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1900-1919 Baseball Review. American Baseball History Arvada West Senior High Thomson. 1900-1910 Baseball. Players Protective Association: Founded in 1900 Originated from the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players (1885)
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1900-1919 Baseball Review American Baseball History Arvada West Senior High Thomson
1900-1910 Baseball • Players Protective Association: • Founded in 1900 • Originated from the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players (1885) • One of the first unions created by players who objected the Reserve Clause • Forced players to stay with one team at the owners disposal • Players had no say as to where they were traded/sold
Ban Johnson 1900–1910 Baseball Byron Bancroft Johnson: -Created the American League in 1901 -Offered higher salaries and better contract options -Players like Cy Young, John McGraw, and Nap Lajoie jumped from the National League -Cracked down on dirty play and banned liquor from ballparks -Baseball becoming a more acceptable activity
1900–1910 Baseball • Immigration and Baseball: • Baseball becoming a reflection of the changing ethnic composition of America. • Many European immigrants became club owners due to limited entrepreneurial opportunities in a less risky environment. • A number of Northern and Eastern European immigrants played on teams as a means for social mobility. • Olaf Henriksen - Denmark
1900-1910 Baseball • Alta Weiss: • 1907 • First Woman to Play Professional Baseball
US Postal Service Commemorative Stamp 2008 1900-1910 Baseball Take Me Out to the Ball Game: “Take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack, I don’t care if I never get back. Let me root, root, root, for the home team, if they don’t win it’s a shame. For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out, at the old ball game.” Jack Norwith 1907
1910-1919 Baseball • The First, First Pitch: • William Howard Taft establishes the tradition of throwing out the first pitch on April 14, 1910.
1910-1919 Baseball • Player-Owner Relationships: • Players were becoming increasingly frustrated with poor conditions on and off the field. • 1912 – Players Fraternity created: • Attempted to negotiate better conditions, but quickly fell apart • 1912 – First Players strike: • Detroit Tigers players struck over Ty Cobb’s suspension after fighting with a fan • Tigers President, Frank J. Navin, hired scabs off the street to replace his striking players • This and numerous other problems helped to increase the sense of injustice within baseball, eventually leading to the Black Sox Scandal
1910-1919 Baseball • The Black Sox: • Charles Comiskey, Owner of the Chicago Whit Sox, paid extremely low wages and treated his players poorly • Due to their poor treatment, players leaped at any opportunity to earn more money • A group of players including: Joe Jackson and Eddie Cicotte, accepted money to throw the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds
1910-1919 Baseball • The Scandal: • Multiple rumors and accusations led to the investigation of eight players and their eventual trials • During the investigation, both Cicotte and Jackson confessed, although shortly after their confessions went missing • Now, with no evidence, all eight players were acquitted • Because of the evident problems, Federal Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was brought in as the sport’s first commissioner • Unfortunately for the the players, Landis was not as forgiving and banned all eight players for life
Federal Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis 1910-1919 Baseball “Regardless of the verdict of the juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player who undertakes or promises to throw a ball game, no player who sits in confidence with a bunch of crooked players, and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.”
1910-1919 Baseball • World War One and Baseball: • Ban Johnson ordered his teams to learn close-order drills • John K. Tener, President of the National League, stated “This is a war of democracy against bureaucracy. And I tell you that baseball is the very watchword of democracy.” • With baseball now one of the leaders in the entertainment industry, owners felt no reason to stop playing: • This decision sparked a great deal of criticism across the nation along with a drastic decline in attendance
Eddie Grant 1910-1919 Baseball Players or Soldiers? -Owners argued that baseball be considered an essential industry so that players could not be drafted -Secretary of War Newton D. Baker disagreed with this statement, leading to the drafting of 227 MLB players -Three professional players were killed in combat, one of whom was Eddie Grant, former Captain of the New York Giants