January 2, 1934 - Baseball in the Great Depression

Introduction

The title of this blog is "Depression Era Baseball," rather than "Baseball in the 1930s," "1934 Baseball Replay," or "Sleeper Cars and Flannel Uniforms," (its subtitle) all of which I contemplated originally. I chose the title because it implies that the game had a specific character or style that was, somehow, connected to the Great Depression itself, not merely coincidental with it. My view is that the game's style during the 1930s and the Depression were intimately connected.

That is not unique. Baseball is our national pasttime because it is a reflection of us. Therefore, its contours are shaped by larger societal forces at all times. This blog attempts to explore how the game was shaped by those larger forces during this particular period.

The game on the field

According to the Spalding Official Base Ball Guide for 1934 ("Spalding Guide"), "Until 1925, the bunt had become a factor in the game that played as important a part in it as anything that had to do with hitting...From 1925 until 1932, however, the free hitting batter came back into his own." The grip on the bat shifted away from having the hands apart or well up on the bat to "once more grasping the bat at the end with a 'determination to knock the cover off...'" This trend, according to the Spalding Guide, changed during the 1932 season. Placement of the ball once again emerged as more important than hitting with brute force, and the older grip returned to favor. Players who had, according to the Guide, emphasized individual records at the expense of sacrificing runners and doing what was best for the team began to realize that they could not attain Ruthian standards, and once more reverted to a small ball style. At the beginning of the 1934 season, then, there was "less attention being paid to the hitting of home runs than there has been. The "aging of Ruth," it predicted, would result in "the development of something other than home runs" being put at the epicenter of the batter's struggle with pitchers.

According to baseball historian Bill James, "the game (baseball in the 1930s) was rich in characters, but not particularly rich in strategy... there probably is no decade in the history of the sport in which the game changed as little as it did between 1929 and 1939." Another historian, Thomas Gilbert, concludes that the characterization of the 1930s as a "golden era" of baseball is overrated. He summarizes it as "a time of high run totals, cheap batting records, and overrated careers." The game was, in his words, "rough, unsophisticated, and probably overrated by posterity." But, he concedes, it was also "scrappy, colorful, and if you could spend a $1 for a bleacher seat, a whole lot of fun." There is a seeming contradiction here - overrated, yet a whole lot of fun. Yet, with a little work, I think this contradiction can be explained.

Although both leagues played by the same rules (no designated hitters) the leagues did have some differences. In particular, according to James, the National League had taken steps to "deaden" the ball a little after the somewhat run scoring, homer happy 1920s, while the American league did not. As a result, there was significantly more scoring in the AL in this era. From 1931-1942 the AL scored between eight and 25 percent more than the NL. 1933 remains the year in which one league outscored the other by the widest margin, as AL teams averaged just fewer than five runs per game while NL teams averaged less than four. The American League 1936 season remains the highest scoring season in baseball history. In all, 8 of the 15 seasons with the highest run differentials between leagues in history occurred during this era.

This was despite the fact that in 1934 the leagues had agreed to a uniform baseball for the first time in Major League history. This was the first significant rules change since 1931, when the rule on ground rule doubles was established (previously, balls that went over the outfield fence or into the stands after bouncing in fair territory were home runs). It would remain the only significant rule change until 1939, when the rule regarding where the pitcher could position his feet in regards to the pitching rubber was changed. This new, supposedly uniform ball was thought at the beggining of the season to be livlier than the NL ball, although not quite the same as the AL's ball either. Although there were uniform specs, the balls continued to be made by different companies (Spalding and Reach). Some experts contend, however, that there were still real differences between AL and NL balls that account for the scoring differentials. Another factor that has been cited as adding to this phenomenon was a hitter friendly strike zone in the AL. Despite having the same rules and an agreement to use the same balls on paper, then, there appears to have been a very different baseballs and strike zones between the leagues in fact leading to better hitting in the AL and better pitching in the NL.

Two other major differences between the way the game was played then (and other eras prior to the game of today) and today include the glove shape and the use of relief pitchers. Originally, gloves were created to protect hands rather than facilitate catching (see the illustration accompanying the introduction). The 1930 models were not significantly improved in this regard. Therefore, you’re likely to see more errors in this replay than in a standard ball game today. GA, chapter 2. Next, when a pitcher started a game, he was expected to finish it. Baseball did not have the money it does today, and extra spots on the roster for relievers was frowned upon. You're likely to see far more complete games and fewer relief innings pitched in this replay than in today's game.

The game off the field

Baseball remained primarily an eastern institution in the 1930s, as it continued to be played (as it had been since 1903) at the Major League level in New York (three teams), Boston (two teams), Chicago (two teams), St. Louis (two teams), Philadelphia (two teams), Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Washington and Detroit. Although this distribution of teams was "out of whack" with the country's population distribution by the end of the 1930s, the nation's transportation system, still reliant on road and rail with air travel only in its infancy, would not allow for a league comprised of teams on both coasts (BJHA p. 145). Things would, in fact, remain the same until 1953, when the Boston Braves departed for Milwaukee.

Yet, if the game remained unchanged on the field and off the field in some ways, there were significant developments off the field in others. Radio broadcasts became more more mainstream in the 1930s. Firsts include the All Star Game, the proliferation of awards such as the MVP, night baseball, and the first television broadcast of a baseball game.

The Economics of Baseball in the 30s

The most important way the game differed off the field from any other era before or since, however, was the economics of the game. Before the days of lucrative TV and cable deals and free agency, the game was not awash in money, and what money was made was controlled by the owners. The infamous "reserve clause" in baseball contracts meant that players could not play for any major league team but the one that had signed them unless that club "sold" their contract to another, which then had exclusive rights to the player. If the player was unwilling to accept the club's salary offer, all he could do was hold out or take a job outside of major league baseball. As a result, salaries were lower than they would be if players could offer their services to any team as they can today, and players fought hard ever year in spring training to make the team.

Although the 1920s and prior years were the same in this respect, the economy was very strong (the "Roaring 20s") and therefore attendance, revenue, and salaries were good compared to the 1930s. Attendance and salaries in the 1930s were down significantly from the 1920s. According to the 1934 Spalding Guide, "The base ball (sic) season for 1934 bids fair to be more successful than that of 1933 for everyone connected to the game. The players have received a reduction in salaries, but they are by no means brought to the point where they can be called "skimpy." They will not be paid fance figures, as the days of such remuneration have gone in base ball, for a time at least. In that respect base ball simpy meets the curtailment of expenses found necessary in other industries."

Minor league teams, which had enjoyed more autonomous previously, found that affilating with big league teams were necessary to survive, leading to the structure we have today. Depression era baseball therefore fell into a unique economic position vis a vis other periods in baseball.

Almost exclusively blue collar players fought for the few jobs on one of only 16 teams, knowing that failure likely meant going back to work in a factory, the mines, or some similarly unpleasant field (or, very possibly, no job at all). There were no multi-year contracts. Each year, ownership looked at a player's statistics from the earlier year and made him a "take it or leave it" offer. This desperation was only accelerated in the Great Depression with its staggering unemployment. Even players who made the team usually had to find jobs in the off season during the decades prior to free agency. The bulk of the money to be made came in World Series shares - payments to players mostly on teams that won the pennants (with lesser amounts to other players depending on their team's order of finish), with the largest payments being made to players of the Series winner. Failure, then, meant letting down your colleagues as well as fans.
The result of all of this was an exciting, fiercely competitive style of play. Taking the extra base, sliding spikes up, taking out a shortstop to break up a double play - these were not just aggressive tactics but things players during the Depression took for granted. Players' memoirs from the era contain stories about players who failed to perform such feats as being shunned by colleagues whose economic well being was tied in large part to the team's overall standing.

Segregation

Sadly, Major League baseball of the 1930s remained segregated as African Americans would not be allowed to play baseball in the major leagues until Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Before then, African American players played in the "Negro Leagues" as they were called. More information on them can be found here:

http://www.nlbm.com/ (Negro Leagues Baseball Museum)
http://www.nlbpa.com/ (Negro League Baseball Players Association) http://www.negroleagues.com/ http://www.negroleaguebaseball.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negro_league_baseball

The Negro Leagues are outside the scope of this blog, although I hope to cover them in a future one some day.

Conclusion

Baseball in the 1930s was a vibrant and exciting game, and it's little wonder that fans who witnessed those games remember them as "The Good Old Days" despite the Depression. In fact, the game as played in the 1930s was a product of the Great Depression. Players had little alternative to whatever cash starved teams offered as there were few jobs at all, let alone decent paying ones, during that era. Being a major league baseball player was probably more lucrative compared to any alternative during this time than virtually any other. A spot on a major league roster meant a good lifestlye, if not riches. In contrast, failure to make it probably meant unemployment, or, at best, menial low wage labor.

As a consequence, play was aggressive. Failure meant potential personal hardship, not only for the player but his team, who would not hesitate to get on someone not playing as hard as possible. The resulting product on the field was a high quality one, then. Also, given that times were tough in general, the ball park must have been a haven for those who could afford tickets (a relatively small number given the attendance during that period). At the same time, however, the game reached more and more fans due to increased radio broadcasting.

This gets us back to Gilbert's contradictory assessment of Depression era baseball as both overrated and a whole lot of fun. In short, baseball in the 1930s was an exciting game, shaped, as always, by the societal forces around it. It was both overrated and a whole lot of fun, depending on whether you were a player or a fan. Although things are better today in every sense of the word for baseball, the on field product itself may never have been better than it was during the Great Depression.

version 2.1; revised 10.23.07