Baseball During the Great
Depression
HIS 4936 Pro-Seminar
Dan Sullivan
04/08/2011
This paper will look at the how baseball helped the American people through the Great Depression of
the 1930s. It will look at attendance and ticket prices throughout the 1930s and how the game helped
people forget their troubles for a few special hours.
Sullivan 2
This country has seen many difficult times in its brief history. It has seen rebellions
against the British, it has been through a civil war and a couple of World Wars, and it has been
through many different depressions big and small. Never has the country seen a depression
such as the one that it saw in the 1929 stock market crash. It caused thousands of banks to
close and millions of people to lose their jobs. One thing has survived many of these
tribulations, baseball. Baseball has been labeled as America’s pastime and it deserves the label
based on the difficult times it has been through and the difficult times that it has helped this
country through. This paper will look at how Major League Baseball survived the Great
Depression because of its loyal fan base and its ability to help the American people forget about
their lives and troubles for a few special hours.
Baseball has been around since the middle of the nineteenth century. In the mid 1800’s
the game was starting to be played. Although there were very few teams at this time the game
was on its way to becoming one of the most recognized games in the world. The very first game
was played in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1846. The two teams that were playing were the New
York Nine against the Knickerbockers who lost the game 23-1.1 The game was played on June
19th and at the time both of the teams were amateurs. The rules of that game were introduced
by Alexander J. Cartwright a surveyor and amateur athlete who also happened to be the umpire
for that first game.
The origins of baseball are hard to trace back before this game that was played in 1846.
There has been speculation that the game goes as far back as the ancient Egyptians but that has
1
Joseph L. Reichler, Baseball Encyclopedia, sixth edition (New York: Macmillan 1985), 11.
Sullivan 3
not been proven. There are also reports that every succeeding culture has had an effect on the
game. It was not until Cartwright that the game took on its new look. The game that was
invented in America has evolved from the British version of the game “rounders”. With some
tweaks of the rules baseball was given its birth.
Over the next twenty-three years the game was played by amateurs. The city of
Cincinnati was the first to pay their players for their services. Harry Wright, a jeweler, was paid
$1200 to play center field and also manage the team2. This was the first account of a player
being paid to play a game. That season led to the Cincinnati Red Stockings amassing fifty-six
victories and only one tie. The president of that team in 1869 said that he would rather be the
president of that baseball team rather than the president of the United States.
During the latter part of the century baseball started to have its own problems with
league wars. There were three different leagues that were all fighting for players, fans, and
money. In February 1876 the National League was created by William A. Hulbert. In 1880
Cincinnati was thrown out of the league for supporting Sunday games and allowing alcohol to
be consumed at their games. One year after being thrown out of the National League a
Cincinnati businessman and a man from Pittsburgh started up a rival league called the American
Association. The National League was not recognizing them as a league and a battle started
between the two.
The battles that were being fought by both leagues were for players and fans. They
were competing for players and this in turn weakened both leagues. The skill and talent levels
2
Joseph L. Reichler, Baseball Encyclopedia, sixth edition (New York: Macmillan 1985), 11.
Sullivan 4
were being spread too thin and both leagues suffered from it. The American Association also
cut their ticket prices to gain more attendance at their games. The ticket prices at a National
League Game were 50 cents and at the American Association ticket prices were only 25 cents.
The American Association also scheduled their games for Sunday as well so this helped them
earn more fans that were not able to go to a game during the work week. 3
During the 1889 season Brooklyn of the American Association had a record setting
attendance for all of baseball. The team drew a season total of 353,000 people for that season.
The National League credited it to the fact that there was alcohol sales permitted at all
American League games. The American League earned the nickname “the beer league” from its
rivals because all the owners were saloon owners or whiskey and beer manufactures.4 The main
expense that the owners faced in both leagues was player salaries. The players were making
anywhere from $1,500-$2,500 in the late 1880s and early 1890s but there were a few players
who made up to $6,000. That was against the rules that stated that the maximum that a player
could be paid is $2,000.
At the turn of the century baseball was gaining popularity around the country. The
leagues had merged and it was a lucrative time for the owners. The attendance had doubled in
the bigger city parks where the biggest names were and the little cities with the average teams
were still struggling to make ends meet. As an example, in 1901 the average National League
3
4
Joseph L. Reichler, Baseball Encyclopedia, sixth edition (New York: Macmillan 1985) 13.
Steven Riess, City Games, (Chicago: University of Illinois 1989) 196.
Sullivan 5
team had an average attendance of about 3,500 spectators. That is 50% higher than ten years
previously. 5
Baseball to this point has been primarily a blue collar sport. Many of the players were
from urban backgrounds and were not wealthy by any means. Many of the players of this time
were lured in by the high salaries that they could make. According to Reiss in his book City
Games (1989) the turn of the century is when the game changed and the background of the
players changed. The players went from being from urban areas where they had a lot of space
to practice to being a game for wealthy men who came from families with a white collar
background.6
Through the early 1900s baseball was gaining momentum and started to make extreme
amounts of money. The attendance was getting bigger and the players were at a much higher
level of talent. Before the league allowed the play on Sundays the class of the spectators was
primarily of white collar people. It was not until the games were played on Sundays that blue
collar workers were able to attend. The scheduling of the games was not in the favor of the
working class person. Many of the games were scheduled during the day because of the lack of
lighting at the parks. It was not until 1935 that there were lights in a stadium. Once the blue
collar workers were hooked on baseball, the attendance was on the rise.
Baseball did well up until 1919 when another scandal hit the baseball world. It was the
World Series and the Chicago White Sox were playing against the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds had
5
Steven Riess, City Games, (Chicago: University of Illinois 1989), 224.
Steven Riess, City Games, (Chicago: University of Illinois 1989) 89 has a chart detailing the percentages of players
and the background of their father’s occupation whether it was a white collar, blue collar, or farming background.
6
Sullivan 6
won the series but it was because seven of the White Sox players had been paid to throw the
series. They had been bribed with money and they also did it out of dislike for the team owner
Walter Comiski. They thought that he was unfair and cruel to the players.. The players agreed
to let the Reds win just so their owner would not get the championship.
That same year the “Black Sox” threw the World Series there was a phenomenal player
with the Boston Red Sox who hit twenty-four homeruns that year, his name was George
Herman Ruth (Babe Ruth). That was the new record for the time and practically unheard of in
baseball. The commissioner of the league decided to change the ball that was used during the
games to a much livelier ball in 1920. This new ball would go farther and faster than the old
balls. This was all Ruth needed and the next season after he was sold to the New York Yankees
he hit an incredible 54 homeruns. Ruth came at a great time for baseball because it took the
center of attention away from the World Series scandal of the previous year and focused it on
this bigger than life person known as Babe Ruth. One historian has written that he was ““the
ideal hero for a world of consumption” that was the 1920s.”7
Through the twenties baseball kept on getting bigger and bigger. The game had a
broader audience and was stretching from coast to coast. The crowds were getting bigger and
the player’s salaries were also getting bigger. The game was growing so quickly that it was
creating jobs for the country by building new ballparks to hold more fans in order to try and
accommodate their rising attendance issues. By 1929 the game was bringing in huge crowds.
Some of the teams were bringing in as much as 30,000 people for the weekend games. Then
7
Peter Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 109.
Sullivan 7
the stock market crash happened in October of ’29 and the country went in a downward spiral
and baseball was not exempt from being one of the crashes causalities.
One of the major reasons that baseball got so big in the 1920’s was radio. The
transmission of the games on the radio brought in a whole new audience for baseball. Many
people could still not afford to go to the games so they would listen to it on the radio. At first
there was a lot of apprehension by the baseball owners because they thought that it would
bring down ticket sales. But it had the opposite effect on ticket sales. Many of these people
heard about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig on the radio but now they wanted to see them in
person. Then they might save and buy a ticket to go see these greats they had heard so much
about. The first game that was broadcast on the radio was in 1921 and the first World Series
game that was broadcast was in 1922. By having the games broadcast on the radio it turned
people who could not afford to buy tickets to the games into sports fans.8
With the introduction of radio into baseball it allowed many different people to follow
the game. The teams were also excited about the games being on the radio. The owners were
optimistic about the people staying home and listening to it on the radio but then again the
owners sold the rights to their games to the radio people. Riess writes in his book that by 1939
all the teams had radio contracts and the most lucrative was the New York Giants who were
paid $110,000 a year for the radio rights to their games9
8
Dave Zirin, A People’s History of Sports in the United States (New York: The New Press, 2008), 65.
Steven Riess, City Games, (Chicago: University of Illinois 1989), 248.
9
Sullivan 8
The stock market crash had a huge impact on the country and on baseball. Banks were
closing all over the country and men and women were losing their jobs at an unspeakable rate.
It was said that one out of every four blue collar workers had lost their job. If this is the case
and baseball was relying on those ticket sales then what was to happen to their audience? The
people were now out of work and saving their money was a priority for them. The average
person could no longer afford the trip to the baseball game. In some cases where a person may
have enough to get into the game they might have an extra nickel to buy a hot dog that may be
their only meal of the day.
Ticket prices during the first year of the Great Depression were on an average between
75 cents and one dollar at the time. Many of the owners were starting to have special
promotions at the games to try and boost the attendance. Some of the promotions that were
used were “ladies day” where women got in free. The owners had to find a way to keep the
people coming to the game even though the country was in a wide spread panic about the
banking situation and the extraordinary amount of people that were out of work. The owners
thought that if they let the women in free, they would still purchase food and drinks at the
game and contribute to the revenue that way.
They also had cash contests where the winner would win money and they even tried to
have grocery contest where the winner would win groceries.10 The owners were seeing their
ticket revenues go down steadily so they were trying any kind of gimmick to get the people into
the seats. The fact of the matter is that the owners of the teams did not want to lose any
10
Dave Zirin, A People’s History of Sports in the United States (New York: The New Press, 2008), 69.
Sullivan 9
money and they were going to try to fill their parks with as many people as possible. If they had
to have special promotions to attract people to the park, then that is what they were going to
do. The owners would not make any money if there are not any people going to the games.
The stock market crash of 1929 happened three weeks after the ’29 season ended. The
league had just finished the World Series and the teams were now on their winter break. The
owners and players were just as much a victim of the crash as the rest of the country. Just
because they were baseball players did not mean that they were exempt from the turmoils of
the country. They had to use banks to get their money just like everybody else. They also had to
deal with the employment problems that the country was going through. Some of the players
who were in the league still had to work a job during the off months of the baseball season to
provide for their families. Although they made decent money playing the game, they still
needed to work to support their household. Not all baseball players were in this situation but
some still needed to work.
On opening day of the 1930 baseball season, the first since the stock market crash, you
would never have known that there was a depression going on. President Hoover was in
Washington throwing out the first pitch at the game between Washington and the Red Sox.
That game was the first of the season and the rest of the league followed the next day. The
attendance for the games was astounding. According to the New York Times in New York at the
Polo Grounds the Giants were facing the Braves in front of 40,000 people; in Detroit they were
expecting another 40,000 people to see Detroit take on the Browns; in Cincinnati they were
Sullivan 10
expecting 30,000 people, as well as in St. Louis where they were also expecting 30,000 fans.11
The show of support for the league in this difficult time is hard to fathom. The country was
going down hill fast and President Hoover was throwing out the first pitch and hundreds of
thousands of people were filling the stadiums to watch what some call “a kid’s game played by
grown men.” This certainly does not reflect the rough times the country was in and where it
was heading.
For the 1930 World Series the ticket prices were the same as they were in 1929. The box
seats were be $6.60, grand stands $5.50, general admission $3.00, and the bleachers cost
$1.00.12 Although the ticket prices seem reasonable the tickets were only sold in three game
bunches. The only exception is the bleacher seats. These seats on the day of the game were on
sale as a one game ticket. The prices of the game were probably extremely too high for a lot of
the people who had lost their jobs but the upper class white collar workers still had the
resources to be able to afford to attend the games.
The opening game of the 1930 World Series between the Philadelphia Athletics and the
St. Louis Cardinals was attended by President Hoover and fifty of his staff members. He was a
part of the 33,000 people that will attend the first game.13 The President was on his way to
Cleveland to give a speech to a group of bankers and the World Series is on his way. The series
came almost a year after the stock market crash and they still had thousands of people that
wanted to attend the game. The depression then appeared to have little effect on the baseball
11
John Drebinger, “Giants-Braves Open Season Here Today,” The New York Times, April 15, 1930.
“Oct.1 Set For Start of World Series,” New York Times, September 9, 1930.
13
John Drebinger, “President Hoover Among Crowd of 33,000 to See World's Series Opener Today,” The New York
Times, October 1,1930.
12
Sullivan 11
fans who wanted to see these games. St. Louis had 100,000 requests for tickets and their
stadium only held 39,000 people so there were undoubtedly some heart broken fans that did
not see their team play. However, the series was to be broadcast on the radio so people could
still find out what was going on in the game. The depression may have shown some effect on
the series because the previous series before the crash had over 50,000 people attend whereas
in this opening game there were only 33,000 people who attended game one in Philadelphia.14
At the start of the 1931 baseball season the country was still in the depression and there
were still no signs of it improving. It was roughly eighteen months after the stock market crash
and baseball was getting ready to start their season The New York Times printed a story that
there was going to be 70,000 people who were going to attend the season opener between the
New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.15 New York has a huge variety of people and
cultures and many of them were hit hard by the depression. Many people were starving and
homeless and many of them were unemployed. So who was attending these games? It is hard
to imagine that 70,000 people still had enough to be able to afford to go to a baseball game.
Some of the people may just have attended the game to take their minds off the hard times
they were having outside of those stadium walls.
The World Series in 1931 had the same teams as the previous year. Philadelphia was
taking on St. Louis for the championship. The games were almost two years detached from the
crash in ’29 and the people were still flocking to the parks. The first game was attended by
President Hoover again just as he has done for the two previous World Series. The first game of
14
15
“32,295 Persons Pay $152,735 At First World Series Game,” The New York Times, October 2, 1930.
John Drebinger, “Baseball Season Opens on Tuesday,” The New York Times, April 12, 1931.
Sullivan 12
the series was expecting 40,000 people to attend.16 This is roughly 7,000 more people than the
previous year. This could be a sign that the economy was coming back but remember that the
people in this country take their baseball seriously and they were not going to miss their team
play because of some little ol’ depression.
Much of the reasons that people were still attending the games was for a break from
the reality of their everyday lives. Their lives were maybe consumed by the problems that the
country was going through and baseball was an escape for them. Many of these people might
in fact have been eating their only meal at the ballpark during a game. If they were in the
stadium for four hours out of a day then that was four hours that they were not dealing with
the reality of the world outside those walls. The people almost seemed to get an extra boost to
their morale when they saw their favorite players such as Babe Ruth or Joe DiMaggio. The
fantasy that the people live when they were at the park made them forget the harsh reality of
perhaps being homeless, unemployed, or in some cases starving. This is how baseball has
helped the American people. It gave them a brief out to their lives that they might not like living
and gave them the fantasy of being one of the players. It takes them to a peaceful place where
they feel better about themselves and their lives.
In 1932 baseball was still holding strong and it continued to draw people to the parks.
There was a time early in 1932 that people wanted baseball teams to cut their ticket prices
because of the economy but baseball was not having any part of that. The league officials said
that because they have never raised the prices, not even during its boom time that they would
16
John Drebinger,“40,000 to See Athletics and Cardinals Open World's Series Today,” The New York Times, October
1, 1931.
Sullivan 13
not lower them now. In an interview with the New York Times William Harridge was quoted as
saying, “Any suggestion that admission prices be lowered because of the prevailing conditions,
overlook the fact that during the boom period baseball made no attempt to take advantage of
easy money.”17 He also went on to say that the overhead of operating a team was much too
high to cut ticket prices. This was also a presidential election year and President Hoover was on
his way out of office. He would once again be the president during the baseball season but it
would be his last. The election in November gave the country a new president. Franklin D.
Roosevelt was elected to the White House and a new era was about to begin.
The 1932 World Series was the first one that President Hoover missed. He was unable to
attend the series because he was too busy at the White House because it was an election year.
However, even though the President was not going to be there the league was expecting the
attendance at Yankee Stadium to be around 70,000. When the series traveled to Chicago they
were expecting another 45,000 there. The league anticipated that if the series went seven
games more than 400,000 people would attend, breaking the previous attendance record.18
The league also expected to break revenue records. New York and Chicago were two of the
cities that were hit hard by the depression but you would never be able to tell with all the
people going to baseball games.
The year 1933 brought the country a new president and a new baseball season. As his
predecessors have done the new president Franklin D. Roosevelt was there to throw out the
17
Associated Press, “Major Leagues Will Not Cut Ticket Prices Because They Were Not Raised in Boom Times,” The
New York Times, January 16, 1932 William Harridge telling the Times why they will not cut ticket prices.
18
John Drebinger, “World Series Opens Here on Wednesday,” New York Times, September 25, 1932.
Sullivan 14
first pitch of the Washington Senators game. This is the first season of baseball that Roosevelt
presided over as the Commander in Chief of the country and there would be many more to
come. Over the years Roosevelt would come to love baseball but was unable to attend games
as much as he would like because his polio made it difficult for him to make his way up and
down the stairs at the stadiums. The crowds at this season’s opening games are all right at
where they were last year. Many of the parks have sold out their opening game of the season.
The World Series this year would not be attended by Roosevelt because he was on a trip
out west. However the attendance at these series would not disappoint the owners. The teams
were still looking at 50,000 people to attend the games.19 The Washington Senators this year
were trying something new with their ticket sales for the series. For the first time the fans
would be able to buy single game seats for the reserved seating sections.20 In the past the only
seats that were sold on a single game basis were the general admission seats that were placed
on sale the day of the game. This new system of ticket sales helped boost the attendance for
the games and allowed more people the opportunity to see the game from better seats. The
New York Giants continued to sell their tickets in the three game bunches and they still sold out
all of their games. The people were still going to the games three years removed from the stock
market crash.
The following year the baseball season was coming, and the Washington Senators once
again wanted President Roosevelt to throw out the first pitch at their game. They came to the
president early in January 1934 to ask if he would do it and he said yes. There was one problem.
19
20
John Drebinger, “Baseball Classic To Start Tuesday,” The New York Times, October 1, 1933.
James P. Dawson, “Sale of Tickets for Series Spurts,” The New York Times, October 3, 1933.
Sullivan 15
He had an appointment on the first day of baseball season so he would not be able to attend
the game. The Washington team owner went to the commissioner of baseball and was allowed
to change their schedule in order to have the president present at the first game to throw out
the first pitch. Roosevelt was more than happy to attend the game if they were going to change
the date. So in the president’s second year in office he is having the baseball schedule changed
in order for him to be able to attend.21
The next few years of baseball showed the same attendance numbers as the previous
years. The stadiums were still selling out and the fans were still coming to the parks. President
Roosevelt was working on the New Deal policies and working on getting this country out of the
depression. He was creating jobs through the Works Progress Administration and they were
building parks and recreational areas for people to go to. In 1936 the baseball world had seen
their biggest attendance on opening day since 1931. On opening day, all of the different parks
that were open they drew a crowd totaling 205,500 people.22 This could be a sign that the
country’s economy was starting to turn around. It could also mean that it was a nice day out
and the people needed to get out of the house after a long winter inside. In the start of the ’35
baseball season some games were postponed because it was still too cold outside to play and
the temperatures would keep the people away.
It was also in 1935 that the baseball world opened up its gates to even more people by
having their first night game. The game was played in Cincinnati and it was a great success.
President Roosevelt was in the White House and flipped a switch that turned on the lights in
21
22
“Roosevelt Causes Change In Baseball Schedule,” The New York Times, January 11, 1934.
“Baseball Openers Draw 204,543, Most Since '31,” The New York Times, April 15, 1936.
Sullivan 16
Cincinnati for the first Major League Baseball game ever played under lights.23 The president
was accompanied by 25,000 fans that were ready to see night baseball for the first time in
history.24 Little did they know that seventy years in the future the night game is the dominate
one and a day game is rare, the complete opposite of this time. The night games did, however,
open up the gates for more people to be able to attend.
Baseball would continue to flourish during the Roosevelt years with an ever growing fan
base. The people would rather watch a baseball game than do anything else. In 1935 Babe Ruth
was making his farewell tour of baseball and he was in Texas. He drew a crowd of almost
70,000 people to see him play one last time. With people paying to go and see the aged Ruth
and the game growing every year it is a wonder how people could think that the depression had
a negative impact on the game of baseball. The game has made its mark on the people and now
the people want their game no matter what. In the years to come the devotion that people
showed towards their teams and the game will come into question.
During the first years of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency he was awarded the first ever
baseball pass that allowed him to go to any game he wanted at any stadium he wanted.25 It was
April 1935 and the president was throwing out the first pitch at the season’s inaugural game in
Washington. He was awarded the passes for himself and Eleanor so that they could enjoy a
game any where there was a team. This was the first time that a president had the privilege to
do this and Roosevelt took it as a great compliment that he was the first.
23
Richard O. Davies, “Sports in American Life” (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2007), 186.
“Reds to Meet Phil’s Under Lights Tonight,” The New York Times, May 23, 1935.
25
“First Baseball Passes Presented to Roosevelt ,”The New York Times, April 14, 1935.
24
Sullivan 17
When World War II broke out baseball was one thing that the people in this country
could count on. When WWI was going on the 1918 baseball season was put on hold with the
work or fight order. The Second World War was different. President Roosevelt thought that by
keeping the baseball season going it would “contribute greatly to the morale of the country.” 26
The president thought that continuing the baseball season it would help the people get through
this tough time. Many of the baseball stars went to the war but the ones that were too old or
too young carried the game through this difficult time in our country.
Baseball was not the only sport that was played in this country during this time.
However there was a big negative mark against baseball at this time. The game was still a
white’s only game at this time. There were no African Americans allowed into the league. Not
only were the African Americans not allowed into the league, the Jewish players were also
frowned upon in the game. It was not until a superstar named Hank Greenburg was hitting
homeruns and becoming the game’s best player that the Jewish people were recognized as
players in the league. Some players even changed their names in order not to be seen as
Jewish. Greenburg was the Jackie Robinson for the Jewish community in baseball. In 1956
Greenburg would be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.27
During the times that the Major Leagues were going on in their discriminatory way there
was another league that was playing. It was the Negro Leagues. The league was created for the
African Americans who wanted to play and also for the African Americans who wanted to
attend the games without any discrimination towards them seeing that the fans were all
26
27
Joseph L. Reichler, Baseball Encyclopedia, sixth edition (New York: Macmillan 1985), 17.
Peter Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 132.
Sullivan 18
African Americans. By 1900 there were five salaried African American teams that formed their
league.28 Many of the games were scheduled for Sundays when the majority of the African
Americans were off from work.
Baseball was one of the most important sports to the African American communities
says Steven Riess in his book City Games.29 The popularity of the Negro Leagues was influenced
by the migration of the African Americans north from the south where their freedoms were
much more restricted. In 1920 the Negro National League was formed with eight teams that
were predominantly from the Midwest. The teams were playing in rented ballparks and would
play as many as 200 games per year. The tickets to get into these games were twenty-five cents
and the average attendance for the games was about 1,700 people.30
The league was having troubles staying afloat during these difficult times. While Major
League baseball was packing in the fans the Negro leagues were barely scraping by. With most
of the teams being owned by African American businessmen, all but one of the original eight
teams made it from start to finish in the league. The National Negro League folded in 1931 and
a new league run by a numbers bankers was formed in 1933. The old league folded much in
part to do with ballparks to rent. None of the big league parks would give up days for the Negro
League to play on, so with no place to play they could not play. After the shaky 1930s the Negro
leagues began renting the big league ballparks and in some cases were building their own. In
28
Steven Riess, City Games, (Chicago: University of Illinois 1989), 117.
Steven Riess, City Games, (Chicago: University of Illinois 1989), 117.
30
Steven Riess, City Games, (Chicago: University of Illinois 1989), 119.
29
Sullivan 19
1940 the New York Yankees made an extra $100,000 by renting their ballpark out to the Negro
League teams.31
By the start of World War II the Negro Leagues began to flourish even more. With the
increase of jobs due to the war many of them now had money to take in a game. The talent
that was in the Negro Leagues was just as good as in their all white counterparts. With big
names like Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, and Jackie Robinson the league had their own all-stars to
draw the crowds. In 1937 somebody asked the New York Yankees all-star Joe DiMaggio who the
best pitcher he ever faced was and his answer without hesitation was Satchel Paige.32 The
league continued to grow until Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson
to the team. This is when the color barrier was broken in professional baseball. It took a World
War and one brave man in Jackie Robinson to take down the barrier in 1947. It is only a shame
that President Roosevelt was not around to see it.
While baseball was still motoring forward in the country there were also other sports
that the country was interested in. One of the most popular of them was football. Teddy
Roosevelt made football popular when he was president in the early 1900s. He was a big fan of
the game and he let everyone know it. Football was least hit by the depression according to an
article that was published in the New York Times on December 23, 1932.33 Although the
depression had been going on for only a couple of years the poll taken in this article asks the
question which sport has been hit the least by the current conditions? The voters had football
31
Steven Riess, City Games, (Chicago: University of Illinois 1989), 119.
Dave Zirin, A People’s History of Sports in the United States (New York: The New Press, 2008), 70.
33
Associated Press, “Football Least Hit by the Depression,” The New York Times, December 23, 1932.
32
Sullivan 20
with 85 votes and baseball came in second with 48 votes. The poll was taken very early in the
depression and the source of the voters is not reliable enough to make the assumption that
football was hit the least.
Richard Davies writes in his book Sports in American Life that between the years of
1931- 1933 baseball lost forty-one percent of its paid attendance.34 This may be true but what
they lost in attendance they made up for in radio audience. The fans may have stopped going to
the games but they did not stop paying attention to the outcomes and standings of their
favorite team. The numbers do not lie when it came to the leagues loses during those years.
The combined dollar amount that the league lost during those years was $2.8 million.35 This
was a huge amount of money and some teams were on the edge of folding. The fans could not
stay away for long though. By 1934 the sales ticket sales were back on the rise and baseball was
once again back on the mend.
Baseball has seen it share of ups and downs. The Black Sox scandal rocked the baseball
world and left the fans doubting the game could have been disastrous for the game. And the
discrimination that the game showed towards African Americans and other ethnic groups all
the way into the 1940s when the color barrier was broken could have made the game less
successful. The roaring twenties helped the game to regain some respect from the people so
when the market crashed in 1929 the people felt like at least we still have baseball. The radio
really helped the game and the people become inseparable. This allowed people who could not
go to the game the ability to still hear the game. The owners did have a valid claim that people
34
35
Richard Davies, Sports in American Life, (Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2007), 181.
Richard Davies, Sports in American Life, (Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2007), 182.
Sullivan 21
would not come to the game because they could listen to it at home but the people still came.
Soon after the crash the attendance did take a slump but it rose steadily throughout the 1930s
and all the way up to the Second World War with the support of Franklin Roosevelt. The game
allowed for different classes of people to assemble at one place and if they had nothing else in
common they both loved baseball and that was enough to bond them together as people not as
people from different classes. The label of America’s pastime is a well earned nickname for a
sport that has helped so many people through a difficult time in their lives.
Sullivan 22
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