly been the franchise’s president, a colorful tenure that included his wedding at home plate between games of a doubleheader, as well as an “attendance hunger strike,” a promotion where he would fast on each home game day if the team drew fewer than 500 fans — no small feat, considering he weighed in at more than 350 pounds.)15 Baseball fans were treated to an early holiday present, as city aldermen passed their final vote by a tally of 11–4 on December 21, 1976, to transfer the necessary funds to the Parks Department to bring minor-league baseball to Holyoke.16 The new franchise would be named the Holyoke Millers — a tribute to the industrial past upon which the city was founded.

As the city prepared itself for its first-ever season of AA baseball, it also found itself embroiled in a national headline-making controversy. On a nearly nightly basis, suspicious fires ripped through old tenements and factory buildings, leaving residents completely on edge. As the cause of these blazes was going undiscovered, law enforcement officials dispatched a Special Arson Squad to investigate all fires within Holyoke, to assess if any were of criminal nature.

The Special Arson Squad would make its first arrest on April 13, 1977 — the day the Millers played their first-ever game — a 15–2 exhibition victory against the neighboring University of Massachusetts in Amherst.17 Right fielder and leadoff hitter Gary LaRocque blasted the second pitch of the game 335 feet down the right field line for a home run, and with that, the Holyoke Millers were born.18

Two days later, the Millers began their 1977 Eastern League regular season in Pennsylvania on a Friday night against the Reading Phillies. This would be the first of a nine-game road trip to commence the season — a scheduling abnormality that was by design, intended to give the Holyoke Parks Department sufficient time to complete the necessary renovations that MacKenzie Field needed to host professional baseball.

Meanwhile, back in Pittsfield (the city that had previously been the franchise’s home), General Electric (the region’s major employer) announced the layoff of 225 employees.19 While Holyoke and Pittsfield were facing many of the same struggles at that time, there was seemingly no shortage of irony that these two events were occurring on the same day. Pittsfield’s sad loss — for one day, anyhow — was contrasted with Holyoke’s gain.

The starting lineup for the first-ever Holyoke Millers game was:

1. Gary LaRocque, RF
2. Billy Severns, CF
3. Ike Blessitt, DH
4. Gary Holle, 1B
5. Jeff Yurak, LF
6. Neil Rasmussen, 3B
7. Ron Jacobs, C
8. Ed Romero, SS
9. Garry Pyka, 2B
   Ron Wrona, P

Four hundred seventy fans (Reading officials had been hoping for 1,500–2,000) saw the young Millers build a 4–0 lead behind Wrona (one of the Millers’ most experienced pitchers, despite being in only his second year of pro ball) through five innings. However, the Phillies awakened with seven runs in the sixth inning, three of which were unearned. They would ultimately drop all four games in Reading, on their way to a 2–7 road trip to begin the season. Holding leads seemed to be particularly troublesome for the new team, as they would blow multiple 4–0 leads against Reading, as well as a 6–0 advantage at Jersey City. Holyoke’s bullpen would begin the season by dropping their first 11 decisions before a reliever would garner a single win.

The Millers were scheduled to make their home debut at Mackenzie Field on Sunday, April 24, 1977 — an afternoon contest against the Waterbury Giants. Competition for fans on that day would be fierce, as the game would be directly competing with a live performance by the locally popular polka ensemble, the Larry Chesky Orchestra, who were performing that afternoon at Mountain Park (a mid-sized Holyoke amusement park that was a popular destination from the late 1800s until its closing in 1987). In some ways, the rain that would postpone the game was a blessing of sorts, as a poor attendance showing at a home debut opener as a result of a polka concert might not exactly inspire.

Rather, the Millers took to the field at MacKenzie the following evening before a raucous 2428 fans — who were treated to a back-and-forth affair that saw the home side overcome a 5–0 deficit, before falling, 7–5.20 Future longtime major leaguer George Frazier would take the loss in relief. Designated hitter Ike Blessitt would provide the fireworks, bringing the Holyoke faithful to their feet, turning on a shoulder-high offering and blasting it 375 feet down the left field line for a game-tying two-run homer in the seventh.21

Blessitt proved to be the Miller that would bring the fans the most consistent excitement, leading the Eastern League in runs batted in for 1977, and winning the fan vote as the Most Popular Miller.22 His was an interesting story; while most members of the team were young prospects on the way up (Frazier and Romero both enjoyed lengthy major-league careers, while Jurak, Holle, Greg Eradyi, Doug Clarey, and Mark Bomback would all reach the show, if only for brief stints), Blessitt had already seen his career reach its pinnacle.

“The Blessitt One,” as he was known to the MacKenzie faithful, had already experienced a brief call-up to the Detroit Tigers at the end of the 1972 season, going hitless in five at bats over four games. Blessitt was well known throughout Michigan, having been a high school four-sport legend growing up just outside of Detroit. However, he was reassigned to the Tigers’ AAA affiliate during spring training of the following season, and was unfortunately involved in an off-field incident with manager Billy Martin in Lakeland, Florida, leading to the arrest of both men.23 According to Martin, he was trying to prevent Blessitt from getting into a late-night altercation with another man in a cocktail lounge, taking the young outfielder out to the parking lot to calm him down. The Lakeland police arrived on the scene shortly thereafter, made racial slurs to Blessitt as they arrested him, while also apprehending Martin, who claimed to be an innocent bystander.24

Given Martin’s well-documented history with numerous incidents of late-night barroom brawling (he was famously fired as manager of the New York Yankees for allegedly sucker-punching a marshmallow salesman in a bar at the end of the 1979 season25), the notion of him acting as a virtuous peacekeeper seems fictitious. Nonetheless, Blessitt would never reach the major leagues again following this evening in Lakeland.26

Blessitt’s blasts would be a lone early bright spot as the inexperienced Millers stumbled badly out of the gate, winning only three of the first 18 games of their existence.27 While victories were rare, the fan promotions you would expect at a minor-league ballpark certainly were not. The Millers held a “Guaranteed Win Day” (where fans would be admitted free of charge to the following day’s game if the Millers were unable to prevail),28 a “Mustache Night” (where 25-year-old general manager Tom Kayser promised to have his mustache shaved off if attendance surpassed 1500 for the game),29 while hosting appearances by Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, as well as Max Patkin, a.k.a. “the Clown Prince of Baseball.” A “Beer Night” promotion was also considered, but never came to fruition.30

Nonetheless, something was clearly working — the Millers boasted the second-highest attendance figures in the Eastern League, drawing 61,171 fans for the season. They would rally to a respectable final record of 73–66, but would never realistically challenge the first-place West Haven Yankees, finishing 13½ games out of first.31 The team went their separate ways after the season and, with minor league salaries being typically low, many would go to work for the winter months. First baseman Gary Holle returned to his home in Watervliet, New York, to work as a legislative aide for a state senator, while doubling as the color commentator for Siena College’s basketball broadcasts. Outfielder Jeff Yurak would continue his education at California State University at Pomona, majoring in marketing. Pitcher Mark Bomback would return to his home in Fall River to work as a salesperson at a local clothing store.32

Perhaps the biggest accomplishment of the new team was the mere fact that Holyoke now had a POULIN: Miracle on Beech Street galvanizing institution to bring it together, even as the arson-related problems kept the community on constant edge. By the end of May alone, the city had endured 17 multiple alarm fires that year.33 In spite of all the efforts of the Special Arson Squad, the perpetrators of the majority of these blazes would never be determined. While New York City would ultimately gain some relief from their civic nightmare when David Berkowitz was arrested that August — ending the citywide fear of the Son of Sam murders — Holyoke experienced no such reassurance.

The Millers would open their 1978 season on the road at West Haven, dropping the first three games of the campaign to the Yankees. The home opener at MacKenzie on April 16 featured a ceremonial first pitch by Mayor Ernest Proulx, an offering that bounced multiple times before reaching the plate.

Based on the performance of the pitching staff during the year, Mayor Proulx could potentially have earned a spot in the rotation, as they posted the worst earned-run average in the Eastern League. In spite of the return of several fan favorites from the prior season (including the reigning EL home run champion Holle, along with Rasmussen, Yurak, and Bomback), the Millers greatly struggled to draw at the gate in 1978. An unusually cold and windy spring — even by Massachusetts standards — contributed to the reduced attendance, but the team’s performance on the diamond certainly didn’t help.

Rick Nicholson earned the first win of the season for the Holyoke nine on April 17 before 372 fans. Nicholson had been the top reliever in the New York-Penn League the previous season with the Newark Co-Pilots, posting a 5–2 record with 12 saves. This success was not replicated in Holyoke, as he compiled an ERA of 7.03 over 16 games.34

This would not be the lowest attendance figure of the season, as a May 2 contest against the Waterbury Giants would draw only 207 fans. Even the “Mustache Night” promotion couldn’t entice fans to the ballpark, as the same event that drew nearly 2000 fans in 1977 would only draw 372 in the new year.35

In all, the honeymoon period between Holyoke and the Millers was apparently over. They drew 13,000 fewer fans than the previous season, as the team stumbled to a fifth-place record of 61–76. The MacKenzie faithful were able to enjoy a fine campaign from future major league outfielder Marshall Edwards, as well as a career year from Eastern League MVP Yurak, and a franchise-record 60 stolen bases by second baseman Steven Greene. As management had identified the 45,000 mark as being the “break-even” point for attendance, the team managed to just scrape by in 1978.36

If the cliché about Rome not being built in a day is true, the 1979 Millers are certainly a prime example. The team improved its win total by a mere two games, while drawing 50,207 fans for the season — a modest improvement at best from the year before. This attendance number was surely aided by a mid-season appearance by the Famous Chicken — drawing 6,300 spectators (capacity at MacKenzie was listed at 4,100).37 However, the groundwork was seemingly laid for bigger things in the future, as Harry Dalton had taken over as general manager of the parent Milwaukee Brewers, an executive with a keen eye for recognizing young talent. Almost immediately, more major-leaguecaliber prospects would don the Millers colors.

While four members of the pitching staff — Barry Cort, Sam Hinds, Larry Landreth, and Lance Rautzhan — would ultimately reach the big leagues, the most notable new member of the Holyoke nine would be twenty-year-old switch-hitting outfielder Kevin Bass. Bass would enjoy a fourteen-year major league career, highlighted by appearances in the postseason and All-Star Game in 1986 for Houston. His tremendous 1986 season would end unfortunately, however, as he struck out with two men on base in the 16th inning of Game Six of the National League Championship Series to end the game, sending the New York Mets to the World Series. As a young Miller, however, Bass enjoyed a respectable 1979. While his .263 batting average with eight home runs would be just the tip of the iceberg of his potential as a ballplayer, his Sammy Davis Jr. impersonation was already at a major-league level.38

Another item of note about the 1979 Millers was that they may have set an unofficial record for number of born-again Christians on one pro baseball team.39 Of the 21-man roster, 11 players identified as having recently found the Lord. Catcher Bill Foley told The Sporting News, “I’ve never before seen this many on one team! I felt a void in my life that needed to be filled”. Millers players filled this particular void with chapel services every Sunday and regular Bible readings throughout the season.40

The Millers faced some additional stiff competition for the local entertainment dollar throughout the second half of their season. After eight years of planning and negotiations, a million-square-foot shopping mall would open on July 5, 1979, in the Whiting Farms Road area of the city on the outskirts of town.41 At the time of its opening, the promise of increased job opportunities and an expanded tax base seemed to be trumpeting a new era of prosperity for the city.42 An unfortunate drawback of this new construction, however, would be the increased difficulty to attract business to downtown, as so many potential customers would instead opt for the convenience of one-stop shopping at the mall. Between the lack of businesses occupying downtown buildings, the ongoing arson fears, and an increase in crime as a direct result of unemployment, the center of the city became a very unpopular destination.

Meanwhile, back on the ballfield, the 1979 season proved to be a dress rehearsal of sorts for much bigger things to come as the 1980s commenced. But in many ways, the biggest shift for the Millers would not occur on the field at all, as young general manager Tom Kayser made headlines when he purchased the team from Spike Herzig and the Northeastern Exhibition Company at age 27.43 The sale was announced a mere 24 hours before the Millers would open their 1980 season at MacKenzie against Reading. While an exact sale price was never announced, league officials stated it was less than the $45,000 an average Eastern League team was valued at in 1980. Sources say the sale price was closer to $30,000, as there was fear that another owner would buy the team and move it out of Holyoke. Kayser was seemingly given a bit of a hometown discount, as he was committed to ensuring that the team would stay put.44

The 1980 squad was, in a word, loaded. In addition to Bass and future big-league catcher Steve Lake, they possessed a pitching staff that featured MLB mainstays Doug Jones, Frank DiPino, and Chuck Porter. Rick Kranitz led the team with 13 wins, while closer Kunikazu Ogawa saved 16 games with an earned run average of 1.96.45

The featured attraction at MacKenzie that summer, however, was David Green — a prospect who had been dubbed “the next Roberto Clemente.”46 Green was the son of Edward Green Sinclair, considered one of the best Nicaraguan players of all time. The younger Green was a five-tool prospect, leading the Eastern League in triples with 19 while batting .291 and earning a spot on the Eastern League All-Star Team.47

Manager Lee Sigman’s squad ran away with the Northern Division, finishing with a record of 78–61, a full ten games ahead of their closest competitors. They rolled into the playoffs against the Buffalo Bisons, with Green blasting the winning home run off Dave Dravecky in the clinching game to put Holyoke into the Eastern League Finals against the Waterbury Reds.48

In the finals, the Millers dropped the opener by a count of 3–2, but bounced back in Game Two behind a combined six-hit shutout by Kranitz and Ogawa to even the series.49 In the winner-take-all Game Three, Doug Loman homered, tripled, and doubled while Chuck Porter threw a complete-game shutout as the Millers defeated the Reds, 7–0, to claim the 1980 Eastern League Championship before 2,717 fans.50 It was a glorious night in Holyoke, as children danced on top of the Millers dugout to “We Are Family,” the Sister Sledge classic that had become the unofficial anthem of the Pittsburgh Pirates during the previous summer. It would be the first professional baseball title for a Western Massachusetts team since the Springfield Giants won the Eastern League for three consecutive seasons 1959–61. The Giants of those championship years featured a number of future legends, including Manny Mota, Matty Alou, and Juan Marichal.51

The 1980 season of the Millers would prove to be the franchise’s high-water mark. On December 12, 1980, the parent Brewers pulled off a blockbuster trade with the St. Louis Cardinals, trading David Green along with Sixto Lezcano, Lary Sorenson, and Dave LaPoint in return for future Hall of Famers Rollie Fingers and Ted Simmons, along with future ace (and Major League actor) Pete Vukovich.52 Milwaukee also moved on from their affiliation with Holyoke, establishing their AA team in El Paso. The Brewers organization wanted out of the Eastern League — as the cold northeastern weather, sub-par ballparks around the league at the time, and the cinder track that ran through the outfield at MacKenzie Field were all factors leading to their departure.53 The California Angels would fill the void left by Milwaukee — and although the new-look Millers would feature a number of future major leaguers, this would not translate to on-field success in 1981 or 1982.

In 1981, Holyoke rode the coattails of their championship season at the turnstiles, as they drew an all-time franchise high of 80,117. While the team got off to a strong start, they would end up faltering down the stretch, finishing a whopping 16½ games behind the first place Glens Falls White Sox.54

Speed was the name of the game for the Millers in ‘81, as future Angels mainstay Gary Pettis’s 55 stolen bases would pace a team that would swipe a total of 151. Darrell Miller wore his last name on both the front and back of his jersey, splitting time between catcher and outfield — long before his two siblings Reggie and Cheryl would both be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame just down the road in Springfield. Dennis Rasmussen posted a record of 8–12, while showing flashes of potential he would later fulfill in the majors — all while living in what he believed was an illegal trailer park at the foot of Mount Tom.55

The biggest news around the Millers in 1981 would occur in early November, when team owner Tom Kayser announced he was offered a position as the Assistant Minor League Director for the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, and would be selling the team.56 It ended up being a wise career move for Kayser, who would ultimately spend 25 years as the president of the Texas League, retiring in 2017.

A Holyoke-based group of executives led by City Alderman Hal Haberman were the early favorites to purchase the team, with an Eastern Massachusettsbased group also solidly jockeying for position.57 In total, more than 30 potential bidders from as far away as Florida and California made inquiries about buying the team, before a different local group made a deal to purchase the Millers to keep them in Holyoke.

University of Massachusetts Political Science Professor Jerome Mileur recalled “having a few beers at the White Eagle Club” in Amherst with fellow UMass employee George Como (a systems analyst in the computer center) when they floated out the idea of purchasing the team from Kayser.58 They recruited local heating oil businessman Ben Surner, and ultimately put in a bid of $85,000 to buy the Millers. The deal was announced on December 1, 1981.59

Unfortunately, the new ownership team stumbled early out of the blocks. The ownership group’s first hire was general manager Larry Simmons, who would not make it to opening day before being fired.60 the Eastern League establishment was cautious of the new ownership group, with longtime owner Joe Buzas directly asking Mileur at the Winter Meetings, “Why the hell would a college professor want to own a baseball team?” Mileur simply responded that he was a great fan of the game and had best of intentions.61

The team itself also struggled, as the Angels prospects failed to make an impact with the local fans, with attendance plummeting to just over 54,000. Oddly, the highlight of the season was not one that was readily apparent, as young author Domenic Stansberry had moved to Holyoke and was writing a murder mystery based on the Millers and Holyoke called The Spoiler. While Stansberry has had a moderately successful career in the interim, The Spoiler has remained out of print for many years, an apt analogy for the fate of the Millers.62

However, the biggest challenge the group would face was their rocky relationship with city officials. MacKenzie Field also doubled as the home baseball diamond for two of the high schools in the city, and there was increasing pressure from members of the community to ensure that their municipal field would be utilized by residents. Ultimately, it was decided that the Millers would not have access to the field for practice during the school year, as the teams from Holyoke High School and Holyoke Catholic High would be given priority. Additionally, the cinder running track that ran through the outfield would also be utilized by the track teams at these schools before the Millers.63

Public meetings between Millers owner Surner and Holyoke Mayor Ernest Proulx would become increasingly more contentious, and the team and city reached an impasse that could not be overcome.64 The Millers would move to Nashua, New Hampshire and participate in the 1983 Eastern League season as the Nashua Angels.65

Coincidentally, one of the factors the ownership group faced in Nashua was a boycott from the community, who felt that the presence of the team was having a negative impact on attendance at youth baseball games. After four years in Nashua, Mileur had bought out both Surner and Como and the team was moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where the franchise has had a long and successful tenure. Mileur would ultimately retire from ownership in 1994, selling the team to the City of Harrisburg for four million dollars.66

While the Nashua Angels returned to play a single game at MacKenzie Field during the summer of 1983, it would be the end of professional baseball in Holyoke. Currently, the Valley Blue Sox of the New England Collegiate Baseball League play their home games at MacKenzie every summer. It seems hard to believe that Holyoke — given its lack of professional-level facilities — was able to be home to a AA team, even if only for six years. Clearly, the economics and atmosphere around minor league baseball have shifted so radically over the years that such a scenario would be impossible today — and it was honestly quite miraculous that it was able to happen then. 

ERIC T. POULIN is an Assistant Professor of Library and Information Science at Simmons University, where he directs their Western Massachusetts-based campus. He first joined SABR in 2002 after completing a Steele Internship at the A. Bartlett Giamatti Center for Research at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. This is his first contribution to the Baseball Research Journal.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the late Jerome Mileur for his insight, along with Ben and Jay Demerath III for making invaluable connections. Eileen Crosby and the staff at the Holyoke History Room were incredibly gracious with their time, as well as the great Tim Wiles and the A. Bartlett Giamatti Center for Research at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Tom Kayser was very generous with his insight and information. Maury Abrams and Pumpkin Waffles provided tremendous support and perspective. Above all, eternal gratitude goes to Gabriela Stevenson for her editing, fact-checking, and overall determination to ensure the story of the Millers would be told.

Notes

  1. Ella Merkel DiCarlo, Holyoke — Chicopee: A Perspective, Holyoke, MA: Transcript-Telegram, 1982.

  2. Merkel DiCarlo.

  3. Merkel DiCarlo.

  4. Merkel DiCarlo.

  5. Merkel DiCarlo.

  6. Merkel DiCarlo.

  7. Merkel DiCarlo.

  8. Merkel DiCarlo.

  9. Merkel DiCarlo.

10. Merkel DiCarlo.

11. Merkel DiCarlo.

12. Bill Doyle, “Eastern League President Favors Holyoke for Franchise,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, December 3, 1976.

13. “City Needs Money For EL Team,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, October 15, 1976.

14. “City Needs Money For EL Team.”

15. Milton Richman, “Gate-Slim Pittsfield Boss On Hunger Strike,” The Sporting News, July 10, 1971, 43.

16. “Aldermen Welcome Franchise,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, December 22, 1976.

17. Michael J. Burke, “Special Arson Squad Makes First Arrest,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, April 13, 1977.

18. “Miller Hitters Maul Minutemen Hurlers,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, April 14, 1977.

19. “G.E. Eliminating 225 Jobs,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, April 13, 1977.

20. Bill Doyle, “Millers’ Debut Is a Success,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, April 26, 1977.

21. Doyle.

22. “Blessitt Is Most Popular,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, September 6, 1977.

23. Milton Richman, “Blessed Are the Peacemakers? Ask Martin,” The Sporting News, March 29, 1973.

24. Richman, “Blessed Are the Peacemakers…”

25. Phil Pepe, “Yanks Wheel, Deal, and Squeal,” The Sporting News, September 19, 1979.

26. Lee Thompson. “Former Detroit Tigers Outfielder Ike Blessitt Bringing His Big-League Story to Bay City for Bay Medical Charity Auction,” Mlive, April 28, 2011, accessed August 31, 2021. https://www.mlive.com/sports/baycity/2011/04/former_detroit_tigers_outfield.html.

27. “Nothing Is Working for Failing Millers,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, May 4, 1977.

28. “‘Guaranteed Win Day’ Starts Millers’ Promotions,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, May 6, 1977.

29. Bill Doyle, “Millers ‘Shave’ Bristol Sox, 8–7,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, May 18, 1977.

30. “‘Guaranteed Win Day’ Starts Millers’ Promotions.”

31. Bill Doyle, “Millers Clinch Third Place,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, September 3, 1977.

32. Bill Doyle, “Miller Players Are Ready to Bid Holyoke Farewell,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, September 2, 1977.

33. Michael Burke, “Fire Destroys Main St. Block,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, May 28, 1977.

34. Bill Zajic, “Hannon ‘Curves’ Giants,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, May 3, 1978.

35. Bill Doyle, “Millers Pitching Collapses in Loss,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, May 8, 1978.

36. The Baseball Cube, accessed August 31, 2021. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/minors/teams/stats.asp?Y=1978&T=10573.

37. Ray Fitzgerald, “His Vision on Target,” Boston Globe, July 7, 1981.

38. Mike Downey, “Would Fans Respond to ‘Bark Like a Dog’?” The Sporting News, October 27, 1986.

39. “Religious Millers,” The Sporting News, August 11, 1979, 44.

40. “Religious Millers.”

41. Pat Cahill, “Holyoke Mall Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary,” Sunday Republican. July 16, 1989.

42. Cahill.

43. Garry Brown, “Want To Buy a Ball Club?” Sunday Republican. May 11, 1980.

44. Brown.

45. The Baseball Cube, accessed August 31, 2021. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/minors/teams/stats.asp?Y=1980&T=10573.

46. John Sonderegger, “Potential: The One Thing a Gimed David Green Couldn’t Grasp,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 14, 1986.

47. Bill Doyle, “Holyoke Proves Itself,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, September 6, 1980.

48. Warner Hessler, “Millers End Bisons’ Year,” Buffalo Courier-Express, September 1, 1980.

49. Bill Doyle, “Millers Force Showdown,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, September 3, 1980.

50. Mike Bogen, “Millers Cop EL Crown,” The Morning Union, September 6, 1980.

51. Garry Brown, “Springfield Marks 50 Years without a Professional Baseball Team; Is It Time to Take Another Swing?” MassLive, March 22, 2015, accessed August 31, 2021. https://www.masslive.com/living/2015/03/garry_brown_springfield_marks_50_years_without_a_professional_baseball_team.html.

52. Sonderegger.

53. “It’s Spring Again,” Hampden County Enterprise, April 13, 1981.

54. The Baseball Cube, accessed August 31, 2021. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/minors/teams/stats.asp?Y=1981&T=10573.

55. Owen Canfield, “Remembering the Eastern League,” The Sporting News, May 9, 1985.

56. Barry Schatz, “Millers owner bows out; local businessmen want to buy team franchise,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, November 5, 1981.

57. Schatz.

58. Author interview with Jerome Mileur, October 19, 2006.

59. Barry Schatz, “Millers’ Deal to Keep Team in Holyoke,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, December 2, 1981.

60. Don Conkey, “The Holyoke Millers: Sharp Decline in Attendance Just One of Many Problems Confronting New Management,” The Sunday Republican, May 23, 1982.

61. Author interview with Jerome Mileur, October 19, 2006.

62. Domenic Stansberry, The Spoiler: A Novel, New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987.

63. Barry Schatz, “Field Availability Is Snag between City, Millers,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, October 14, 1982.

64. “Proulx Says Millers Should Be More Flexible,” Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, October 22, 1982.

65. Milton Cole, “Nashua Votes to Take Millers,” Daily Hampshire Gazette, December 7, 1982.

66. Author interview with Jerome Mileur, October 19, 2006.

Powell saw the births of division playoffs and the designated hitter during his 1961–77 career, which ended with a .266 batting average and .462 slugging average. But for popular-culture buffs, Powell has the distinction of being a key part of a storyline in a first-season episode of Cheers.2 It involves a retelling of an Orioles-Red Sox doubleheader in 1972. But could events really have happened the way they’re explained in the dialogue?

Cheers aired on NBC from 1982 to 1993, focusing on the goings-on at a Boston bar owned by fictional former Red Sox relief pitcher Sam “Mayday” Malone. It used the famed Bull & Finch Pub for exterior shots. Adored by women in his “little black book” and idolized by men for his romantic exploits, Sam is a minor celebrity and a reformed alcoholic who suffers a relapse or two throughout the show’s run. Later in the series, he’s revealed to be a sex addict.

Sam’s career with the 1970s Red Sox occasionally becomes a topic of conversation in early episodes for the bar’s regular characters: wisecracking waitress Carla Tortelli, know-it-all postman Cliff Clavin, beer-guzzling accountant Norm Peterson, former pitching coach and good-natured but slightly unintelligent Ernie Pantusso, and high-brow waitress Diane Chambers. In the episode “Sam at Eleven” Sam recounts a memorable day in 1972, when he saved both games of a doubleheader against the Orioles on seven pitches.

Boston was five games out of first with eight to play. They couldn’t afford to lose a game. Malone retired Powell on a 5-3 grounder with two men on base and a one-run lead to end the first game. He faced the iconic slugger again in the bottom of the ninth with Don Buford on first base. Though the scene ends before a full recounting, it’s implied that Powell was not successful against “Mayday.”3

Indeed, a Baltimore-Boston doubleheader took place toward the end of the 1972 schedule. The Red Sox had 15 games left and a predicament more dire than the one Sam described—at the time, Boston was 76-64, Detroit was 77-66, and Baltimore was 77-66. After that, the resemblance to the fictional account quickly fades.

Neither game required a Red Sox reliever—Marty Pattin and Luis Tiant each pitched a complete game. Pattin was a formidable hurler in 1972, compiling a 17-13 record with 13 complete games and four shutouts.

In the first game, Powell left in the seventh inning; Terry Crowley moved from right field to take over first base. Unlike Sam’s tale, there was no significant danger for the Red Sox—they won the game 9-1. Veteran shortstop Luis Aparicio had 1 RBI and scored two runs, and rookie Dwight Evans went 2-for-4 with two RBIs; Carlton Fisk went 3-for-4 with three RBIs; and Pattin tossed a five-hitter. Boston escalated the pounding in the fourth inning, when they tagged Jim Palmer—a 21-10 pitcher in ’72—for two runs and extended the lead to 4-1.

Roric Harrison replaced Palmer and let in five runs (two charged to Palmer); Bob Reynolds came into the inning with one out and ended the destruction when Pattin grounded into an infield double play.4

In the second game, Tiant pitched a four-hit shutout and struck out seven Orioles in the 4-0 win. It was an emblem of an outstanding season—Tiant led the major leagues with a 1.91 ERA. The Sox were scoreless until the fifth inning, when Doug Griffin singled, Tiant advanced him with a sacrifice bunt, and Tommy Harper singled him home. Boston added two more runs in the seventh inning and another in the eighth. Four runs tallied on five hits.

Powell struck out to lead off the ninth. It was his last at bat of the doubleheader.5

Despite batting .252 in 1972, Powell was an apt selection for Malone’s story: four-time All-Star, 1970 American League MVP, runner-up for 1969 AL MVP, and hitter of 21 home runs in 1972. He began his pro career with the Orioles’ Appalachian League team in Bluefield in 1959, playing in 56 games and batting .351. The O’s moved him to the Triple-I League in 1960, where his batting average was .312 for the Fox City Foxes.

In 1961, he thrashed International League pitching with the Rochester Red Wings and a .321 batting average. The Orioles elevated the slugger to Baltimore, where he played four games that year. From 1962 onward, he was a charm for Chesapeake Bay, until departing for the Indians in 1975–76. He ended his career in the National League with the Dodgers in 1977.

The AL East had a tight pennant race at the end of 1972. In early September, Powell reflected that the Orioles should have been ahead. “But look, I’m not hitting what I should, Donny Buford is only hitting .210, and Dave Johnson is batting only .224,” said Powell. “With the great pitching we are getting, if we were hitting like we should, we’d be out in front like always. That’s the only difference from last year.”6

Powell bashed a three-run homer in the Orioles’ 3-1 win against the Yankees on September 15. Complemented by “a vital relief lift from Grant Jackson and the defensive heroics of Bobby Grich,” the first-inning blast gave legendary hurler Jim Palmer his third straight 20-win season.7 Yankees pitcher Mel Stottlemyre walked Don Buford and Rich Coggins to begin the game, then got Grich out before the cleanup hitter and future food impresario tagged him for a 425-foot home run. Powell was on a streak—it was his third round tripper in four games.

Ultimately, the Tigers won the AL East pennant, beating the Red Sox by half a game and the Orioles by five games. And these days, Boog greets his regulars at Boog’s BBQ and cracks out the occasional story about his playing days, no fictionalizing needed.

DAVID KRELL is the editor of the anthologies “The New York Mets in Popular Culture” and The New York Yankees in Popular Culture.” He’s also the author of “Our Bums: The Brooklyn Dodgers in History, Memory and Popular Culture.” David’s contributions to SABR’s Baseball Biography Project include Johnny Podres, Bucky Dent, Joe Pepitone, Kurt Russell, and Harry Sinclair. David is the chair of SABR’s Elysian Fields Chapter (Northern New Jersey).

Notes

1 Mike Klingaman, “Fans still wait to rub elbows with former slugger Boog Powell at his BBQ stand,” The Baltimore Sun, https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bs-sp-boog-20170329-story.html, April 3, 2017 (accessed February 24, 2020).

2 Cheers, “Sam at Eleven,” Paramount Television, NBC, directed by James Burrows, written by Glen Charles & Les Charles, October 21, 1982.

3 “Sam at Eleven.”

4 Boston Red Sox 9, Baltimore Orioles 1, Setpember 20, 1972, https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B09201BOS1972.htm (accessed February 24, 2020).

5 Boston Red Sox 4, Baltimore Orioles 0, September 20, 1972, https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B09202BOS1972.htm (accessed February 24, 2020).

6 Phil Fuhrer, “Orioles Calm Despite Clustered Field,” The Sun-Telegram (San Bernardino, CA), September 4, 1972: 20.

7 Lou Hatter, “Orioles shade Yankees,” The Sun (Baltimore), September 16, 1972: 21.

A crowd heads toward Braves Field. The ticket and administration building (shown at left) still stands and today serves as the headquarters for the Boston University police. Note the trolley tracks in the foreground, indicating the path of transit vehicles exiting from within the ballpark itself. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

The best stories should always be told last. That is why, in the waning days of a year marking Fenway Park’s centennial, some time should be reserved for another, more complicated stadium saga.

The beginnings of this tale have a familiar quality to them.

In the midst of the Deadball Era, a jewel box ballpark rose a few miles west of the center of Boston’s downtown, accessible by excellent streetcar service.1,2 The park was universally acclaimed upon its opening. Serendipitously, it hosted a World Series in its inaugural year.

This is not, however, another Fenway tribute, but rather a testament to Fenway’s younger but ultimately somewhat shabbier sibling, Braves Field.3 The birth and subsequent demise of Braves Field serves as a “pivot point” in ballpark history, one that distinguishes two very different approaches to how baseball parks should be built and how they should relate to their host city and its citizens.

Braves Field, the last of the jewel box ballparks, resulted largely from the genius of one man, built by him within a matter of five months. When the park opened in 1915, it featured an unprecedented effort to integrate the workhorse of the urban transportation system, the streetcar, into the infrastructure of the facility. When Braves Field was abruptly abandoned in 1953, it didn’t just take a village to replace it; it took an entire county. Milwaukee County Stadium was a publicly financed stadium, located on the site of an abandoned gravel pit that took three years to construct. County Stadium was divorced from the urban fabric and reflected the increasing dominance of the automobile in American life.4

Simply put, this one change changed everything.

The Rogue Visionary

More than anything else, Braves Field represented the triumph of James E. Gaffney, his vision of baseball as it should be played, and his appreciation for the fans, or cranks, who flocked to see it.

Who was James Gaffney? That was the central question posed by Braves chronicler Harold Kaese in his landmark history of the franchise, first penned in 1948. Gaffney came to the franchise from New York cloaked in the intrigue, allegations, and influence of the Tammany Hall political machine.

Kaese’s portrait of Gaffney can only be characterized as somewhat charitable. Gaffney was a self-made man who rose from street cop to alderman. From there he wound his way into the lucrative construction trade through a variety of corporate vehicles, most notably the construction company of Bradley, Gaffney, and Steers. As the right hand man of Tammany chief Charles F. Murphy, he had ready access to cash and connections. Amongst his closest friends numbered the “Old Fox” Clark Griffith. Indeed, rumors abounded that Gaffney had, on behalf of Murphy, supplied the funding for Griffith’s 1911 purchase of an interest in the Washington franchise. Gaffney also reportedly sniffed around the possible purchase of two American League franchises before setting upon the course of acquiring the Boston Nationals.5

That transaction was realized through a short-lived collaboration with John Montgomery Ward, a New York lawyer and former pitcher for the Providence Grays. Ward had also been an organizer of both the player-centric Brotherhood and the short-lived Player’s League.6 A third New Yorker, John Carroll, collaborated on the purchase of the franchise in December 1911, with Ward serving as the baseball man, Gaffney as the business man, and Carroll as the bridge-building “go between.”7 Boss Murphy was again alleged to have partnered with Gaffney, sharing profits and losses as they had supposedly done in the transaction with Griffith and in the operations of Gaffney’s construction business.8

What are we to make of the string of allegations surrounding Gaffney, some 100 years after the fact? Here is what the record indicates: Boss Murphy insisted in 1913 to newly elected New York governor William Sulzer that if any change was going to be made in the office of state highway commissioner, Gaffney should get the job. When Sulzer demurred, Murphy delivered the message that it was “Gaffney or War.”9 Sulzer then became the first and only governor of the state of New York to be impeached. Gaffney had been accused in one case of taking a $30,000 payoff, and in another matter had apparently benefited from the expiration of the statute of limitations.10 In one famous incident, a grand jury witness testified that he was “morally certain” that Gaffney had acted as a bagman for Murphy by seeking a five percent share of a construction contract.11 The same witness, however, could not testify that he was “legally certain” as to Gaffney’s identity.12

In retrospect, the New York Herald sounds understated in its assessment that “[a]s a power under cover, [Gaffney’s] position has been unprecedented.”13 It did not take long for the “power under cover” in the Boston franchise to emerge. Gaffney and Ward clashed almost immediately. Notwithstanding Gaffney’s “genial disposition, unaffected ways and his loyalty to friends,”14 by August of 1912, Ward had resigned as president of the Braves. (The team had been renamed in tribute to the symbol of Tammany supremacy.) Gaffney, originally the treasurer, although always the principal shareholder, became president.

Even before this coup, Gaffney had been the man out front. Immediately upon purchasing the team, he had been quoted as pledging $100,000 to make the team an on-field success. The franchise itself had been a bargain. In 1912, a half-interest in the Red Sox sold for $150,000, a mere $37,000 less than a full stake in the Boston Nationals.15

After Ward’s departure, Gaffney decried the inadequacy of the Walpole Street Grounds in Boston’s South End and sought to replace the site. He quickly turned to the alternative approach of improving and expanding the tired facility, increasing the park’s capacity as well as removing the principal distortion in its dimensions, a left-field fence within 275 feet of home plate.16 It would now take a 350-foot wallop to clear left field.

A body in motion tends to remain in motion, and when Gaffney’s Tammany-based expectation of immediate success met with frustration on the field, rumors began to crop up as early as June of 1912 that he might be looking to sell his interest in the team.17 By the early months of his third season in ownership, Gaffney was nearing the limits of his frustration. Disgusted, he remarked to his manager, George Stallings, in early 1914: “Do anything you want with them. Take them away. Drown them if you want to—I never want to look at them again.”18 On July 4 of that season, Gaffney’s Braves were languishing in last place.

And then the impossible happened.

The World’s Greatest Ballpark

The Braves’ World Series sweep of Connie Mack’s men may not have been the only miracle of 1914. During the Braves’ late summer surge, the whirling turnstiles of the Walpole Street Grounds had transformed James E. Gaffney from disgruntled Tammany owner into arguably the most ambitious baseball visionary of the decade.

The original model of Braves Field envisioned the roof extending over both the left-field pavilion (shown) and the right-field pavilion. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

The Braves have left town, the left-field pavilion has already been demolished, and baseball’s perfect ballpark is playing host to football. The initial vast outfield expanse of Braves Field is clearly illustrated by the large gap between the football bleachers and the light towers which had been located within the walled perimeter of the original park. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

Instead of using shovels, Judge Roy Hofheinz and other officials fire six-shooters at the ceremonial ground-breaking. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE HOUSTON ASTROS)

“Houston Astrodome or Bust”
—Tagline for Bad News Bears in Breaking Training

A highlight of the Astrodome was its 474-foot-long scoreboard, complete with a “seemingly endless repertoire of animated light pictures, story-board cartoons, or often simple one-word commands.” Here, the Astros congratulate Nolan Ryan on his 5th no-hitter in 1981.

Houston Astros manager Art Howe, left, presents catcher Craig Biggio with his 1989 Silver Slugger award at the Astrodome.

ERIC ROBINSON, a graduate of the University of North Texas, currently works in elementary education in Austin. He focuses his research on pre-MLB baseball history, Texas baseball history, and Central Texas blackball history, on which he has presented to local schools. Eric recently discovered his grandmother had a neighbor who played for the 1933 Brooklyn Dodgers. His website is www.lyndonbaseballjohnson.com.

Babe Ruth meets Yale baseball player George H.W. Bush in 1948. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

George Herbert Walker Bush began the first year of his term as the 41st President of the United States of America on January 20, 1989. Then, just seventy-three days later (on April 3, 1989), he carried out one of the most esteemed traditions for the Chief Executive—throwing the ceremonial first pitch on Major League Baseball’s Opening Day.¹ However, unlike his Oval-Office predecessors—dating to April 14, 1910, when President William Howard Taft became the first President to initiate a brand new major league season by throwing out the ball from a front-row seat in the stands—George H.W. Bush became the very first President to perform that venerable deed by actually hurling the ball from the pitcher’s mound.² That day at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, prior to the 1989 season opener between the Orioles and Red Sox, Mr. Bush used his own baseball glove. The first baseman’s mitt—a Rawlings George McQuinn model “Trapper” (also referred to as “The Claw”)—was the very mitt he used while playing on the varsity baseball teams of Yale University in the late 1940s—including the 1947 team that took part in the very first College Baseball World Series, played between the University of California (Berkeley) Golden Bears and the Yale Bulldogs.

Because of the prominence Bush achieved in the history of the United States (and the world), his life is notable—including his collegiate baseball record at Yale. This article presents an in-depth look at his college baseball career, including: (1) a review of Bush’s diamond performances in each of the three years he played for the Elis, including the box score lines for each of the games in which he participated, (2) details for some specific games in which Bush’s performance had significant impact, and (3) brief synopses of related topics such as Bush’s Bulldog teammates who pursued professional careers in baseball.³

BACKGROUND

Yale University was founded in 1701 as the “Collegiate School” in Saybrook, Connecticut, before moving to New Haven in 1716 and being renamed Yale College in 1718 (in recognition of a substantial gift from Elihu Yale). The institution has had an enduring and distinguished association with the sport of baseball. Yale began playing intercollegiate baseball in the 1860s. Series with archrivals Princeton and Harvard commenced in 1868. A number of major league players were Yale men, including Hall of Fame outfielder James Henry “Orator Jim” O’Rourke (Yale Law School 1887, NL 1876–93, 1904) and Craig Breslow (Yale 2002, B.A. molecular biophysics/biochemistry, MLB 2005–17).

George Bush entered Yale University in November 1945, shortly after his honorable discharge (on September 18) from active duty with the United States Naval Reserve (USNR) as a lieutenant, junior grade. He had enlisted in the Navy on June 12, 1942 (his eighteenth birthday), just a few days after his high school graduation from Phillips Academy (better known simply as Andover, the Massachusetts city in which it is located). At Andover he had been the president of his senior class, secretary of the student council, and captain of both the varsity baseball and soccer teams.^4,5 Bush had already been accepted for enrollment at Yale while a senior at Andover, but decided to join the military because of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Bush reported for active duty on August 5, 1942, at the Navy Pre-Flight Training School at the Horace Williams Airport on the Chapel Hill campus of the University of North Carolina. (Other notable people who trained at Horace Williams included Gerald Ford, Ted Williams, Paul “Bear” Bryant, Doc Blanchard, and Otto Graham.) On June 9, 1943, Bush was commissioned as an ensign in the USNR; he was the youngest aviator in the Navy at that time. At the conclusion of his active military service Bush had flown 58 combat missions for which he received the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals, and the Presidential Unit Citation.

Bush commenced his college studies in the Fall of 1945. In addition to his time in the classroom (in an accelerated program that allowed him to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics in just two and a half years) Bush also played on Yale’s 1945 varsity soccer team (captained by Francis Brice), which achieved an undefeated record (8–0–2) to win the New England Intercollegiate Soccer League championship. His first collegiate baseball season came in the spring of 1946.

RESEARCH PROCEDURE

In order to compile the complete record of George H.W. Bush’s Yale baseball career, I obtained batting and fielding statistics for each of the games he played for Yale from 1946 through 1948 by scrutinizing the box scores and game accounts. Yale played 17 collegiate baseball games in 1946, 28 games in 1947, and 31 games in 1948. The following newspapers were examined to obtain the requisite information from the box scores and text descriptions of the games: Yale Daily News, New Haven Evening Register, New Haven Register, New Haven Journal-Courier, The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, Washington Post.

RESULTS

1946

Red Rolfe was the coach of the varsity baseball team when Bush arrived. Rolfe had been at the helm since 1943, having taken over from Smoky Joe Wood, who had guided the Eli-nine since 1924. However, after the completion of Yale’s 1945–46 basketball season, Rolfe—who was also the varsity hoops coach—left to return to the pros, joining the New York Yankees as their third base coach and right-hand man to manager Joe McCarthy. Before becoming an Eli, Rolfe, a Dartmouth University alumnus, had guarded the hot corner for the Bronx Bombers (1934–42). So, when the 1946 baseball season commenced, Bush and his teammates had a brand new coach—Ethan Allen, an alumnus of the University of Cincinnati, who had achieved a lifetime .300 batting average during a 13-year major league career (1926–38) as an outfielder (primarily center and left) with six teams (Reds, Giants, Cardinals, Phillies, Cubs, and Browns).

For Yale’s 1946 baseball campaign, 74 candidates turned out for the first practice sessions in early March; twenty-five of the candidates had worn Eli varsity or freshman uniforms in previous years.⁶ The top men for first base were a trio of discharged service officers—Bill Howe, Vinny Lynch, and George Bush, who had played first base during his high school years at Andover and went by the nickname “Poppy” at Yale.⁷ Six other men were also vying for the initial sack—Joseph Bower, Kleber Campbell, Russell Candee, Donald Prior, Hugh Sinclair, and Clinton Vose. After a week, the number of candidates had been pared down to 34, including five for first base—Howe, Lynch, Bush, Vose, and Sinclair.⁸

Following another two and a half weeks of practice, the tentative starting lineups had been decided by Coach Allen, with Bush and Howe the final two in contention for first-string first-sacker.9 On April 12, the starting lineup for Yale’s April-15 season opener versus the University of Connecticut was announced by Coach Allen and Bush had won the job:¹⁰

• Mike Stimola (second base)
• Frank “Junie” O’Brien (third base)
• Art “Peewee” Moher (shortstop)
• Harry Reese (left field)
• Bolt Elwell (catcher)
• Bob James (center field)
• Bob Rosensweig (right field)
• George “Poppy” Bush (first base)
• Frank Quinn (pitcher)

One last-minute change was necessitated because Rosensweig went on the sick list; his place was taken by Bob Simpson.

As Yale’s 1946 season proceeded, a total of twenty players, including four pitchers, saw action for the Bulldogs, who played a total of 17 official collegiate games. Table 1 presents the batting records of Yale’s principal players, those who participated in at least eight of Yale’s 17 games. Appendix A (available on the SABR website) provides the game scores and the game-by-game batting and fielding lines achieved by Bush (who typically batted seventh or eighth). Yale also had one unofficial “exhibition” game (not included in Table 1 or Appendix A).¹¹

Table 1. Batting Records of Principal Players on Yale’s 1946 Baseball Team 

Let’s also take a close look at a few games, focusing on Bush’s performance. His first time in the batter’s box came in Yale’s first game of the season, versus Connecticut (on April 15). In the bottom of the second inning, with the game scoreless and a runner on second base with two outs, the right-handed batting Bush, wearing number 2, “drilled a single into the hole between short and third” to drive home the initial run of the campaign.¹² In his next three plate appearances he collected another single and reached first with a base on balls. The walk started a seventh-inning rally which contributed to the 4–3 Yale victory. After getting the free pass, Bush moved to second on a sacrifice and then—with some daring baserunning—he advanced to third on a ground ball single to short. He subsequently scored the game-tying run.

In the field, Bush handled 16 chances—15 putouts and one assist—without an error. He participated in a crucial double play to thwart a bases-loaded threat in the fifth. So, the former World War II pilot had an auspicious start to his college baseball career.

Bush’s offensive performance topped that of his UConn counterpart at first base—who went 0-for-4—cleanup batter Walt Dropo, who would win the American League “Rookie of the Year” Award in 1950 and go on to a 13-year major league career. According to the New Haven Evening Register, “Dropo was, however, the defensive star for the U-Conns.”¹³

In the next game, another home contest, Bush was again the starting first baseman. He got one hit (a single) in three at bats as the Elis routed Brown University, 17–3. With the game well in hand, Coach Ethan Allen decided to take a look at his bench. Among the substitutes he used was Hugh Sinclair, who played the last few innings at first base—his only appearance in the 1946 campaign. Bush was the exclusive first sacker for the remainder of the season.¹⁴

Another 1946 highlight was the rematch with the Cadets of Army played at West Point, where Bush emerged as the hero. In the top of the seventh inning he drove in the sixth Bulldog run with a sharp single (his second hit of the day) to break the tie and give the Blue a 6–5 advantage—the final score—maintaining Yale’s perfect collegiate record.

Bush was not an offensive leader on the 1946 team. Of the twelve players listed in Table 1, Bush ranked ninth in batting average. All but one of Poppy’s hits were singles; his only extra base hit was a double in the game against Dartmouth on April 27. As the season progressed, Bush’s batting average dipped below .200. Going 4-for-11 in the final three games of the year (against bitter perennial foes Princeton and Harvard), Bush upped his batting average from below the Mendoza line to .212 (11-for-52). Even though his batting record was far from pace-setting, his fielding performance was exemplary. Bush committed only two errors in 143 total chances—including 137 putouts and 4 assists—giving him a .986 fielding average. For comparison, the composite fielding average for first basemen among Yale’s opponents was just .970. Thus, the overall performance of George Bush on the baseball diamond in the first year of his collegiate career would probably be rated as “good field, poor hit.”

Other items worth mentioning from Bush’s first collegiate season include the following:

• Bush had one stolen base—in the game against Harvard on June 24.
• Bush started at first base in all 17 of Yale’s collegiate games. He was one of only four players to play in all 17 games.
• The Elis won the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League Championship with a record of 7–1. The other teams in the loop were Pennsylvania University (5–3), Columbia (5–4), Cornell (5–4), Princeton (3–7), and Harvard (2–8). The Bulldogs swept the “Big Three” title with two triumphs over Harvard and two wins against Princeton. Overall, Yale’s varsity baseball team turned in a sterling 14–3 won-lost collegiate record.

1947

During the Fall 1946 semester, Yale again competed in soccer. Bush was among those from the undefeated 1945 season due to return to the team captained by Paul Laurent. However, Bush had come down with malaria and was unable to participate in any of the nine games (in which the Bulldogs compiled a 3–3–3 ledger). Fortunately, Poppy had fully recovered in time for the 1947 baseball season.

Coach Allen utilized a total of 22 players in 1947, eight of them returnees from 1946. Frank “Junie” O’Brien was elected team captain. The Elis compiled a 16–7–1 record overall. Within the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League their W–L–T record was 9–3–0, topping Columbia (7–5–0), Harvard (7-5-0), Princeton (7–5–0), Pennsylvania (6–6–0), Dartmouth (3–9–0), and Cornell (3–9–0) and garnering the Bulldogs the championship for the second consecutive year and an invitation to the NCAA Tournament. Yale won its first two NCAA Tournament games against Clemson and New York, becoming the Eastern Region champions and gaining the right to play in the first College World Series, facing the University of California (Berkeley) —winners of the Western Region. The Golden Bears defeated the Bulldogs, two games to none, to earn the College Baseball World Championship. Thus, overall, Yale compiled an 18–9–1 won-lost-tied record for the 1947 campaign. Table 2 presents a listing of the eleven Bulldog players who saw diamond action on a regular basis during the 1947 season. Appendix B presents the line scores for the batting and fielding performances on a game-by-game basis accomplished by Bush, who again batted in the seventh or eighth slots in the batting lineup. Yale also played two exhibition games (not included in Table 2 or Appendix B).¹⁵

Table 2. Batting Records of Principal Players on Yale’s 1947 Baseball Team.

NOTES: (1) An asterisk after the player’s name indicates that he was also a member on the 1946 Yale baseball team. (2) Complete RBI information was not available for the 5-24-1947 game with Pennsylvania, which Yale won by a 14–4 score.

In the 1947 season opener, on March 29 in Charlottesville, Virginia, Bush was again the starting first baseman for the Yale Bulldogs. He batted seventh and in four plate appearances he reached base safely three times—a single, a base on balls, and a hit by pitch. He scored the fifth Eli run, which turned out to be the eventual winning run as the Blue defeated the Cavaliers, 6–4. Bush also handled a dozen fielding chances without an error. So, once again Bush started off the season with a pretty good performance. He continued with a 2-for-4 showing in the next game, a loss to the University of Richmond Spiders, 8–7.

After this solid start, Bush endured a rather lengthy period of difficulty in the batter’s box. During the next six games he went 0-for-18, his batting average plummeting to .125. Offensively, Poppy’s best game of the season was probably the May 24 encounter with Pennsylvania in which he had three hits (all singles) and scored three runs in a 14–4 rout. As in the previous season, his batting average was mired below .200 going into the final three games of the year—against Princeton (two games) and Harvard (one game). He went 4-for-10 to boost his average to .221 as the Elis captured two of those critically important games to emerge as the EIBL champions for the second straight year with a 9–3 record. Princeton and Harvard tied for second place at 7–5.

In the NCAA Eastern Regional Playoffs, Bush went 1-for-4 in each of the two games of the tournament as Yale defeated Clemson University, 7–3, and New York University, 6-4. In the NCAA finals—the very first College World Series (held in Kalamazoo, Michigan)—Bush went hitless in seven trips to the plate as the University of California (Berkeley) won each of the first two games in the best-of-three series. Thus, George Bush turned in a “nothing-to-brag-about” overall .208 collegiate batting average for the 1947 diamond season—21 hits in 101 official at bats.

There were three games in particular wherein Bush’s performances had significant impact. On April 30, in the battle with Army at West Point, he was presented with a golden opportunity. The Elis were trailing the Cadets, 4–3, with two outs in the top of the ninth inning. The Bulldogs had managed to get a couple of runners on base, but Poppy fanned to end the game. Bush and two other Blue infielders had committed three errors in Army’s fourth inning which contributed to all of the Cadets’ runs.

In the very next game, a rematch against Army, Bush again encountered considerable misfortune. He committed two fielding errors (on one play) which contributed to three third-inning runs. Fortunately, the Elis staged a two-run rally to tie the score. But the rally came to an end when Bush stepped into the batter’s box and made the final out of the frame. After three more innings of scoreless baseball, a torrential downpour precluded further action, resulting in a 3–3 tie.

After his struggles against Army, Bush rose to the occasion in the NCAA Regional Championship game against NYU. With Yale trailing 4–1 in the seventh, Bush ignited a rally by leading off with a single and then scoring the first of five runs. The rally catapulted the Elis into the lead and the come-from-behind victory earned them the trip to that first College World Series.

Additional nuggets about Bush’s second baseball season at Yale include the following:

• As shown in Table 2, Poppy’s overall batting average ranked seventh among the eleven Elis who played regularly. He had three extra-base hits, all doubles.
• Bush tied for third in runs scored with 16. He also demonstrated reasonably good stealth on the base paths by swiping a half dozen bases (third on the team behind the 11 and 7 thefts achieved by Gordy Davis and Art Moher, respectively).
• Bush turned in a respectable fielding record in 1947—260 putouts, 12 assists, and 8 errors—which gave him a fielding average of .971, eighteen points higher than the composite fielding average (.953) of the first basemen of Eli opponents. The Associated Press account of the NCAA Finals praised Bush’s fielding prowess, reporting that “first sacker George (Poppy) Bush is a fielding artist.”¹⁶
• Bush was the only Eli player to participate in all 28 of Yale’s games and started in every one. In fact, Poppy played every inning of every game. Thus, following the example of the “major league player that as a kid he looked up to the most—Lou Gehrig, the Yankees’ Hall of Fame first baseman,” George Bush built up his own Iron Man credentials.¹⁷

1948

The Yale varsity baseball team of 1948, again coached by Ethan Allen, was composed of a dozen returning lettermen, and a total of 22 players would don the Eli uniform. Bush, again wearing uniform number 2, was again the starting first baseman. Prior to the start of the season, Poppy’s teammates elected him to be their captain.

Table 3 presents the batting performances of the thirteen Eli players who played on a regular basis in the 31 official college games of the 1948 season (including six post-season tournament contests). Appendix C provides the line scores for the batting and fielding performances on a game-by-game basis achieved by George Bush.

Table 3. Batting Records of Principal Players on Yale’s 1948 Baseball Team

NOTE: An asterisk after the player’s name indicates that he was also a member on the 1946 and/or 1947 Yale baseball team.

Yale began its defense of the NCAA Eastern Regional crown with an early spring trip to the South where they were scheduled to play six games in eight days. After rain prevented the playing of the first game (against Richmond), the Elis opened the 1948 season against the University of North Carolina. George Bush went 0-for-3 as the Bulldogs and the Tarheels played to a 7–7 draw. However, the Yale captain was on target in the next game, a 9–6 victory over North Carolina State University (at Raleigh) on April 3:

“BUSH’S 3 HITS PACE BLUE IN FIRST TOUR WIN” read the headline in the April 4 edition of the New Haven Register. From the article: “George Bush, husky first baseman, contributed a single, double, and triple to the winner’s attack.” The box score showed Bush scored two runs and batted in three more, and that he had one stolen base.¹⁸ That batting performance was the most impressive in his collegiate career. In his autobiography, Looking Forward, Mr. Bush recalled that after that game, “some scouts approached him as he left the field; however, that was the first and last nibble he ever got from the pros.”¹⁹

After getting a single in three at bats in the following game (a 2–0 loss to Wake Forest), Bush hit a four-game slump, going 0-for-11. He rebounded with a robust showing in a 7–0 vanquishment of the University of Connecticut on April 20; he smashed a double and a two-run homer over the left field wall at Yale Field. That home run—the only one in Bush’s career—came off Hy Chapin, a former minor league pitcher with both Easton (1939) and Federalsburg (1941) in the Class D Eastern Shore League.

As the 1948 season progressed, Yale won enough games to gain an invitation to the NCAA Eastern Regional Tournament in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (along with the University of Illinois, North Carolina, and Lafayette). During the “regular” season the Elis had compiled a 17–7–1 record. Within the EIBL, the Bulldogs went 6–3–0, placing them third in the final standings.20 In the Eastern Regionals, the Bulldogs advanced to the NCAA College World Series by defeating North Carolina in the opening round (6–1) and sweeping Lafayette twice in the second round (11–2 and 4–3). But the Elis were not able to continue their winning ways in the NCAA Finals in Kalamazoo, losing the three-game series to the Trojans of the University of Southern California, two games to one by scores of 3–1, 8–3, and 9–2.

The 1948 season was a good campaign for George Bush. He compiled a batting average of .245 (27-for-110), a 37 point improvement over his 1947 average. As shown in Table 3, he again ranked seventh among the batting averages assembled by the 13 players regularly used by Coach Ethan Allen.

Some other noteworthy items for Bush during the 1948 baseball season:

• Poppy hit with more power in his final season than he had in his previous two campaigns. He rapped out nine doubles, one triple, and one homer, for a .373 slugging average. One of Poppy’s doubles came in the game against Princeton on June 5. Prior to that game captain Bush met Babe Ruth at home plate. The Bambino presented the final manuscript of The Babe Ruth Story (co-written by George Herman himself and journalist Bob Considine) to Yale University. Ruth addressed the crowd (estimated to be between five and six thousand) saying, “I’ve been to New Haven many, many times over the years, but this is one of the best times.”²¹ Bush later recalled his meeting with the world’s all-time most famous baseball player, stating, “Meeting Babe Ruth on Yale Field was a thrill that stays with me till this day. He was cancer-riddled. His voice was more of a croak than a normal voice, but he radiated greatness and I was privileged to have been asked to go out to home plate with him to receive his papers that he donated to Yale.”²² Teammate Jim Duffus also recalled the Ruth-Bush meeting: “Yet after the ceremony at home plate, Bush insisted the Babe come over to the Yale dugout to meet each player personally. He was real hoarse, but he went up and down the bench whispering, ‘Hiya, kid.’ I’ll never forget that Poppy let us all share the glory.”²³
• Bush finished third in runs scored and fourth in runs batted in among his Eli teammates. With regard to hitting near the bottom of the batting order, Bush once joked, “I was kind of the second cleanup.”²⁴
• In the fielding department, Poppy made but two (inconsequential) errors in a total of 270 fielding chances—including 248 putouts and 20 assists—for a glowing .993 fielding average. The composite fielding average of the first sackers on Yale’s 1948 opponents was just .973.
• For the third consecutive year George Bush started all 31 games in the season and with the exception of the last few innings of the game against Duke on April 6, Bush played every inning of every game in 1948. A particularly strong demonstration of his iron man character is shown by the games against Boston College and Amherst on April 22 and 24, respectively. The column headline in the April 24 edition of the Yale Daily News reads, “Bush Doubtful Starter Due To Spike Wound.” As Stan Feur wrote, “There is a question mark in the Yale ranks as to whether Captain George Poppy Bush will be ready to go in today’s fray. The classy fielding first baseman, who has been hammering out some hefty blows of late, has a painful wound received against Boston College.”²⁵ Bush played every inning in each of those games.²⁶

A pair of 1948 games merit mention since one of baseball’s rarest events took place in each of them:

In the April 24 contest against Amherst, Bush took part in a nifty triple play. With the game scoreless in the bottom of the fourth, the Lord Jeffs put runners on first and second with nobody out. The next batter smashed a line drive over second. The Eli shortstop, Art Moher, snared the shot and stepped on the keystone (to get the first two outs) and then fired to first. However, “the hurried peg was high and wide.” But, Bush—spike wound and all—managed to catch the errant heave and tag the runner as he overslid the bag for the final out of the rally-squelching triple play.²⁷

In the opening game of the NCAA Finals, Yale carried a 1–0 lead into the top of the ninth inning. But the USC Trojans rallied for three runs to take the lead. In the Eli half of the frame, the Bulldogs managed to get their first three batters on to load the bases with nobody out. Most unfortunately (from the Yale perspective), the next batter hit into a game-ending triple play. Had such a cataclysmic ending not occurred, the opportunity to produce a dramatic triumph would have passed to the next batter—Captain George Poppy Bush. One can only imagine how differently things might have transpired.

DISCUSSION

A. The Statistical Collegiate Baseball Record of George H.W. Bush

With accurate game-by-game statistics in hand for each of the collegiate games played by George “Poppy” Bush during his three years on Yale’s varsity baseball team, one can readily and reliably determine his statistics for each of his seasons and for his entire career. Table 4 presents the complete season-by-season collegiate batting and fielding stats assembled by the 41st President of the United States.

Table 4: The Complete Batting and Fielding Record of George H.W. Bush at Yale (1946-48)—This Work

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In 76 games, Bush assembled a career fielding average of .983, a lifetime batting average of .224 (59-for-263) with one home run—in sync with the “good-field-no-hit” description given to Poppy by his coach Ethan Allen.²⁸ How do my numbers for Bush’s collegiate baseball career compare with the information presented for him elsewhere over the years? The short answer is, “Not well.”

In 1990, the Topps (Chewing Gum) Company produced a baseball card specifically for President George Bush, honoring his unique achievement of being the only US president to play in the College World Series.²⁹ The card, which has the exact-same front and back designs as the regular-issue 1990 Topps baseball card set, shows the (supposedly) “Complete Collegiate Batting Record—Yale University” for George Bush, as presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1

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As can be seen, no statistics for Bush’s 1946 season are included on the Topps card, and there are numerous differences between my numbers shown in Table 4 and the numbers for Bush’s 1947 and 1948 statistics. See Appendix D (available on SABR.org) for color images of the front and back of the 1990 Topps baseball card of George Bush.

In 1991, an article in the premiere issue of USA Today Baseball Weekly incorrectly stated that Bush was on the Yale baseball team for two years (not three) and compiled a career batting average of .251 (44-for-175) with two homers in 51 games.³⁰ The statistics given in the USA Today Baseball Weekly article are identical to those shown on the 1990 Topps baseball card (Figure 1). More recently, in conjunction with Yale’s preparations to celebrate the sesquicentennial season of Eli baseball in 2015, Yale University issued a press release focused on Bush’s Bulldog diamond career.³¹ The January 2015 press release incorrectly stated the following:

Bush had a strong three-year career with the Bulldogs, playing only part of the 1946 season in addition to the two historic seasons to follow. Bush was as good a fielder as any on the team, fashioning .976 and .992 fielding percentages in 1947 and 1948. His career batting average was .215 with a season-high .245 in 1948 (statistics may be incomplete). In 1948, Bush also hit one home run, one triple, seven doubles, knocked in 16 runs and scored 17 himself. In 1947, Bush hit .208 with one double, six RBI, and five stolen bases in 29 games played.

Compared to my statistics for Bush’s collegiate baseball performance, there clearly are several discrepancies with the statistics shown on the 1990 Topps baseball card, the 1991 USA Today Baseball Weekly article, and the 2015 Yale press release. All (or most) of the stats included in these sources are apparently “from a fact file [at Yale] that had been around from a long time ago.”³² For example, the Yale stats apparently include the May 30, 1947, exhibition game played between the varsity team and the “Yale Club”—an aggregation of Bulldogs players from past years; Poppy produced a 2–2–2–3 batting line in that game, including a home run. The most glaring discrepancy between my statistical record for Bush and Yale’s statistical record is that Yale omits Poppy’s participation in every game of the Eli’s 1946 championship season.

One might wonder how President Bush feels about the research I did on his baseball record at Yale. I sent my findings to the President while he was still in office and was pleased to receive a personal letter on White House stationery from him. Figure 2 is an image of the letter.

Figure 2

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B. Poppy’s Teammates Who Played Professional Baseball

In his autobiography, Looking Forward, in response to the rhetorical question, “What brought me to Texas…” Mr. Bush wrote, “The truth? I wish I could have answered, ‘A fat contract to play professional baseball.’”³³ While Poppy did not accomplish the dream of making it to the major leagues as a player, nine of his Eli teammates did sign contracts to play minor league baseball: Dick Manville, Norm Felske, Dick Mathews, Art Moher, Jim Duffus, Frank Quinn, Walt Gathman, Art Fitzgerald, and Dick Tettelbach. Three of these Bulldog alumni made it to the big leagues—Manville, Quinn, and Tettelbach. (Appendix E provides the minor league records achieved by each of these Bush teammates.)

Manville had two trials in the major leagues—one game (two innings) in 1950 with the Boston Braves and eleven games (17 innings) in 1952 with the Chicago Cubs. In neither stint did Manville record a victory or a defeat. After his diamond career, Manville went on to greater success as the co-owner of the Forbes-Manville Furniture Showcase which served retail outlets in the Midwest and Florida.³⁴

Frank “The Arm” Quinn earned a trial with the Boston Red Sox in 1949—appearing in eight games (all relief assignments) and compiling a 2.86 ERA with no wins or losses. In 1950, after appearing in just one game for the Sox, he was acquired by the Washington Nationals (commonly referred to by the nickname Senators) and sent to their Chattanooga team (Southern Association) where he produced a 1–3 W–L ledger with a 6.30 ERA. While Quinn was on the spring roster of the Senators in 1951—even appearing on a baseball card (# 276 in the Bowman set)—he saw no more major league action. “Quinn later moved to Los Angeles and became Vice President of First Western Bank and Trust Co. He worked as a bank executive in New York and Miami as well. In his later years, he worked in Florida real estate development.”³⁵

Tettelbach’s excellent minor league performance eventually earned him a trip to the big leagues, where he made his major league debut with the Yankees on September 25, 1955. He ended up playing in two games, going hitless in five at bats. Prior to the 1956 season, he was traded (along with Whitey Herzog, Bob Wiesler, Lou Berberet, and Herb Plews) to the Senators (for Mickey McDermott and Bobby Kline). With Washington, he cracked the starting lineup and in his first at bat—on Opening Day (shortly after President Dwight Eisenhower had thrown out the ceremonial first pitch)—he blasted a home run off Don Larsen. However, after 18 games he was batting only .156 and was sent down to Denver, where he batted an unimpressive .250 in 72 contests. Tettelbach made it back to the Bigs in the beginning of the 1957 campaign, but batted a paltry .182 in nine games. On May 15 he voluntarily retired from professional baseball. “He went to work for the Copeland Company, a manufacturer of asphalt. He also became a major force in the Connecticut State Golf Association as both a player and official. A six-time Yale Golf Club champion, he served on the Golf Association’s executive committee for 25 years, and was its president in 1991–92.”³⁶

In addition to three of his teammates making the majors, so did two of Bush’s opponents: the aforementioned Walt Dropo (UConn, 1946) and Jackie Jensen, who played for the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1947 NCAA Finals. Dropo’s major league accomplishments included the 1950 American League RBI crown and the still-standing major league record for “most hits, consecutive—12” which he accomplished in 1952 while playing with the Detroit Tigers.³⁷ Jensen put together an eleven-year major league career with the Yankees, Senators, and Red Sox that included three RBI crowns (1955, 1958, and 1959) and the American League Most Valuable Player Award in 1958.³⁸

Another diamond foe from Poppy Bush’s collegiate days who did quite well in baseball was Vin Scully. He played center field for the Fordham Rams in the April 12, 1947, contest against the Yale Bulldogs. Like Bush, he went 0-for-3 in that game. Scully would go on to an illustrious career as a baseball broadcaster, and receive the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Ford C. Frick Award among other accolades. Poppy also crossed paths with George “Sparky” Anderson. Although he would bat a lackluster .218 in his only big-league season (1959 Phillies), Anderson subsequently excelled as a manager, guiding three World Champions (1975 and 1976 Reds, 1984 Tigers) and earning a bronze plaque in Cooperstown. Anderson was the batboy for the 1948 USC Trojans, Yale’s opponent in the College World Series that year.

C. Baseball Awards and Honors

While the focus of this article deals with the statistical record of Poppy Bush, there are other significant items closely connected to his performance on the diamond that merit inclusion here.

The George H.W. Bush Lifetime of Leadership Award was created by Yale University to honor Yale alumni athletes who, in their lives after Yale, have made significant leadership contributions in the worlds of governance, commerce, science and technology, education, public service, and the arts and media. The award was named for Bush as the living example of one who successfully and selflessly addressed the global leadership demands of his position. Each honoree is chosen by a broadly representative alumni Honors Committee, based upon the candidates’ individual lifetime leadership contributions in their respective fields. All have been graduated for more than 20 years. Emphasizing that athletics is an important component of the Yale undergraduate educational experience, the award has been given biennially beginning in 2001.³⁹ Three of the award recipients played on Yale’s varsity baseball teams:

1. James McNerney (1971) received the award in 2007 in recognition of his illustrious career as a senior executive for Proctor & Gamble, General Electric, 3M, and Boeing.
2. Stephen D. Greenberg (1970) received the award in 2009 in recognition of his executive-level leadership in the sports and media industries, such as the Los Angeles law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips (specializing in sports and general business law, including agenting for baseball players), Major League Baseball (as deputy commissioner to Fay Vincent), Classic Sports Network (which he cofounded and eventually sold to ESPN), and Allen & Co. (an investment bank). A son of Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg, Steve also played minor league baseball from 1970 through 1974, compiling a .272–.387–.432 BA–OBP–SLG line with 32 homers in three Triple-A seasons with Denver (American Association) and Spokane (Pacific Coast League).
3. James Goodale (1955) was honored in 2015 in recognition of his leadership accomplishments as the vice president and general counsel for The New York Times especially for his principal roles in the “Pentagon Papers” and “Reporter’s Privilege.”

In addition to these three Yale Bulldog diamondeers, Eli hockey alumnus Roland W. Betts (1968) received the prestigious award in 2005. While he did not play baseball for Yale, he was a major investor in the Texas Rangers Baseball Club, 1989–98.

The George H.W. Bush Distinguished Alumnus Award was created by the National College Baseball Hall of Fame to honor college baseball players who earned a varsity letter in intercollegiate baseball competition and went on to achieve tremendous off-field professional careers.⁴⁰ The initial award was bestowed to George “Poppy” Bush on November 13, 2014. Subsequently, there have been four more recipients of the award:

• U.S. Representative Roger Williams (on August 29, 2015), who previously served as the Texas Secretary of State, played baseball at Texas Christian University and then professionally in the Atlanta Braves organization (1971–73), later returning to TCU as head coach.
• Dr. Bobby Brown (August 29, 2015), who played baseball at Stanford, UCLA, and then Tulane, around Naval Officer Training and medical school, before joining the New York Yankees organization and playing in four World Series during a career spanning parts of eight major league seasons (1946–52, 1954). Following his career as a cardiologist in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Brown served as the president of the American League 1984–94.
• Vin Scully (November 08, 2015), who was an outfielder at Fordham in the late 1940s before becoming the voice of the Dodgers in both Brooklyn and Los Angeles (1950-2016).
• Dr. John Everett Olerud (July 16, 2016), who was an All-American catcher at Washington State University and led the Cougars to the 1965 College World Series and, after balancing medical school and minor league baseball for parts of seven summers (1965–71), pursued a career in dermatology at the University of Washington. He is the father of John Garrett Olerud, who had a 17-year major league career (1989–2005).

George H.W. Bush National College Baseball Hall of Fame will be the name of the National College Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. About this latest honor emanating from his collegiate baseball career, President Bush said, “To say I am pleased is an understatement. While my baseball days at Yale hardly measure up to the likes of my boyhood idol Lou Gehrig or Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson or Dave Winfield, I genuinely love the game and am so grateful for this honor, undeserved though it may be.” Construction of the building had been set to begin in late 2014.⁴¹ Funding issues stalled the construction, and although there was a ceremonial groundbreaking in Lubbock, Texas, on June 29, 2015, no actual construction took place. On April 7, 2017, the College Baseball Foundation and the City of Lubbock released statements announcing that the George H.W. Bush College Baseball Hall of Fame would not be built in Lubbock. A week later, Wichita mayor Jeff Longwell stated that Wichita, Kansas, would explore being the home of the College Baseball Hall of Fame.⁴² Two months later, on June 20, 2017, a group from Omaha, Nebraska, indicated that it was exploring bringing the College Baseball Hall of Fame to Omaha—where the College Baseball World Series has been played every year since 1950. The Omaha effort is being led by Omaha real estate executive Kyle Peterson, who played in the College World Series (1995 and 1997 with Stanford) as well as in the majors (1999 and 2001 with the Milwaukee Brewers).⁴³

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civilian honor, given to individuals who have made meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the US, to world peace or to cultural or other major public or private endeavors. The medal has been awarded to twelve men who played professional baseball. During his term in the White House, President George H.W. Bush granted the honor to Ted Williams in 1991. The Splendid Splinter, the last player to win a batting title with an average over .400, was, like Bush, a decorated pilot, having served in both World War Two (1943–45) and the Korean War (1952–53). In November 2014, Bush was asked, “What was your favorite team growing up?” Bush replied, “The Red Sox. I liked Ted Williams the best.”⁴⁴

The complete roster of professional baseball players who have been recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom is given in Table 5.

Table 5. Professional Baseball Players Who Have Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom

And, while not a former professional baseball player, Vin Scully, who as mentioned above played for Fordham against Poppy Bush’s Yale nine, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2016 in recognition of his baseball broadcasting career. Interestingly, President Obama had previously (in 2010) awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George H.W. Bush—“for his nearly 70 years of service to his country.” So, Bush and Scully are connected in several ways—each served in the Navy in World War Two before embarking on college; each played in and went 0-for-3 in that Yale-Fordham game; each received the George H.W. Bush Distinguished Alumnus Award; and each received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Baseball cards have been associated with baseball for well over a century. An ambition for many an aspiring baseball player is having one’s picture on a bonafide baseball card. As mentioned above, Yale’s Frank Quinn received that honor with his 1951 Bowman baseball card. Non-players have also been honored with baseball cards such as MLB Commissioner Ford Frick and NL and AL presidents Warren Giles and Will Harridge, respectively; each of these baseball executives was honored with a Topps baseball card one or more times in the 1956–59 sets. As pointed out previously, George Bush was honored by Topps in 1990 by its issuance of a baseball card—produced specifically for him, but not for sale to the general public—in recognition of his collegiate baseball performance and his becoming president of the USA. Subsequently, numerous other baseball cards honoring George H.W. Bush have been put out by various trading card companies.⁴⁵ And, in 2013, Topps produced another 1990 George Bush baseball card that was available to the general public via the 2013 Topps Archives Baseball set.^{46,47,48,49,50}

Another baseball card honoring George H.W. Bush is the one produced in 1999 for the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum (located in College Station, Texas). This card was given out on March 22, 1999, to those persons who visited the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum for a special exhibit on President Bush and Baseball. Appendix G provides images of the front and back of this baseball card. The front of the card displays a photo of Bush in his Yale baseball uniform (but without a cap), the seal of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in the upper-right corner, and two lines of text at the bottom—“George Bush” and “Yale…First Base.”

The back of the card, which also has the seal of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, presents Bush’s statistics, as shown in Table 6, with the heading “George Bush—Yale…First Base,” followed by text describing his prep school and collegiate playing career, and the following: “From 1950 to 1951 Bush played on Shell’s Midland, Texas, softball team.” An article by Kelly Brown about this special card states that Hilton Ladner, one of Bush’s teammates at Shell Oil, told them that Bush was not even an employee of Shell, but that he only wanted to play.⁵¹ Ladner recalled the day when a tall stranger with a Yankee accent showed up at the practice field to try out for the team. Ladner said, “Well, he was darn good. He could throw and catch and hit. He had what it takes to be a good ballplayer. We knew nothing about his background, but we wanted him on the team.”

With regard to the statistics given for Bush on the back of the card, note they are exactly the same as the yearly and total stats from my research as shown in Table 4 and as reported in 1989 in Baseball Quarterly Reviews and in 1991 in USA Today Baseball Weekly.^52,53

(Click image to enlarge.) 

Table 6: Batting and Fielding Record of George Bush— Presidential Library and Museum Baseball Card: “George Bush—Yale, First Base”

That card issued by the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum states that George H.W. Bush’s baseball career spanned three decades (1940s, 1950s, and 1960s). But the card could have included some diamond events from the 1980s, as well:

1. As already mentioned, on April 3, 1989, President Bush became the very first President of the USA to throw an Opening Day ceremonial first pitch—from the pitcher’s mound.
2. July 13, 1984, George Herbert Walker “Poppy” Bush became what we assume to be the first Vice President—and future President—to actively participate in an old timers baseball game—at Mile High Stadium in Denver. He and some of the old timers chanced to meet at the hotel where Bush was staying during the Colorado State Republican Convention.⁵⁴ One thing led to another, strings were pulled, hoops were jumped through—and before anyone other than a select few knew it, Vice President Bush, wearing a Denver Bears uniform (with number 31 on the back, the number last worn by pitcher Jim Siwy in 1983), was announced as a batter in the fourth inning for the American League team. What follows is a brief composite summary of VP Bush’s participation in the game, derived from several (sometimes disparate) accounts and recollections.^55–65

Top of the Fourth Inning (American League at bat):

• Milt Pappas pitching for the National League.
• Moose Skowron singled to right field.
• VP George Bush came up to bat; Warren Spahn replaced Pappas on the mound; Pappas stayed on the field, standing behind the mound. VP Bush popped the ball up behind the mound; Pappas caught the ball and then (purposely) dropped it. VP Bush, who had run to first, was given a Mulligan and called back to the plate. Pappas then went back to the mound to pitch to VP Bush. The first pitch was a (swinging) strike; the second pitch was a ball. On the third pitch, VP Bush hit a ground ball up the middle for a single. Jimmy Piersall was sent in as a pinch runner for VP Bush, but was waved back.
• Earl Battey hit into a fielder’s-choice-force-out, VP Bush being retired at second base.
• Billy Martin hit into a double play to end the inning.

Top of the Fifth Inning (American League at bat):

• VP Bush took the field for the National League, playing first base, replacing Ernie Banks. Pappas was the pitcher.
• Luke Appling hit a single to right field.
• Bobby Richardson hit into a fielder’s-choice-force-out.
• Jose Cardenal doubled to right field, Richardson advancing to third base.
• Minnie Minoso hit the ball to deep center field, getting a triple and batting in Richardson and Cardenal.
• Brooks Robinson grounded to the third baseman, Ron Santo, who threw to VP Bush to retire Robinson.
• Tony Oliva hit a grounder to VP Bush, who fielded the ball and threw to Pappas covering first for the third out.

In the game account published in the Denver Post, Kevin Widlic wrote, “The Vice President later played in the field, where he robbed Tony Oliva of a base hit with a backhanded stop of a hard grounder at first base.” The account also included a quote by Milt Pappas—“He made a terrific play.” Widlic’s article also had the following: “Bush fielded both chances flawlessly in the fifth, the first on a throw from Ron Santo at third, and the second drawing another tingling roar. Oliva smashed a grounder down the first base line, but Bush reacted well, going to his left and knocking the ball down. He recovered and flipped it to Pappas for the inning-ending out.”⁶⁶

Kevin Simpson and Jim Benton of the Rocky Mountain News described Bush’s fielding in this way: “In the fifth, Bush, playing first base, produced the most memorable moment of his vice-presidency when he went to his left (what, you thought he could only go to his right?) to back-hand a vicious Tony Oliva grounder, robbing the former Twins star of a sure hit by flipping to pitcher Pappas covering first.”⁶⁷

In a UPI communication, Jim Burris, the longtime general manager of the Denver Bears commented: “I just couldn’t believe that any politician could look that comfortable out there and have that kind of athletic ability. It was obvious that he had played before. You could just tell, the way he shifted his feet and changed position, depending on whether there were men on base or whether the batter was a left-hander.”⁶⁸

In an article pursuant to an interview with George H.W. Bush, seven months after the old-timers game, M. Charles Bakst reported what Vice-President Bush said about his playing first base in that game: “I did have my glasses, and they gave me a mitt, a brand new first-baseman’s mitt. I’m a left hander. Went out there. The first guy grounded out. The shortstop threw him out; I managed to catch the ball all right. We got another guy; somehow there was another out.” And then there was what Bush remembered as an exquisite moment. A batter (whom he thought was Orlando Cepeda) smashed a ball over toward first. Said the revved-up Vice President: “Went to my left. Knocked the ball down. I should have had it clean. And Pappas comes across and covers first and we threw him out and the place was really thrilled with me.”⁶⁹

Yet another account of “THE Fielding Play” was provided by Tom Boswell in an article in the Washington Post, based on his March 1989 interview of President Bush (i.e., nearly five years after the game). Warren Spahn and Bill Dickey had needled Bush into playing in an old-timers game at Denver. As Bush recalled: “When Tony Oliva came up the second baseman kept yelling at me, ‘Get back.’ I said, ‘Back? I’m on the damned grass. Whaddaya want?’ But the second baseman said, ‘Back. This guy can still hit.’ And damn if Oliva didn’t pull one right down the line.” The President’s memory of the play is that he just wishes he had had his McQuinn Trapper: “My excuse on this part is I had a brand new mitt—knocked the ball down—should have had it clean.”⁷⁰

Some twenty years after the historic old-timers game, Bush’s daughter, Doro Bush Koch, in her 2006 book, My Father, My President: A Personal Account of the Life of George H. W. Bush, wrote that, based on the remembrance of Sean Coffey, the VP’s personal aide at the time (who was watching from the third base side), “Bush put on a glove and headed out to first base, his old position at Yale. ‘The best was yet to come,’ said Sean, because ‘who was up but Orlando Cepeda [sic: should be Tony Oliva], who was known for hitting line drives. Sure enough, he hits a rocket down the right field line. If it had hit somebody in the head, it would have taken their head off. As it was, it looked like it was going into the right field corner for a double—but that was before first baseman Bush jumps to his left. He dives for it, knocks the ball down, gets up, scrambles into foul territory, turns around, and lobs a perfect underhand pitch to the pitcher covering first. Orlando Cepeda [sic: Tony Oliva] is out. Mile High Stadium erupted in cheers.’”⁷¹

And, three decades after the Dream Play in Denver, Bush’s oldest son, George W. Bush, in his 2014 book, 41—A Portrait of My Father, wrote the following: “Dad held his own in the field as well. Orlando Cepeda [sic: Oliva], a Hall of Fame slugger who played most of his years for the San Francisco Giants, hit a rocket down the first-base line. Dad made a slick play, stabbing the hot shot and tossing the ball to the pitcher to beat Cepeda [sic: Oliva] to the bag. I still remember his look of joy as he jogged back to the dugout.”⁷²

At this point, it is appropriate to go back in time a few decades and mention an item from the May 24, 1946, issue of the Yale News Digest about the Bulldogs 9–6 victory over Amherst.⁷³ In the “Diamond Dust” sub-section of the article is the following: “Poppy Bush turned in the fielding gem of the year on Don Butler’s smash in the fifth. It would take an entire column to explain how he did it. Suffice to say, he took a two-base hit away from Butler with a backhand grab of a sizzler.”

With respect to Bush’s base hit, here are some of the descriptions of his historic one-baser:

• Kevin Widlic provided two descriptions of the Bush bingle: (a) “Vice President George Bush turned Mile High Stadium upside down and stole the show when he pinch hit and grounded a sharp single to center field during Friday night’s Denver Dream old-timers baseball game.” (b) “Following a swing and a miss, Bush bounced a clean single up the middle.” The Denver Post reporter also included a quote by Milt Pappas: “It was one of the highlights of my career, my life, whatever. I made him a hero.”⁷⁴
• The Rocky Mountain News team of Kevin Simpson and Jim Benton provided the following account of Bush’s single: “In the fourth, George Bush, a former college player, became the first player ever to pinch hit on two consecutive at bats. On the first, he popped to second base. On the second try, he cracked a 1–1 pitch up the middle for a base hit.”⁷⁵
• In his February 26, 1985, interview with M. Charles Bakst, Vice President Bush described his base knock as follows: “Pappas grooved one and I hit it. I hadn’t swung a bat in, God, how many years. I hit it crisp, right through the middle for a single. People actually cheered and stuff when I got the single.”⁷⁶
• Doro Bush Koch wrote, “Milt Pappas, the great All-Star pitcher, pitched to Dad. Then Dad hit a sharp single to center field and made it to first base.”⁷⁷ And George W. Bush wrote, “When he came to bat against former Baltimore Orioles and Chicago Cubs pitcher Milt Pappas, a three-time All-Star who had pitched a no-hitter, he slapped a single into right field. It certainly didn’t hurt that Milt served up a fat fastball for the Vice President to hit.”⁷⁸

Summing up her father’s opportunity to “play with the superstars,” Doro Bush Koch wrote: “‘A Walter Mitty night for me,’ Dad told one of the interviewers as he came off the field with a smile, referring to James Thurber’s mild-mannered character who dreams of being a fearless hero.”⁷⁹

Finally, just recently, a blockbuster consequence of Vice President Bush’s performance in the old timers game has surfaced.⁸⁰ On July 13, 2017, exactly 34 years after the historic game the following surprising item was posted on the reddit website: “The Detroit Tigers once offered Vice President George H.W. Bush a playing contract (for $1) after seeing him play in the 1984 Old Timers Game in Denver.”

The posting consisted of seven images—correspondence (or copies of correspondence) from August and September, 1984, involving Bobby Brown, the president of the American League, Jim Campbell, the president and chief executive officer of the Detroit Tigers, George Bush, the Vice President of the USA, and Peter Teeley, the press secretary of Vice President Bush. Here, in chronological order, are transcriptions of the letters (images) which were posted on the reddit website; copies of the posted images are shown in Appendix H).

On August 27, 1984, Bobby Brown sent a letter to Jim Campbell saying, “Would you mind having Alice type this on Detroit stationery and send it to my friend George Bush?”; see Figure 3.

Figure 3

(Click image to enlarge.)

The American League logo in the letterhead is in full red-white-blue color, suggesting that the letter offered in the auction is the original (and not a photocopy). The “Alice” mentioned by Brown was Alice Sloane, who was Jim Campbell’s secretary and right-hand “man” for decades.⁸¹

The enclosure referred to by the AL president is the Campbell-to-Bush letter shown in Figure 4A. This version of the letter was written by Brown, not Campbell.

Apparently going along with Bobby Brown’s intended prank, Jim Campbell slightly edited and reformatted the letter to Vice President Bush; see Figure 4B.

Figure 4A

(Click image to enlarge.)

Figure 4B

(Click image to enlarge.)

The “JAC” certainly means that the letter was seemingly written by James A. Campbell, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Detroit Tigers. The “/as” means that the letter was typed by Alice Sloane. However, this letter appears to be a “draft” letter (or a copy of a draft letter) because (a) it is not typed on “Detroit Baseball Club” stationery; and (b) it is not signed. It also does not (yet) have the Zip Code of the White House; see Figure 4A. The major differences between the Figure 4A letter (Brown version) and the Figure 4B letter (Campbell version) are: (1) the first paragraph was divided into three paragraphs; (2) “farm director” was replaced by “Special Assignment Scout”; (3) “scouting report” was changed to “report”; (4) “1st round” was changed for “first round” (5) “Amateur Draft” was changed to “amateur draft”; (6) “uniform baseball contract” was replaced by “Uniform Player’s Contract”; (7) “consideration, and hope” was changed to “consideration. We hope”; and (8) “anticipation and will” was changed to “anticipation. We will”. There were also a few commas added or deleted.

Shown in Figure 5 is the enclosure referred to in the (final?) draft of the Campbell-to-Vice President Bush letter, i.e., the first page of the Uniform Player’s Contract between the Detroit Baseball Club and George Bush.

Figure 5

(Click image to enlarge.)

While Jim Campbell agreed to assist Bobby Brown with this prank, he made sure to cover himself and the Detroit Tigers by (apparently) sending the contract and cover letter to Mr. Peter Teeley, the Press Secretary for Vice President Bush. The letter from Campbell to Teeley is shown in Figure 6. Curiously, it is noted that, while the letter is on Detroit Tigers stationery and signed by Jim Campbell, the White House zip code is still not included.

Figure 6

(Click image to enlarge.)

What a prank! Was the prank actually pulled off?

I provided scans of the Figure 3 to 6 items to the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum and asked if an archivist could please check their holdings for anything related to the prank contract and cover letter. Archivist Micelle Bogart conducted the search, but was unable to locate any pertinent records in the item-level inventory of records from the White House Office of Records Management (WHORM). She also physically searched through the correspondence received by Mr. Bush when he was Vice President, as well as correspondence received when he was President, but was unable to locate anything related to the prank contract. She provided the this caveat: “That does not mean, however, that we do not have the letters somewhere. Also, in case you are not aware, the White House Office of Records Management does not save all correspondence sent to the president or vice president. A random sampling of public mail is kept and eventually makes it to the National Archives. But, we do not have all correspondence ever received. Even if we do not have a copy of these letters in our records, that does not mean the letters were never received at the White House.”⁸²

I also sent an email to the person who submitted the images to the reddit site (“odor31”), asking about the provenance and authenticity of the letters. I received a prompt reply, stating, “Found them currently up for auction. American Eagle Auction & Appraisal.” Upon googling “American Eagle Auction & Appraisal,” I found the items on EstateSale.com for a “Super Auction” scheduled for August 19 at the Washtenaw Farm Council Fairgrounds, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with the following headline: “The Incredible Collection of Detroit Tigers Public Relations Director, Dan Ewald.” The auction “catalog” listed 638 items, including the seven images posted on reddit.

The following overall description was also provided: “The vast majority of this collection came from the extensive collection of former Detroit Tigers Public Relations Director, Dan Ewald. Prior to spending nearly two-decades with the Detroit Tigers, he was a baseball writer for The Detroit News. Ewald is the author of 13 sports books with such luminaries as Sparky [Anderson], Bo Schembechler, Al Kaline, George Kell and Ron Kramer. Throughout his career, he served as Sparky Anderson’s confidante even after the two retired from the game. The prominence of the vast majority of this collection is truly unsurpassed. Many of the items were directly acquired from Sparky Anderson’s and Jim Campbell’s collection and executive office files at the defunct Tigers Stadium. Jim Campbell was the longest serving General Manager in baseball history. He served as an executive, General Manager and President of the Detroit Tigers from 1949–92.”

So at this time, here’s where we are.

• On July 13, 2017, we learned—thanks to the reddit posting by Alex Maki (Auburn Hills, Michigan) that “The Detroit Tigers once offered Vice President George H.W. Bush a playing contract (for $1) after seeing him play in the 1984 Old Timers Game in Denver.”
• It is reasonable to conclude that the items shown in Figures 3–6 are authentic and were obtained by Dan Ewald from Jim Campbell, who received the Bobby Brown letter and enclosure and then generated his letters to Vice President Bush and Peter Teeley and also filled in the first page of the Uniform Player’s Contract.
• It seems, based on the items shown in Figures 3–6, that steps were apparently taken by AL president Bobby Brown and Detroit Tigers president and chief executive officer Jim Campbell to pull a baseball contract prank on Vice President George Bush shortly after he participated in the old-timers game in Denver on July 13, 1984. I had the opportunity on July 31, 2017, to relate all of the information to Dr. Bobby Brown in a telephone conversation with him. I then asked him if he was familiar with any of it. He replied that while he didn’t recall it, it sounded like him, like something he would have done.⁸³
• Subsequently, after I provided copies of Figures 3–6 to Dr. Brown, he wrote a letter to me (dated August 7, 2017) with the following statements: “There is no doubt about the ‘prank.’ I definitely participated to its fullest in the ‘caper.’ I knew all the people involved and all were good friends.”84 I called Dr. Brown on August 10, 2017, and asked him if he recalled ever getting any feedback from Vice President Bush about the contract and offer letter. Dr. Brown said that he could not remember getting any feedback, but added that he and George Bush are good, long-time friends who played a lot of tennis together (both as doubles partners and opponents) and that something might have been mentioned then, but he couldn’t remember anything specific.⁸⁵ Thus, we know that the contract offer was legit (albeit a good-natured spoof between good friends).
• It is not known if the letter from Jim Campbell to Peter Teeley (Figure 6) was actually mailed, although it seems reasonable that it was because a “COPY” of the letter (rather than the actual letter) was in the file possessed by Dan Ewald. Likewise, it is not known if Peter Teeley actually received the letter. If the letter was not sent or received, the story is over.
• If, however, the letter (Figure 6)—with the enclosures (Figures 4B and 5)—was sent by Campbell and was received by Teeley, it is not known what Teeley did with the letter and the enclosures. If, using his discretion, Teeley discarded the letter and the enclosures, the story is finished.
• If, however, using his discretion, Teeley gave the enclosures to Vice President Bush (i.e., “placed the letter and contract on his desk”), the story continues.
• No evidence has yet been found to support the possibility that Vice President Bush did receive the Detroit Tigers offer letter (Figure 4B) and contract (Figure 5). So, if Vice President Bush did receive the letter and contract, it is still unknown what his reaction was and what he did or said about it. He could have simply enjoyed the prank and kept it to himself. That certainly is his prerogative. Or, if he did comment on it to Bobby Brown, Jim Campbell, or a family member, it has been kept private and/or forgotten about. George H.W. Bush did not even mention his participation in the July 13, 1984, old timers game in his autobiography. Similarly there has been no mention of such an offer letter and contract in any of the several biographies (and autobiography) of George Herbert Walker Bush included in Reference 5.
• In spite of the lack of a definitive ending to the story, one way or the other, the story is indeed fascinating. Perhaps more sleuthing will eventually come up with the rest of the story.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

My research on the collegiate baseball career of George Herbert Walker “Poppy” Bush reveals that he played three seasons (not two) at Yale and assembled a “good-field-poor-hit” performance as a first baseman for the Bulldog-nine—a career fielding average of .983 (not .981) and a career batting average of .224 with one home run in 76 games (not .251 with two homers in 51 games).⁸⁶

While Poppy’s “on-the-field” numbers at Yale did not put him on a path to play major league baseball, his “more-than-just-numbers” contributions to Yale’s diamond accomplishments, in combination with his subsequent success in the business world and service in government, did produce an illustrious legacy of awards and honors bearing his name. And, George Herbert Walker Bush was also the first President of the United States of America to (1) throw a ceremonial Opening Day pitch from the pitcher’s mound, (2) to appear on a bonafide baseball card, and (3) while serving as the Vice President, to have played in a major league old-timers baseball game.

Perhaps the most salient finding that emerged from my research endeavor is that Poppy was the starting first baseman in all 76 games the Elis had from 1946 through 1948—including the first two College World Series in 1947 and 1948. Such Iron Man consistency is in perfect alignment with one of Poppy’s baseball idols—Hall of Fame first baseman Lou “The Iron Horse” Gehrig. Furthermore, Bush’s day-in-day-out diamond participation also fit right in with what President Ronald Reagan expounded in his address at the 1988 Republican National Convention. Summing up his administration’s accomplishments and affirming his endorsement and support of the Vice-President to be the next President, Reagan proclaimed, “George [Bush] was there!”⁸⁷

Clearly, baseball has been an important and enduring component in the makeup of the person who became the forty-first President of the United States of America. This was expressed by Mr. Bush in his 1988 autobiography, Looking Forward, in describing his collegiate path: “I was majoring in the ‘dismal science,’ economics, but I didn’t find it dismal at all. I enjoyed the work, studied hard, and did well enough in class to earn Phi Beta Kappa and other honors. Technically my minor was sociology, but only technically. My real minors, as far as my attention span went, were soccer and baseball. Especially baseball.”⁸⁸

Finally, to close this article, it is appropriate to mention a baseball-related quotation by George Herbert Walker “Poppy” Bush—“Baseball is just the great American pastime. It’s just got everything.”⁸⁹

HERM KRABBENHOFT joined SABR 36 years ago. His many and varied accomplishments in baseball research include the following: ultimate grand slam home runs, accurate triple play database [with Jim Smith and Steve Boren], Ted Williams Consecutive-Games-On-Base-Safely record, Cobb (hitter) vs. Ruth (pitcher), accurate RBI totals for Ruth, Gehrig, and Greenberg, accurate records for twentieth century leadoff batters, Zimmerman’s triple crown, Hamilton’s MLB runs-scored record [with Keith Carlson, Dave Newman, and Dixie Tourangeau], comprehensive compilation of Detroit Tigers uniform numbers.

Acknowledgments

I gratefully thank the following persons for their fantastic cooperation in providing me with helpful information and/or guidance in a timely manner: Joel Alderman, Larry Annis, Michelle Bogart, Dr. Bobby Brown, M.D., Ryan Cracknell, Dan Ewald, Jr., Raelee Frazier, Vince Gennaro, Karl Green, Bruce Hellerstein, Chris Jones, Cassidy Lent, Len Levin, Julia W. Logan, Norman L. Macht, Alex Maki, Cody McMillan, Hanna Q. Parris, Jay Patton, Emily Perdue, Jacob Pomrenke, Paul Rogers, Sam Rubin, Hanna Soltys, Gary Stone, Morgan Swan, and Jim Wohlenhaus. Also, I reiterate my thanks to those persons whose contributions were very helpful to me when I did the bulk of the statistical research in the late 1980s: Jane Antis, Carol Cofrancesco, Dick Gentile, Stephen Newton, Tom Shea, Dick Thompson, Steve Ulrich, and Chuck Yrigoyen.

Notes

1. For a comprehensive list of the Opening Day games in which the sitting President did (or did not) attend and throw out the ceremonial first pitch for the seasons from 1910 through 1992, see: William B. Mead and Paul Dickson, Baseball: The Presidents’ Game (Washington: Farragut Publishing Co.,1993). Mead and Dickson state, “The bulk of this list was compiled by L. Robert Davids, founder of the Society for American Baseball Research.” For information on the Presidents who threw ceremonial first pitches from 1993 through 2009, see: “Ceremonial First Pitch,” en.wikipedia.org (retrieved July 26, 2017). The Wikipedia article carries the forewarning: “This article has multiple issues.” For brief synopses of the connections between baseball and U.S. Presidents from George Washington to Donald Trump, see: John Thorn, “Our Baseball Presidents,” https://ourgame.mlblogs.com, February 26, 2014 (retrieved July 25, 2017) and “Our Baseball Presidents, Part 2,” https://ourgame.mlblogs.com, February 28, 2014 (retrieved July 25, 2017). For an alternative list of Presidents and Baseball from Washington to Trump (with links to “Quotations” and “Attendance”), see “U.S. Presidents & Major League Baseball,” baseball-almanac.com (retrieved July 26, 2017).
2. As shown in the youtube video of this historic event, catcher Mickey Tettleton stood at the edge of the dirt in front of the plate (instead of in the catcher’s box behind the plate) to receive the pitch. See: “President Bush Throws Out First Pitch,” https://www.youtube.com, February 11, 2015 uploaded by MLB (retrieved July 1, 2017). It should also be pointed out that President Ronald Reagan was actually the first President to throw a ceremonial first pitch from the pitcher’s mound—at an otherwise “meaningless” end-of-the-regular-season game on Friday afternoon, September 30, 1988, between the fourth-place Chicago Cubs (75–84) and the second-place Pittsburgh Pirates (84–73) at Wrigley Field. As shown in a youtube video, Reagan, wearing a shiny, blue Cubs jacket, performed the honor, hurling the ball to Cubs catcher Damon Berryhill (who also stood at the edge of the grass in front of the plate). See: “President Reagan Throws Out the First Pitch at a Chicago Cubs Baseball Game on September 30, 1988,” https://www.youtube.com, November 30, 2016—uploaded by Reagan Library (retrieved July 1, 2017). See also: Alan Solomon, “Tribune Flashback: Sept. 30, 1988—A Reagan Visit to Wrigley,” articles.chicagotribune.com, June 7, 2004 (retrieved July 15, 2017).
3. Some of the information provided in the current article was presented in my previous report—Herman Krabbenhoft, “George Herbert Walker Bush—Iron Man First Sacker at Yale,” Baseball Quarterly Reviews, Volume 4, Number 3, (Fall 1989) 101–15.
4. (a) “Lieutenant Junior Grade George Bush, USNR,” Naval Historical Center, April 6, 2001 (retrieved June 28, 2017); (b) Josh Harper, “A Campus Transformed: UNC During the Second World War,” northcarolinahistory.org (retrieved June 28, 2017); (c) Alanna Kaplan, “‘Poppy’ Bush: ‘He Didn’t Have a Whimpish Bone in His Body,’” Yale Daily News (#15, September 27, 1988) 3.
5. (a) ”George H.W. Bush, Early Life and Education,” Wikipedia (references 3 and 4, retrieved July 2, 2017); (b) George Bush (with Victor Gold), Looking Forward—an Autobiography (New York: Bantam Books 1988); (c) Tom Wicker, George Herbert Walker Bush (New York: Viking Press, 2004); (d) Doro Bush Koch, My Father, My President: A Personal Account of the Life of George H. W. Bush (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2006); (e) Timothy Naftali, George H.W. Bush: The American Presidents Series: The 41st President, 1989–1993 (New York: Times Books, 2007); (f) George W. Bush, 41—A Portrait of My Father (New York: Crown Publishers, 2014); (g) John H. Sununu, The Quiet Man—The Indispensable Presidency of George H.W. Bush (New York: Broadside Books, 2015); (h) Jon Meacham, Destiny and Power—The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush (New York: Random House, 2015).
6. “74 Candidates Turn Out For First Baseball Practice Sessions,” Yale News Digest (# 32, March 12, 1946) 1.
7. The origin of “Poppy” as George H.W. Bush’s nickname is described in Looking Forward on page 28—“[My] grandfather Walker’s sons, i.e. my uncles, called him ‘Pop,’ and started calling me ‘Little Pop’ and ‘Poppy.’ That was all right for a small boy, said my father, but it just wouldn’t do as a nickname that might follow me through life. Dad usually had a good crystal ball, but this time he was wrong.” However, “Poppy” certainly did accompany Bush at Yale, as evidenced by the frequent use of “Poppy” in describing Bush’s performance in the articles published in the Yale Daily News. In a May 31, 1996, article by Woody Anderson for the Hartford Courant, “At the Inaugural Series, A President in the Lineup,” the following items were presented: (a) “[Teammate Jim] Duffus said the nickname Poppy came from Bush’s grandfather. He was a favorite of his grandfather, who was named Poppy, and followed him around. He was known as Poppy’s boy and it was shortened to Poppy. We never heard people say George.” (b) “Art Moher was Yale’s junior shortstop in 1947. He said Bush was a ‘Punch-and-Judy hitter, but an outstanding fielder.’ Moher said, ‘We always said to Poppy, ‘Don’t lose the glove.’” The given first name of one of George H.W. Bush’s great granddaughters (second daughter of Jenna Bush Hager) is Poppy—in homage.
8. “Eli Baseball Team Points For Opener With Connecticut,” Yale News Digest (#34, March 19, 1946) 1.
9. “Baseball Team Points For First Game With Connecticut Here Next Week,” Yale News Digest (#39, April 05, 1946) 1.
10. “Yale Baseball Team Opens Season Tomorrow Against Connecticut U.,” Yale News Digest (#41, April 12, 1946) 1. Having won the starting first base job for the Bulldogs, George H.W. Bush was following in the footsteps of his father—Prescott Sheldon Bush had been a star first baseman and batted cleanup on the 1917 Yale baseball team: (a) George W. Bush, 41—A Portrait of My Father; (b) Mead and Dickson, Baseball: The Presidents’ Game.
11. On April 18 Yale played a game versus the Kings Point Merchant Marines. At that time (right after World War II), Kings Point was a training center for the Merchant Marines; it did not become a degree-granting institution (academy) until 1949. Bush was the starting first baseman for the Elis and went 0-for-4; the Bulldogs lost the encounter, 4–3.
12. This quotation is taken from the game account written by John J. Leary, Jr. for the New Haven Evening Register, April 14, 1946.
13. Ibid.
14. The only other game in the 1946 season in which Bush did not play in its entirety was the one on May 25 at Holy Cross. Coach Allen elected to pinch hit for Bush in the top of the ninth inning; Bill Howe flied out. Since the Elis were in process of losing the game, they did not have to take the field in the bottom of the ninth.
15. Yale also played two “exhibition” games in 1947. Neither of these exhibition contests was included in the full-season schedule. (1) Against “Equitable” on April 14. Bush was the starting first baseman for the Bulldogs and went 0-for-2; the Elis lost the contest, 3–0. (2) Versus the “Yale Club” (an aggregation of Bulldogs stars of yesteryear) on May 30, against whom Bush produced a 2–2–1–3 batting line, including a home run. Bush’s uncle, Lou Walker, pitched for the alumni team. In a letter to SABR member Norman L. Macht, Bush wrote, “Norm – Lou claims the ‘strike-out’; but the record book shows me homering off him—one of 2 homers I got all year—So much for the ‘K.’” See Appendix J for a copy of the letter.
16. Hugh Fullerton, Jr., New Haven Evening Register, June 29, 1947.
17. Paraphrased from Looking Forward by George Bush (with Victor Gold), Bantam Books: New York, 1988, 44.
18. New Haven Evening Register, April 4, 1948.
19. Looking Forward by George Bush (with Victor Gold), 42.
20. Final standings and records: Dartmouth (7–1–0); Navy (7–2–0); Yale (6–3–0); Army (5–3–0); Cornell (3–4–0); Columbia (3–5–0); Pennsylvania (3–5–0); Princeton (3–6–0); Harvard (2–4–0); Brown (0–6–0). There are a couple of “curiosities” about the 1948 EIBL season. While Dartmouth emerged as the EIBL champion with its 7–1–0 record (it’s only loss being inflicted by Yale), it was not invited to participate in the NCAA Eastern Regional Tournament. Instead, Yale, with a W–L–T record of 6–2–0—before the NCAA Eastern Regional Tournament commenced—was invited. Here’s the relevant information as reported in the June 09 issue of the New York Times [Dateline—Hamilton, NY, June 8 (AP)], “Yale was named today to represent District 1 at the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Eastern baseball tournament at Winston-Salem, N.C., June 15 to 17. Yale, last year’s champion of the four districts, was selected by Prof. Walter Snell of Brown University, NCAA selection committee chairman.” With regard to the selection criteria, I was unable to ascertain precisely what they were. Neither the Ivy League (which replaced the EIBL in 1954), nor Yale University, nor Dartmouth University were able to provide the information. Here’s what is given on Wikipedia (retrieved July 16, 2017): 1947— In the sub-heading “Field” is this: “The tournament field was determined by regional committees, some of whom held playoffs, while others selected specific conference champions, and still others simply selected their representatives.” 1948—In the sub-heading “Field” is this: “As with the inaugural tournament, each representative of the eight districts was determined by a mix of selection committees, conference champions, and district playoffs.” While the New York Times article did mention the teams comprising Districts 2 (Rutgers, Navy, Lafayette, and West Virginia), 3 (George Washington, North Carolina, Georgia Tech, and Alabama), and 4 (Illinois, Michigan, Ohio University, and Western Michigan), the teams making up District 1 with Yale were not given. I was not able to determine who the other District 1 teams were in 1948. So, for 1948, since there were no playoffs for District 1, Yale was simply selected (even though it was not and could not be the EIBL champion). Then, after the Bulldogs had won the NCAA Eastern Regional Tournament, Yale played its final EIBL game—against Harvard—which the Elis lost, giving them its final EIBL W–L–T ledger of 6–3–0, which established the Bulldogs as the third-best team in the EIBL. It is mentioned that the Yale-Harvard game on June 21 was originally scheduled as the annual “reunion game” between the two arch rivals; it was not supposed to be an EIBL game. However, when the originally-scheduled EIBL game between Yale and Harvard was rained out, the reunion game became the EIBL game as well. It should be noted that Dartmouth also had an EIBL game rained out—May 21 versus Army. However, as it turned out, due to various schedule conflicts, that game was not made up. Finally, in a summary of Dartmouth’s 1948 baseball season, Dave Jones wrote for the 1949 Aegis (Dartmouth Yearbook): “Rebounding from a dismal 1947 season, the Dartmouth baseball team recaptured some former glory by winning the Ivy League Championship. Blessed with three veterans and six hustling and willing sophomores, Coach Jeremiah molded a team that won seven of eight games and 13 of 16 over-all with one game ending in a tie. The one loss was at the hands of Yale and the great Frank Quinn. Yale, in turn, lost three league games, but nevertheless represented District 1 in the post-season NCAA tournament—a decision that caused no little consternation among followers of Dartmouth’s baseball fortunes. …En route to Hamilton, NY, to play Colgate [June 09], the Dartmouth nine learned that Yale had been chosen for the NCAA tournament. A severe mental letdown followed [and Dartmouth lost the game, 1–7].”
21. Joel Alderman, “Babe Ruth a Part of Yale Field’s Most Historic Moment,” sportzedge.com, June 05, 2013 (retrieved June 28, 2017).
22. Matt Nadel, “A Baseball Interview with President George H.W. Bush,” https://baseballwithmatt.mlblogs.com, November 02, 2014 (retrieved June 28, 2017).
23. Bill Koenig, “Bush Fielded Leadership Role at Yale,” USA Today Baseball Weekly, Volume 1, Number 1 (April 5, 1991) 49.
24. M. Charles Bakst, “Talkin’ Baseball for George Bush—Memories of the Babe and the Summer Game Warm the Chill of Winter,” Providence Journal, March 3, 1985.
25. Stan Feur, “Bulldog Diamondmen Set to Face Lord Jeffs on Yale Field Today—Bush Doubtful Starter Due to Spike Wound,” Yale Daily News, April 24, 1948.
26. In that April 6, game against Duke, the Blue Devils had built up a 9–0 lead within the first three innings. With the game’s final outcome (apparently) already decided at such an early point, Yale coach Allen decided to take a good look at his bench and brought in a number of replacements, including a substitute for Bush. Gerry Breen took over for Bush in the fifth and finished with two at bats, no runs, no hits and seven putouts, one assist, and no errors at first base.
27. John J. Leary, Jr., New Haven Register, April 25, 1948.
28. George W. Bush, 41—A Portrait of My Father.
29. (a) Joe Orlando, “By George…It’s Complicated—The 1990 Topps George Bush Baseball Card,” psacard.com, July 9, 2013 (retrieved July 26, 2017); (b) “PSA Confirms Two Types of 1990 Topps George Bush Baseball Cards,” psacard.com, July 9, 2013 (retrieved July 26, 2017); (c) Ryan Cracknell, “The Story of the 1990 Topps George Bush Baseball Card,” cardboardconnection.com (retrieved July 26, 2017); (d) Bob Lemke, “1990 George Bush Reprint Created,” boblemkeblogspot.com, February 21, 2013 (retrieved July 26, 2017).
30. Bill Koenig, “Bush Fielded Leadership Role at Yale,” USA Today Baseball Weekly, Volume 1, Number 1, (April 5, 1991) 49. See also: George Vecsey, “Sports of the Times; Keep Moving, Mr. President,” The New York Times (May 13, 1991)—Vecsey wrote that President Bush said this about himself, “Yes, very good fielder, not a very good hitter. Unfortunately, the record is out there. Somebody came up with the figures, .240–.250 range. Just because I batted eighth, that shouldn’t be held against me. No, I wasn’t much of a hitter.”
31. Steve Lewis, “Former President Recalls Yale Baseball Days,” Yale University Press Release, January 15, 2015. www.yalebulldogs.com (retrieved June 28, 2017.)
32. “Baseball Expert Challenges Yale Stats on ‘Poppy’ Bush,” USA Today Baseball Weekly, Volume 1, Number 5, (May 03, 1991) 27. This article is based on a letter (April 18, 1991) from Herman Krabbenhoft to Paul White, Editor, USA Today Baseball Weekly. The major points stated in my letter were published in the article (without a by-line).
33. George Bush (with Victor Gold), Looking Forward, 42.
34. Rich Marazzi and Len Fiorito, Baseball Players of the 1950s—A Biographical Dictionary of All 1,560 Major Leaguers (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009) 232.
35. Bill Nowlin, “Frank Quinn,” SABR BioProject, sabr.org (retrieved July 01, 2017).
36. Pete Zanardi, “Dick Tettelbach,” SABR BioProject, sabr.org (retrieved July 01, 2017).
37. Seymour Siwoff, The Elias Book of Baseball Records (New York: Seymour Siwoff, 2017) 384, 412.
38. Siwoff, The Elias Book of Baseball Records, 384, 410.
39. “2017 Blue Leadership Ball,” yalebulldogs.com (retrieved July 07, 2017).
40. “New Alumnus Award to Honor Off-Field Accomplishments,” collegebaseballhall.org, October 2, 2014 (retrieved June 28, 2017). See also the following press releases from the College Baseball Hall of Fame for the announcements of the subsequent recipients of the George H.W. Bush Distinguished Alumnus Award: collegebaseballhall.org, July 20, 2015 (Williams and Brown); October 02, 2015 (Scully); May 9, 2016 (Olerud). For a description of the George H.W. Bush Distinguished Alumnus Award trophy, a bronze sculpture featuring a baseball cap with a Yale “Y,” an old baseball, and a replica of the first baseman’s mitt used during the college career of Poppy Bush, see: Joel Alderman, “College Baseball Hall of Fame Creates ‘Distinguished Alumnus Award’ for ex-President and Yale Captain, George H.W. Bush, Who Will Be Its First Recipient,” sportzedge.com, October 27 2014 (retrieved June 28, 2017). This article includes a number of interesting tangential items, such as George Bush’s final day as a Yale student-athlete being a “presidential” day—“George H.W. Bush graduated from Yale on June 22, 1948, after taking an accelerated program to get through college in less than three years. One of those receiving honorary degrees from Yale at the time was Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. This means that at least two future U.S. presidents were on Yale’s Old Campus that day for the commencement. And, if Barbara Bush had brought her two-year old son, George W. Bush, along, which was highly likely, that would have made three presidents-to-be who were together for the occasion.”
41. George Watson, “College Baseball HOF to be Named for Bush; Construction set for late 2014,” Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, lubbockonline.com, November 14, 2013 (retrieved June 28, 2017).
42. Daniel McCoy, “Wichita to Swing at Landing College Baseball Hall of Fame,” q11, April 14, 2017.
43. Christopher Burbach, “College Baseball Hall of Fame Belongs in Omaha, Group Says,” Omaha World-Herald, June 21, 2017.
44. Matt Nadel, “A Baseball Interview with President George H.W. Bush,” https://baseballwithmatt.mlblogs.com, November 2, 2014 (retrieved June 28, 2017).
45. A search on eBay.com (July 17, 2017) showed that the following George H.W. Bush baseball cards were available (as well as others): (a) 2003 Upper Deck Cincinnati Reds (#SP14); (b) 2016 Topps First Pitch (#FP-17); (c) 2008 Donruss (#33). Curiously, not listed was the 1990 Topps George Bush card—neither the original, nor (unauthorized) reprints, nor (unauthorized) novelty versions (i.e., reprints with “Topps” removed).
46. This George Bush card was “deliberate error” card. Just like the privately-issued 1990 Topps George Bush baseball card, the front of the publicly- available 1990 Topps George Bush (error) card features a picture of George Bush—George W. Bush—not George H.W. Bush. Appendix F provides images of the front and back of the 1990 Topps baseball card of George W. Bush. The picture of “W” is from when he was on Yale’s freshman baseball team. The back of the “W” card (with the same “USA1” number as the original “HW” card) provides the following information for George W. Bush: “HT: 6’0”; WT: 190; BATS: RIGHT; THROWS: RIGHT; BORN: 7-6-48, NEW HAVEN CT.; HOME: CRAWFORD, TX.” The only baseball statistics given on the “W” card are the won-lost and runs-scored and runs-allowed numbers for the Texas Rangers team for the seasons from 1989 through 1998—i.e., the “Texas Rangers Team Record with George W. Bush as Shareholder.” Also provided is a brief biography: “George W. Bush’s baseball roots date back to his Little League days, when he was coached by his future-president father, collected trading cards, and idolized Willie Mays. After serving as ‘high commissioner’ of a stickball league at Phillips Academy, he attended Yale, where he played on the freshman baseball team, was a rugby union fullback, and a cheerleader.”
47. Ryan Cracknell, “2013 Topps Archives Baseball New Errors Variations Guide,” cardboardconnections.com (retrieved July 17, 2017).
48. Ryan Cracknell, “The Story of the 1990 Topps George Bush Baseball Card,” cardboardconnections.com (retrieved June 28, 2017).
49. Danny Laurel, “2013 Topps Archives Baseball Full Checklist,” sportscardsmagazine.net, May 25, 2013 (retrieved July 17, 2017).
50. As it has developed, just like for George H.W. Bush, there have been a number of other George W. Bush baseball cards issued by various trading card companies. A search on eBay.com (July 17, 2017) showed that the following George W. Bush baseball cards were available (as well as others): (a) 2001 Fleer Platinum (#490); (b) 2011 Topps Allen & Ginter’s (#147); (c) 2004 Upper Deck Milwaukee Brewers (#SP15); (d) 2011 Topps Opening Day (#PFP-7); (e) 2011 Topps Opening Day (#PFP-8). Curiously, not listed was the 1990 Topps George W. Bush card (from the 2013 Topps Archives Baseball card set).
51. Kelly Brown, “Card Honors Bush’s Baseball Years,” The Bryan-College Station Eagle, May 21, 1999.
52. Herman Krabbenhoft, “George Herbert Walker Bush—Iron Man First Sacker at Yale,” Baseball Quarterly Reviews, Volume 4, Number 3, (Fall 1989) 101–15.
53. “Baseball Expert Challenges Yale Stats on ‘Poppy’ Bush,” USA Today Baseball Weekly, Volume 1, Number 5, Page 27 (May 03, 1991). This article is based on a letter (April 18, 1991) from Herman Krabbenhoft to Paul White, Editor, USA Today Baseball Weekly. The complete yearly and career statistical records for Bush provided in my letter were published in the article (without a by-line).
54. According to the game’s program/scorecard, the player rosters included several Hall of Famers and future Hall of Famers—Luke Appling, Joe DiMaggio, Larry Doby, Bob Feller, Whitey Ford, Harmon Killebrew, Mickey Mantle, Brooks Robinson, Hoyt Wilhelm, and Early Wynn for the American League and Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Orlando Cepeda, Monte Irvin, Juan Marichal, Willie Mays, Ron Santo, Enos Slaughter, Warren Spahn, and Billy Williams for the National League.
55. Cody McMillan (an Archives Technician of the National Archives and Records Administration for the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum AV Archives), “Old-Timers Baseball Game VP Appearance Synopsis,” July 13, 2017.
56. Cody McMillan, emails to Herm Krabbenhoft, July 11–14, 2017.
57. Kevin Widlic, “Bush Play Steals Show at Dream,” Denver Post, July 14, 1984.
58. Todd Phipers, “Old-Timers Got Licks,” Denver Post, July 14, 1984.
59. Kevin Simpson and Jim Benton, “Players Left a Game Full of Memories,” Rocky Mountain News, July 14, 1984.
60. “Vice President George Bush took the field with the…,” upi.com, July 14, 1984 (retrieved July 12, 2017). See also: “Sports People—Who’s on First?” The New York Times, July 15, 1984.
61. M. Charles Bakst, “Talkin’ Baseball for George Bush—Memories of the Babe and the Summer Game Warm the Chill of Winter,” Providence Journal, March 3, 1985.
62. Thomas Boswell, “A Real Sport: President Bush Has Love Affair with Many Games,” Washington Post, April 01, 1989.
63. Richard Ben Cramer, What It Takes: The Way to the White House (New York: Random House, 1992).
64. Doro Bush Koch, My Father, My President: A Personal Account of the Life of George H. W. Bush (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2006).
65. George W. Bush, 41—A Portrait of My Father.
66. Kevin Widlic, “Bush Play Steals Show at Dream,” Denver Post, July 14, 1984.
67. Simpson and Benton, “Players Left a Game Full of Memories.” 
68. “Vice President George Bush took the field with the…,” upi.com, July 14, 1984 (retrieved July 12, 2017). See also: “Sports People—Who’s on First?” The New York Times, July 15, 1984.
69. M. Charles Bakst, “Talkin’ Baseball for George Bush—Memories of the Babe and the Summer Game Warm the Chill of Winter,” Providence Journal, March 3, 1985.
70. Thomas Boswell, “A Real Sport: President Bush Has Love Affair with Many Games,” Washington Post, April 01, 1989.
71. Doro Bush Koch, My Father, My President.
72. George W. Bush, 41—A Portrait of My Father.
73. “Diamond Squad Tops Amherst, 9–6, for Eighth Straight,” Yale News Digest (#51, May 24, 1946) 1.
74. Kevin Widlic, “Bush Play Steals Show at Dream,” Denver Post, July 14, 1984.
75. Simpson and Benton, “Players Left a Game Full of Memories.” 
76. Bakst, “Talkin’ Baseball for George Bush.”
77. Doro Bush Koch, My Father, My President.
78. George W. Bush, 41—A Portrait of My Father.
79. Doro Bush Koch, My Father, My President.
80. “The Detroit Tigers Once Offered Vice President George H.W. Bush a Playing Contract (for $1) after Seeing Him Play in the 1984 Old Timers Game in Denver,” https://www.reddit.com, July 13, 2017 (retrieved July 26, 2017).
81. Dan Ewald, Jr., Personal communication (telephone conversation) with Herm Krabbenhoft, July 30, 2017.
82. Michelle Bogart (Archivist, George Bush Presidential Library and Museum), Personal communication (emails) to Herm Krabbenhoft, July 28, 2017.
83. Dr. Bobby Brown, MD, Personal communication (telephone conversation) with Herm Krabbenhoft, July 31, 2017.
84. Dr. Bobby Brown, MD, Personal communication (letter) to Herm Krabbenhoft, August 7, 2017.
85. Dr. Bobby Brown, MD, Personal communication (telephone conversation) with Herm Krabbenhoft, August 10, 2017.
86. George W. Bush, Note to Herm Krabbenhoft, November 15, 1989. In a letter (November 8, 1989) from Herm Krabbenhoft to George W. Bush, Managing General Partner, Texas Rangers Baseball Club, a copy of Baseball Quarterly Reviews (i.e., Reference 3) was provided to Mr. Bush, who replied promptly with the following hand-written note on Texas Rangers stationery: “Dear Herm—Thanks for the BQR’s. I look forward to reading about my Dad. Hopefully you will set the record straight since he claims he was more powerful than Ruth. Yours in baseball, George.” A photocopy of the note is given in Appendix I.
87. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana,” August 15, 1988, presidency.ucsb.edu (accessed June 27, 2017).
88. George Bush (with Victor Gold), Looking Forward. See also: George W. Bush, 41—A Portrait of My Father—“My father’s favorite collegiate pursuit took place on spring afternoons at Yale Field. As he later put it, he majored in economics and minored in baseball.”
89. Baseball Almanac, “President George Bush Baseball Related Quotations,” www.baseball-almanac.com (accessed June 29, 2017).

It is a pleasure to have the chance to speak to you this afternoon. It was back in December, if I recall correctly, when I finally decided on the topic of the talk that I am going to give this afternoon. It was a dark, cold day. I knew that the date of the speech was June 2[, 2008]. That brought to mind thoughts of spring. Thoughts of spring brought to mind thoughts of baseball. And thoughts of baseball brought to mind the case that I am going to talk about: Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League of Professional Baseball Players,1 a unanimous decision handed down by the Court on May 29, 1922 — 86 years ago last Thursday.

Of all the Court’s antitrust cases, the Federal Baseball case may well be the most widely known, but what most people know about the case is not quite accurate. The case is generally known as having held that baseball has an “antitrust exemption.” And critics of the decision—and they are legion—sometimes suggest that the decision was attributable to either (1) the Justices’ affection for baseball and a desire to bend the rules to promote its well-being2 or (2) the Justices’ woeful ignorance about what professional baseball had become by 1922.3 In truth, as we shall see, Justice Holmes’s unanimous opinion for the Court represented a fairly orthodox application of then-prevalent constitutional doctrine.

I.

To understand the Federal Baseball case, one must understand both the game and the relevant law as they were in 1922.

ANTITRUST

The law at issue in the Federal Baseball case was the Sherman Antitrust Act,4 which Congress enacted pursuant to its authority under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to regulate commerce among the several states. President Benjamin Harrison signed the Sherman Act into law on July 2, 1890. The bill had passed the House unanimously and passed the Senate with only one nay—and that from a Senator who “had taken no part in the debates on the bill.5

Despite its virtually unanimous congressional support, the Act’s legislative history reveals competing strains of thought on the purpose of the legislation.6 Some thought the Act should strike a blow at the cartelization of essential industries. Others wanted the Act to ensure a place in the national economy for smaller, higher-cost producers struggling to compete with more efficient, national concerns. The industrialization of the nineteenth century had unsettled the lives of different Americans in different ways, and the affected parties did not share the same vision for reform.

In order to accommodate these competing interests, the legislation was deliberately short on detail. Section 1 of the Act outlawed “[e]very contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States.”7 Section 2 made it unlawful to “monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations.”8 As others have observed, this language is too broad to be taken at face value.9 After all, every contract restrains trade insofar as it imposes obligations on the parties to deal with each other on certain terms rather than with other parties on other terms.

Yet it could not be the case that Congress intended to outlaw every contract and every business. The Clayton Act,10 enacted in 1914, clarified the law somewhat by declaring certain arrangements per se unlawful, but the scope of federal antitrust in most contexts remained murky. Congress had left it to the Third Branch to develop workable, rational principles for identifying conduct within and without the scope of the Act.

That process played out slowly, in part because the Court in the early period shared some of the ideological differences of the Act’s framers. The Court’s leading antitrust hawk was Justice John Marshall Harlan. An old-fashioned moralist, Harlan has been aptly described as a “southern gentleman”11 and “the last of the tobacco-spitting judges.”12 His colleague David Brewer joked that Harlan retired each evening at eight “with one hand on the Constitution and the other on the Bible, and so [slept] the sweet sleep of justice and righteousness.”13

Although Harlan came from a slave-owning family, he became the Court’s leading defender of the rights of African Americans and is perhaps best known today for his impassioned dissents in such cases as Plessy v. Ferguson and the Civil Rights Cases. Harlan saw enforcement of the antitrust laws as having a moral dimension. It is noteworthy that in the great Standard Oil case of 1911,14 Harlan compared the Gilded Age trusts to antebellum slavemasters. He claimed that turn-of-the-century America risked being subjected to “another kind of slavery[:] . . . the slavery that would result from aggregations of capital in the hands of a few individuals and corporations controlling, for their own profit and advantage exclusively, the entire business of the country, including the production and sale of the necessities of life.”15

Justice Peckham largely shared that view. In the Trans-Missouri Freight case of 1897, he lamented that colossal business combinations were “driving out of business the small dealers and worthy men whose lives have been spent therein, and who might be unable to readjust themselves to their altered surroundings.”16 In Peckham’s view, “[m]ere reduction in the price of the commodity dealt in might be dearly paid for by the ruin of such a class and the absorption of control over one commodity by an all-powerful combination of capital.”17

Justice Holmes’s worldview could not have been more different. Holmes, of course, is almost a mythic figure, remembered as “all things to all commentators.”18 On the one hand, there is the Holmes of the play and movie, The Magnificent Yankee. On the other, there is the revisionist picture of Holmes painted by, among others, one of my old professors, Grant Gilmore, who wrote that “[t]he real Holmes was savage, harsh, and cruel, a bitter and lifelong pessimist who saw in the course of human life nothing but a continuing struggle in which the rich and powerful impose their will on the poor and weak.”19 According to Professor Albert Alschuler of the University of Chicago Law School, Holmes’s wartime experiences and the Social Darwinism of the time made him a moral skeptic and convinced him that life was a struggle in which might made right.20 Consistent with this view, Holmes disdained the federal antitrust laws. In private correspondence, he referred to the Sherman Act as “a humbug based on economic ignorance and incompetence.”21

Holmes was appointed to the Court in 1902 by President Theodore Roosevelt, and the first major antitrust case in which he participated was the famous Northern Securities case of 1904.22 Two railroad barons, J.P. Morgan and James J. Hill, had created a new enterprise, the Northern Securities Company, to hold the stock of railroads that owned the track needed to provide service through Chicago to the West Coast. Critics saw this as a transparent attempt to monopolize the nation’s transcontinental railroad system, and shortly after taking office, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered his Attorney General to bring suit to break up the company. The government was successful in the lower court, and when the case reached this Court it was said to be the most closely watched case since Dred Scott.23 Justice Harlan, writing for a 5–4 Court, held that the Sherman Act reached the merger because the merger had a direct effect on interstate commerce.

Holmes dissented. He found the case indistinguishable from one of the Court’s earlier antitrust cases, United States v. E.C. Knight Co., which repelled a Sherman Act attack against the merger of companies that together refined approximately ninety-eight percent of the nation’s sugar.24 According to Holmes, “[t]he point decided in [E.C. Knight] was that ‘the fact . . . that trade or commerce might be indirectly affected was not enough to entitle complainants to a decree.”25

Holmes also hinted at his feelings about antitrust, predicting that the Court’s interpretation of the Sherman Act “would make eternal the bellum omnium contra omnes and disintegrate society so far as it could into individual atoms.”26 President Roosevelt, who, as noted, had appointed Holmes to the Court, was not pleased by Holmes’s position. He later famously claimed that Holmes had displayed “all the backbone of a banana.”27

BASEBALL

With this brief discussion of early twentieth-century antitrust jurisprudence, let me shift to baseball. According to legend, the first baseball game was played at Cooperstown, New York, in 1839,28 two years before Justice Holmes was born. In fact, versions of the game date back much farther, but organized baseball did not emerge until the middle of the nineteenth century.29 The first organized game is said to have been played in 1845 in Hoboken, New Jersey, at a place called the Elysian Fields.30 The first game between college teams took place in 1859.31 The first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, made its debut in 1869.32 And in 1876, the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, the ancestor of today’s National League, was formed.

Thereafter, rival leagues periodically sprouted up. In the late nineteenth century, one of the great players of the day, Monte Ward, a law school graduate, started the Players’ League, but aggressive tactics by the National League drove the Players’ League out of business.33 A more formidable rival, the American League, was established in 1901. For a time, the two leagues competed for players, but in 1903, they signed a truce known as the National Agreement. Pursuant to the National Agreement, the two leagues agreed to recognize each other as equals and to honor each other’s contracts and observe the reserve clause, which tied a player to his team. The agreement put in place the essential structure of professional baseball that lasted for decades, and it was followed by the emergence of the game as the true national pastime.

Baseball soon became big business. In 1910, President Taft threw out the first pitch at National Park, the home of the Washington Senators. In the early 1920s, Babe Ruth came on the scene, shattered home-run records, made fans forget the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, and became a larger-than-life celebrity. In England, George Bernard Shaw asked, “Who is this Babe Ruth, and what does she do?”34 In 1921, the Yankees drew 1.2 million fans, and their cross-town rivals, the Giants, drew nearly a million.35 More than a quarter million fans bought tickets to watch the two teams face off in the 1921 World Series.

II.

Like the American League before it, the Federal League got its start as an independent confederation of teams with no pretense of competing with Major League Baseball. It was founded in 1913 with six teams representing the cities of Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Covington, Kentucky (which served the Cincinnati market). The league’s schedule was drawn up to avoid competition with major-league games, and the league’s clubs took care not to recruit players under contract with the major leagues.36 This business model proved modestly successful. Although we do not have attendance figures for the 1913 season, we know that they were strong enough to keep the league afloat despite a lackluster pennant race.37

The league soon abandoned its humble designs with the election of a new league president, James Gilmore, following the 1913 season. Gilmore, one of the financial backers of the Chicago club, had made his fortune in the coal and heating business,38 and he lent the league his vigorous executive leadership. Under Gilmore, the league expanded from six to eight teams, adding franchises in Baltimore and Buffalo. The league also replaced the Cleveland club with a, team in Brooklyn, slowly shifting its center of gravity eastward.

The league was now home to the Baltimore Terrapins (or “Baltfeds”), the Brooklyn TipTops (or “Brookfeds”), the Buffalo Blues (or “Buffeds”), the Chicago Wales (or “Chifeds”), the Kansas City Packers (or “Kanfeds”), the Pittsburgh Rebels (or “Pittfeds”), the St. Louis Terriers, and the Indianapolis Hoosiers (who were moved to Newark, New Jersey, and renamed the Peppers in 1915).

Like Gilmore, many of the league’s backers came to baseball from the business world. The Brookfeds, for example, were controlled by baked-goods baron Robert B. Ward, while oil tycoon Harry Sinclair owned the Peppers. Other financial heavyweights backing the league included hotel magnate Edward Krause, brewer Otto Stiffel, and of course Gilmore himself. Their wherewithal gave the Federal League a sound financial footing.

Although captains of industry dominated the Federal League, it is important to note that two of the league’s teams, the Baltfeds and the Buffeds, were publicly owned. Both signed up when the league expanded to eight teams before the 1914 season. The Baltfeds were formed to bring Major League Baseball back to Baltimore after the Orioles left the city in 1903 to become the New York Yankees. Some 600 Baltimore citizens claimed ownership in the club, most with just a handful of shares.39

The Buffeds likewise raised capital by running ads in local newspapers. One ad promised that the Buffed organization would be “one of the greatest financial successes in the history of baseball.40 The ad went on:

If you want to be identified with this new project-and it seems to us that every live, red-blooded man, woman, and child should have such an ambition-you must obey that impulse NOW. Visit or telephone our temporary office . . . and make your application.

DO IT NOW! TODAY IS THE LAST DAY!41

The local public’s stake in the Baltimore and Buffalo franchises shaped the vision that those two clubs had for the Federal League—a vision that their sister clubs may not have shared. Notably, the antitrust suit that came before this Court in the Federal Baseball case was originally filed by the Baltimore franchise.

Armed with fresh capital and a full complement of eight teams, in 1914 Gilmore’s Federal League declared itself a major league and went into open competition with the National and American Leagues for fans and talent. On the surface, the gambit seemed successful. The league’s attendance in the 1914 and 1915 seasons rivaled attendance in the big leagues.42

Beneath the surface, however, the league’s business model was cracking. League management had sought to win over big league fans by poaching talent from big league teams, but that talent did not come cheap—and often it would not come at all. Major-league player salaries, long depressed by the anti-competitive effects of the reserve clause and the ineligible lists, ballooned in the face of competition from the Federal League. But most of the big league players had no intention of defecting. They just used the threat of defection as leverage to renegotiate their contracts with the major-league clubs. Players who did defect risked blacklisting; those willing to take that risk were generally in the twilights of their careers, with little to lose.

As a result, the Federal League was forced to pay steep salaries to secure mostly aging talent. Coupled with the league’s heavy capital expenditures (in only a couple of years, it erected eight new stadiums),43 the salary wars put the Federal League in the hole. By the end of the 1915 season, the Baltimore Terrapins had lost $65,000, while the Brooklyn Tip-Tops had accumulated losses of $800,000, and the Buffalo and Kansas City franchises were insolvent.44

The Federal League’s end came swiftly. Its final days are vividly captured in the record and briefs filed with this Court in the Federal Baseball case. As late as November 1915, Gilmore, the president of the Federal League and a defendant in the suit, was writing member clubs about preparations for the 1916 season. In a letter dated November 21, 1915, Gilmore wrote Harry Goldman, the Baltimore club’s secretary, asking him to prepare a rough budget for the Baltfeds’ 1916 season.45

Even as late as November 30, 1915, Gilmore was writing the club president, Carroll Rasin, to recommend a promising player for the club’s 1916 roster.46 Less than three weeks after that, on December 16, 1915, Gilmore sent another, more cryptic correspondence: an urgent telegram addressed to Rasin and Baltfed director (and future Hall of Famer) Ned Hanlon. It read simply: “‘You and Hanlon be at Biltmore in morning. Important.’”47

Rasin, Hanlon, and the club’s general counsel, Stuart Janney, took the midnight train to New York and, upon arrival the following morning, went straight to the Biltmore Hotel on Madison Avenue. Gilmore greeted them with the devastating news: The Federal League’s 1916 season was “‘all off.’”48 The league had sued for peace with organized baseball. As a result of the truce, several Federal League owners accepted buyouts, a couple more were permitted to buy franchises in the major leagues, and three franchises—including the two that were publicly owned, Baltimore and Buffalo—were left to twist in the wind.

The details of the transaction were ironed out at meetings at the Biltmore and, later that evening, at the Waldorf-Astoria. The participants did posterity the good service of stenographically recording the Waldorf meeting, so we have a transcript of what transpired. Although the secondary literature has not reached consensus on why Baltimore opted out of the settlement, the Waldorf transcript implies that the dub did not even have a seat at the table. That would make sense. The major leagues did not need to eliminate every franchise in order to hobble their competitor.

Moreover, the Baltimore market did not appeal to Organized Baseball, which had already left the market once in 1903. Charles Comiskey, owner of the White Sox, expressed the view that Baltimore was “a minor league city, and not a hell of a good one at that.”49

To settle the Baltfeds’ claims against the rest of the league, its sister clubs offered the franchise $50,000 as its “equitable distribution” of the league’s value, but that sum was a pittance compared to what other members of the league were getting. Robert Ward, owner of the Brooklyn Tip-Tops, received $400,000 for giving up his team. The Baltfeds said no thanks. Following the holidays, they convened an emergency meeting of their shareholders in Baltimore, at which management received authority to take the organization’s grievances to court. The Baltfeds sold their remaining assets to raise money for legal fees and then filed suit in federal court.

III.

It should be noted that the Federal Baseball case was not the first antitrust action to arise out of the Federal League imbroglio. Well before the Federal League was disbanded, it brought its own suit against Organized Baseball in the Northern District of Illinois. The complaint, filed after the league’s 1914 season, named as defendants the National League, the American League, all sixteen club presidents, and the National Commission. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants had monopolized and conspired to monopolize the business of giving baseball exhibitions, in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. They also alleged that the National Agreement amounted to a contract in restraint of trade, in violation of Section 1 of the Act.

A number of commentators have speculated that the Federal League filed suit in the Northern District of Illinois because that was where District Judge (and future baseball commissioner) Kenesaw Mountain Landis held sway.50 Judge Landis, a Roosevelt appointee, had already burnished his reputation as a trust-buster. In 1907, he had ordered the Standard Oil Company to pay a fine of $29,240,000 for violations of the Elkins Act.51 At the time, this was the largest fine ever levied in American history.52

Judge Landis was also a keen baseball fan, and he was apparently concerned that a decision adverse to the major leagues would undermine the game. During trial, he declared from the bench that “‘any blows at . . . baseball would be regarded by this court as a blow to a national institution.’”53 Judge Landis never ruled on the case before him. It languished on his docket until the end of 1915, when it was mooted by the peace agreement described above.

And that brings us to the Federal Baseball case. In September 1917, the Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore filed suit in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia pursuant to Section 4 of the Clayton Act. The complaint named everyone in sight as a defendant: the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs and each of its eight member teams; the American League of Professional Baseball Clubs and each of its eight member teams; National League president (and former Pennsylvania governor) John K. Tener; American League president Bancroft Johnson; National Commission president August Herrmann; former league president James Gilmore; former Chifeds chief Charles Weeghman; and former Newark Peppers chief Harry Sinclair.

The Baltimore club accused the defendants of conspiring to destroy its franchise by monopolizing the baseball business and restraining trade therein. The case was tried to a jury before the Honorable Wendell P. Stafford. Judge Stafford instructed the jury that Organized Baseball was engaged in interstate trade and commerce and that, by means of the National Agreement and the reserve system, it had created a monopoly in that business.54 He left it to the jury to determine whether the Baltimore club had suffered damages as a result of that monopoly.

The jury found that it had and returned a verdict in the plaintiff’s favor. It fixed the club’s damages at $80,000. Pursuant to Section 4(a) of the Clayton Act, that amount was trebled, and the club received a judgment of $240,000 plus its counsel fees.

Organized baseball appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and the D.C. Circuit reversed. The court accepted that Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act outlawed the monopoly or restraint of trade or commerce among the States.55 It framed the issue on appeal as follows: “Did the giving of exhibitions of baseball, under the circumstances disclosed in the record, constitute trade or commerce within the meaning of the Sherman Act? If it did not, then the act does not apply, and the appellee has no right to invoke its provisions.”56

To answer that question, the court looked to the definitions of the terms “trade” or “commerce” in Webster s Dictionary. It also considered how those terms had been defined in this Court’s precedent, including Chief Justice Marshall’s famous opinion in Gibbons v. Ogden57 and Chief Justice Fuller’s opinion in the E.C. Knight case mentioned earlier.58

“Through these definitions,” the D.C. Circuit reasoned, “runs the idea that trade and commerce require the transfer of something, whether it be persons, commodities, or intelligence, from one place or person to another.”59 Applying that standard, the court concluded that the Baltimore club was engaged in the purely intrastate business of baseball exhibitions:

The players, it is true, travel from place to place in interstate commerce, but they are not the game. Not until they come into contact with their opponents on the baseball field and the contest opens does the game come into existence. It is local in its beginning and in its end. Nothing is transferred in the process to those who patronize it.60

The court thus distinguished between the baseball exhibitions and the interstate movement of players and equipment, which was merely incidental to the games themselves. Since the reserve system and ineligibility lists had at most an indirect effect on the movement of the players and their equipment across state lines, they did not offend the Sherman Act.61

Although the D.C. Circuit’s analysis may seem pat and formalistic in light of modern doctrine, it was in line with this Court’s analysis in the E.C. Knight case. It focused not on whether the defendant’s conduct violated the substantive prohibition of the antitrust laws, but on whether the conduct sufficiently partook of interstate commerce to be prohibited by Congress at all. The parties focused on the latter issue when the case came before this Court on writ of error. The Court having not yet imposed page limits, the plaintiffs in error filed a 200-page brief, 40 pages of which were devoted to addressing the scope of the “trade or commerce” reached by the Sherman Act. Fewer than twenty pages addressed the substantive antitrust question.

Moreover, the author of the D.C. Circuit’s opinion was no antitrust slouch. The opinion was written by Chief Justice Constantine J. Smyth. Prior to joining the Court, Smyth had spent four years as Special Assistant to the Attorney General, overseeing the government’s prosecution of antitrust cases.62

Justice Holmes’s unanimous opinion for the Court found Smyth’s analysis persuasive. Like Smyth, Holmes focused his inquiry on whether the business of baseball was interstate “trade or commerce” within the meaning of the Sherman Act. He took the D.C. Circuit’s starting point as his own because, in his words, “[t]he decision of the Court of Appeals went to the root of the case and if correct makes it unnecessary to consider other serious difficulties in the way of the plaintiff’s recovery.”63 After briefly reviewing the facts, he declared that “the Court of Appeals was right.”64

Holmes’s opinion in the Federal Baseball case was tightly written. His analysis of the question presented—a question to which the parties had devoted about 400 pages of briefing—consumed all of two paragraphs. He agreed with the D.C. Circuit’s characterization of the business in question as “giving exhibitions of base ball,” a business that to his eye was a “purely state affair.”65 The fact that players and their accoutrements had to cross state lines to play did not transform the essential intrastate nature of the games themselves.

“It is true,” Holmes wrote, “that in order to attain for these exhibitions the great popularity that they have achieved, competitions must be arranged between clubs from different cities and States. But the fact that in order to give the exhibitions the Leagues must induce free persons to cross state lines and must arrange and pay for their doing so is not enough to change the character of the business.”66

In support of this reasoning, Justice Holmes relied on the Court’s analysis in Hooper v. California,67 an 1895 decision in which the Court had held, over Justice Harlan’s dissent, that the sale of maritime insurance in California on behalf of an out-of-state carrier was not interstate commerce. “The business of insurance,” the Court had written in Hooper, “is not commerce. The contract of insurance is not an instrumentality of commerce. The making of such a contract is a mere incident of commercial intercourse.”68 The Hooper case was the same precedent on which the D.C. Circuit had chiefly relied, and it was the only precedent that Holmes cited.

IV.

So what should we think about Holmes’s opinion in the Federal Baseball case? To many, the answer is “not much.” It has been pilloried pretty consistently in the legal literature since at least the 1940s. Commentators have called it: “[b]aseball’s most infamous opinion”;69 a “clearly wrong” decision based on a “curious and narrow misreading of the antitrust laws and/or [an] utter misunderstanding of the nature of the business of baseball”;70 a “remarkably myopic” decision, “almost willfully ignorant of the nature of [baseball]”;71 and a “simple and simplistic” decision that forms “a source of embarrassment for scholars of Holmes.”72 One commentator speculated that the Court simply “exempted baseball from the antitrust laws because it was the national pastime.”73

The decision has also been criticized from the bench. Judge Jerome Frank of the Second Circuit derided it as an “impotent zombie [sic]” void of vitality in light of the Court’s more recent decisions.74 Another jurist from that court, Judge Henry Friendly, declared that “Federal Baseball was not one of Mr. Justice Holmes’s happiest days.”75

Members of this Court have not been much kinder. The Court has had at least two opportunities to overrule the Federal Baseball case, first in the 1953 case of Toolson v. New York Yankees, Inc.76 and then again in the 1972 case of Flood v. Kuhn.77 Both times it let the case stand, both times over withering dissents. Justice Harold Burton, dissenting in Toolson, criticized the Federal Baseball case’s understanding of professional baseball as a “purely state affair”:

In the light of organized baseball’s well-known and widely distributed capital investments used in conducting competitions between teams constantly traveling between states, its receipts and expenditures of large sums transmitted between states, its numerous purchases of materials in interstate commerce, the attendance at its local exhibitions of large audiences often traveling across state lines, its radio and television activities which expand its audiences beyond state lines, its sponsorship of interstate advertising, and its highly organized “farm system” of minor league baseball clubs, coupled with restrictive contracts and understandings between individuals and among clubs or leagues playing for profit throughout the United States, and even in Canada, Mexico and Cuba, it is a contradiction in terms to say that the defendants in the cases before us are not now engaged in interstate trade or commerce as those terms are used in the Constitution of the United States and in the Sherman Act.78

Justice William Douglas was even more unsparing with his criticism in Flood. He characterized the Federal Baseball case as a “derelict in the stream of the law that we, its creator, should remove. Only a romantic view of a rather dismal business account over the last 50 years would keep that derelict in midstream.”79 Justice Douglas added that although he had joined the Court’s opinion in Toolson, he had “lived to regret it.”80

Even those who signed onto the Court’s opinions in Toolson and Flood regarded Federal Baseball as a relic. Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of the Court’s opinion in Flood, called the Federal Baseball case an “aberration,” albeit “an established one.”81 In one of the other sports antitrust cases that came before the Court, Justice Tom Clark dismissed Holmes’s decision as “unrealistic, inconsistent, . . . illogical,” and “of dubious validity.”82 In short, as one recent historian put it, “[t]he critiques of [the] decision are legion and its fans few.”83

Only very recently have some scholars given Holmes’s opinion less caustic reviews. For example, Jerald Duquette’s 1999 work on baseball and antitrust finds Justice Holmes’s reasoning “consistent with Progressive Era jurisprudence regarding the treatment of ‘incidental’ interstate transportation.,”84 Perhaps the best defense of Holmes was published by this Society: in “Antitrust and Baseball: Stealing Holmes,” Kevin McDonald argued that the Federal Baseball case was “scorned principally for things that were not in the opinion, but later added by Toolson and Flood.”85

This assessment seems to me to be accurate. In 1922, the Court saw the Commerce Power as a limited power that did not extend to all “economic . . . activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.”86 This approach forced the Court to draw fine—some would say arbitrary—lines. Those who think poorly of this entire enterprise will obviously think poorly of the Federal Baseball case as well. But that decision is no less defensible than Holmes’s Northern Securities dissent87 or the Court’s decisions in cases such as E.C. Knight and Hooper.

There is some irony in the outcome of the Federal Baseball case. In law, the view of baseball as a local affair prevailed. The argument that baseball was a big interstate business lost. But the real losers in the case were local people. The local interests were those connected with the Baltfeds, a ball club owned by some 600 citizens of Baltimore. The city felt slighted when the soon-to-be Yankees left town, and so the local political machinery stepped in and joined a renegade league to bring baseball back. For the people of Baltimore who backed the team, baseball, like politics, was local.

SAMUEL A. ALITO JR. is associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Acknowledgments

Justice Alito delivered this speech as the Supreme Court Historical Society’s 2008 Annual Lecture. It was published originally in the Journal of Supreme Court History 34, no. 2 (July 2009): 183–95. The Justice expresses his gratitude to James Hunter, one of his law clerks for the October 2007 term, and Linda Corbelli, one of the Court’s librarians, for their invaluable assistance.

Notes

1 59 U.S. 200 (1922).

2 See infra note and accompanying text.

3 See infra notes and accompanying text.

4 An Act to Protect Trade and Commerce Against Unlawful Restraints and Monopolies, ch. 647, 26 Stat. 209 (1890).

5 The Legislative History of the Federal Antitrust Laws and Related Statutes 25 n. 1.163 (Earl W Kintner ed., 1978).

6 See generally Thomas D. Morgan, Cases and Materials on Modern Antitrust Law and Its Origins 25–29 (2d ed.2001).

7 Sherman Act § I, 26 Stat. at 209.

8 Id. § 2, 26 Stat. at 209.

9 See, e.g., Alan 1. Meese, “Price Theory, Competition, and the Rule of Reason,” 2003 U Ill. L. Rev. 77, 83 & n. 28 (2003).

10 An Act to Supplement Existing Laws Against Unlawful Restraints and Monopolies, and for Other Purposes, ch. 323, 38 Stat. 730 (1914).

11 Jonathan Lurie, Book review, 38 Am. J. Legal Hist. 378,378 (1994).

12 Louis R. Cohen, “A Biography of the Second Justice Harlan,” 91 Mich. L. Rev. 1609, 1610 n. 4 (1993) (quoting Holmes’s description of Harlan in Paul E. Freund et aI., Constitutional Law: Cases and Other Problems, at xxxix–xl (1977)).

13 Id.

14 221 U.S. 1 (1911).

15 Id. at 83 (Harlan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

16 United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Ass’n, 166 U.S. 290, 323 (1897).

17 Id.

18 G. Edward White, “Looking at Holmes in the Mirror,” 4 L. & Hist. Rev. 439, 440 (1986), cited in Alfred S. Neely, “A Humbug Based on Economic Ignorance and Incompetence—Antitrust in the Eyes of Justice Holmes,” 1993 Utah L. Rev. 1, 6 n. 20.

19 Grant Gilmore, The Ages of American Law 48–49 (1977).

20 Albert W. Alschuler, Law Without Values: The Life, Work, and Legacy of Justice Holmes 58–59 (2000).

21 Letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes to Sir Frederick Pollock (Apr. 30, 1910), in I Holmes–Pollock Letters: The Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes and Sir Frederick Pollock, 1874–1932, at 163, 163 (Mark DeWolfe Howe ed., 1944).

22 N Sec. Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197 (1904).

23 R. Blake Brown & Bruce A. Kimball, “When Holmes Borrowed from Langdell: The ‘Ultra Legal’ Formalism and Public Policy of Northern Securities (1904),” 45 Am. J. Legal Hist. 278, 287–88 (2001) (citing “The Hearing in the Northern Securities Case,” 77 The Nation 499, 499 (1903)).

24 156 U.S. I, 17–18 (1895).

25 193 U.S. at 402 (Holmes, J., dissenting).

26 Id. at 411.

27 C. D. Bowen, Yankee from Olympus 370 (1944), cited in Morgan, supra note, at 80 & n. 10.

28 Geoffrey C. Ward & Ken Bums, Baseball: An Illustrated History 3 (2007).

29 See id. at 3–4.

30 Id. at 4–5.

31 Id. at 15.

32 Id. at 20.

33 See id. at 39–40.

34 Id. at 153.

35 Baseball Chronology.com, Major League Baseball Attendance for 1921, http://www.baseballchronology.com (last visited April 5, 2009).

36 See Marc Okkonen, The Federal League of 1914–1915: Baseball’s Third Major League (SABR, 1989): 3.

37 See id. at 5.

38 Id.

39 See Br. for the Appellee at 3, 5, Nat’l League of Prof’l Baseball Clubs v. Fed. Baseball Club of Balt., Inc., 269 F. 681 (D.C. Cir. 1921) (No. 3368); Br. on Behalf of Defendants in Error at 42, Fed. Baseball Club of Balt., Inc. v. Nat’l League of Prof’l Baseball Clubs, 259 U.S. 200 (1922) (No. 204).

40 Buffalo Federal League Baseball Company, Inc., “Share in the Profits of the Game You Patronize” (undated 1914 newspaper advertisement), reprinted in Okkonen, supra note, at 11.

41 Id.

42 David S. Neft et al., The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball 68 (5th ed. 1982).

43 Gary Hailey, “Anatomy of a Murder: The Federal League and the Courts,” in The National Pastime: A Review of Baseball History, 62-63 (Merritt Clifton ed., SABR, 1985).

44 See id. at 66.

45 Br. on Behalf of Plaintiff in Error at 79, Fed. Baseball Club of Bait., 259 U.S. 200 (citing Record at 325).

46 Id. (citing Record at 326).

47 Id. (quoting Record at 301).

48 Id.

49 App. to Br. on Behalf of Defendants in Error at 155, Fed. Baseball Club of Balt., 259 U.S. 200.

50 See, e.g., 1. Philip Calabrese, “The Racial Re-integration of Major League Baseball,” 11 Seton Hall J. Sport J. Sport L. 1, 24 (2001); Jason M. Pollack, Note, “Take My Arbitrator, Please: Commissioner ‘Best Interests’ Disciplinary Authority in Professional Sports,” 67 Fordham L. Rev. 1645, 1650 (1999).

51 See United States v. Standard Oil Co. of Ind., 155 F. 305, 321 (1907).

52 See Shayna M. Sigman, “The Jurisprudence of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis,” 15 Marq. Sports L. Rev. 277, 295 (2005).

53 Benjamin G. Rader, Baseball: A History of America’s Game 109 (1992), quoted in Jerold J. Duquette, Regulating the National Pastime: Baseball and Antitrust 17 (1999).

54 See G. Edward White, Creating the National Pastime: Baseball Transforms Itself, 1903–1953, at 71–72 (1996).

55 Fed. Baseball Club of Balt., 269 F. at 684.

56 Id.

57 9 Wheat. (22 U.S.) I (1824).

58 United States v. E.C. Knight Co., 156 U.S. 1 (1895); see also supra text accompanying notes 24-25.

59 Fed. Baseball Club of Balt., 269 F. at 684.

60 Id. at 684–85.

61 See id. at 687–88.

62 Jeffrey Brandon Morris, Calmly to Poise the Scales of Justice: A History of the Courts of the District of Columbia Circuit 71, 78 (2001).

63 Fed. Baseball Club of Balt., 259 U.S. at 208.

64 Id.

65 Id.

66 Id. at 208–9.

67 155 U.S. 648 (1895).

68 Id. at 655.

69 Eldon L. Ham, “Aside the Aside: The True Precedent of Baseball in Law,” 13 Marq. Sports L. Rev. 213, 215 (2003).

70 Paul Finkelman, “Baseball and the Rule of Law Revisited,” 25 T. Jefferson L. Rev. 17, 30 (2002).

71 White, supra note, at 70.

72 Baseball and the American Legal Mind 75–76 (Spencer Weber Waller et al. eds., 1995).

73 Roger I. Abrams, “Blackmun’s List,” 6 Va. Sports & Ent. L. J. 181, 183 (2006–7); see also Roger I. Abrams, Legal Bases: Baseball and the Law 60 (1998).

74 Gardella v. Chandler, 172 F. 2d 402, 408–9 (2d Cir. 1949) (Frank, J., concurring).

75 Salerno v. Am. League of Prof’l Baseball Clubs, 429 F. 2d 1003, 1005 (2d Cir. 1970).

76 346 U.S. 356 (1953) (per curiam).

77 407 U.S. 258 (1972).

78 346 U.S. at 357–58 (1953) (Burton, J., dissenting) (citation omitted).

79 407 U.S. at 286 (Douglas, J., dissenting).

80 Id. at 286 n.l.

81 Id. at 282 (Blackmun, J.).

82 Radovich v. Nat’l Football League, 352 U.S. 445, 450, 452 (1957).

83 Baseball and the American Legal Mind, supra note, at 78 n. 1.

84 Duquette, supra note, at 18.

85 Kevin McDonald, “Antitrust and Baseball: Stealing Holmes,” 1998 J. Sup. Ct. Hist. 89, 122 (1998).

86 Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 17 (2005) (citing Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 151 (1971) and Wickardv. Filburn, 317 U.S. Ill, 128–29 (1942) (internal quotation marks omitted)).

87 N. Sec. Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197 (1904).