They
tried to distance themselves from Ban Johnson's proposal. The first and most
resonant of his critics was John Tener, the National League president.
"Let Ban Johnson confine his remarks to his own league. We are fully
competent to take care of our own affairs," said Tener.
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"I
would not go one inch toward Washington to ask President Wilson or the
Secretary of War for special favors for baseball," Tener added that if any
of his club owners made a request like Johnson's, he would "walk out of
this office and never return." He called Johnson's suggestion
"unpatriotic" and "selfish," saying "nothing could be
further from the purposes of baseball." He also ridiculed Johnson's whole
idea of players marching around in close-order drill with wooden bats.
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A
number of dub owners in both leagues lined up to echo Tener. The National
League owners who spoke out were, like Tener, quick to emphasize that Johnson
was an American League guy and shouldn't presume to speak for them. "It is
the misfortune of the National League that it must bear part of the stigma of
this thing; said Phillies president W F. Baker. Even some American League
owners took public issue with Johnson's remarks. Yankees owner Colonel Jacob
Ruppert, whose title came by way of eight years of service in the National
Guard, took particular umbrage, reminding everyone that his co-owner, Captain
Tillinghast Huston, was then on active duty. "My partner ... is now in
France dodging German shells and helping his country to win the war. I
certainly am not in favor of asking exemption for a ball player, while my partner
is risking his life in the service."
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Public
reaction was likewise roundly critical. A few of Johnson's longtime friends in
the press, most notably Joe Vila of the New York Sun, tried to spin the story
to Johnson's benefit, but otherwise the president of the American League was
"panned to a crisp in the leading Eastern and Southern papers," noted
Fred Lieb, who then proceeded to pan Johnson to a crisp himself "The more
one analyzes Johnson's plan," wrote Lieb, "the more audacious it
appears. The audacity of an amusement promoter putting 'the high standards' of
his particular amusement above the welfare of a country at war is shocking to
the sensibilities of the average American.
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"Another
brazen part of Johnson's suggestion is the manner in which he offers his bench
warmers and extra pitchers to the government, saying 'we would willingly
sacrifice these men.' The idea of turning his least competent players over to
the government strikes at the heart of the democratic idea behind the elective
draft, whose primary aim was to put the millionaire's son on the same plane
with the son of the village shoemaker and the $l5,OOO-a-year Tris Speaker with
$l5OO-a-year colt pitcher. Were such a plan adopted it would be favoritism of
the rankest sort."
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Johnson
was forced to retract. He maintained he hadn't been seeking any favors from the
government. "My suggestion that eighteen men on each of the Major League
teams be exempted was merely that - a suggestion." He insisted he had
simply been offering his thoughts about how baseball might still be played in
wartime.
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The
criticism of Johnson's pronouncement was mainly focused on style rather than
substance. Johnson had made the game look petty and selfish at a time when it
needed all the sympathy and goodwill it could get. But the truth of the matter
is that Johnson had said what everybody in baseball was thinking; when the
sixteen owners convened in December, the only item on the docket was how they
might persuade the government to keep their players out of the draft and
playing during the 1918 season.
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Early
signs from local draft boards were encouraging. Most of the men who had had
deferments - anyone with dependents mostly - retained those deferments. And in
their planning for 1918, the owners were cautious. Attendance had been down in
1917 from the record-breaking 1916 season - not dramatically, but measurably.
They feared a greater drop-off in 1918. They also agreed to limit 1918 rosters
to eighteen players, not because Ban Johnson had suggested it but because an
eighteen-man payroll was going to be less expensive than a twenty-five-man
payroll. Further, they cut the season from 154 to 140 games, and cut salaries
proportionately, and sometimes a bit more than proportionately. Spring training
was shortened, but the 1918 season began on time with largely recognizable
rosters.
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The
first genuine crisis for organized baseball came on May 23, 1918, when the
provost marshal of the United States, General Enoch Crowder, issued the
government's work-or-fight order. The edict read that on July 1, anyone of
draft age who was either unemployed or employed in a "non-useful"
occupation must either find a job that somehow supported the war effort - in
farms, shipyards, munition factories, and the like - or face induction into the
military. Previous deferments were no longer valid. Of the 309 men on the
active rosters and reserve lists of Major League baseball, 258 would be forced
to leave the game in six weeks and either enlist or find work in the war
industry.
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Baseball's
task now was to persuade the government - Provost Marshal Crowder, Secretary of
War Newton Baker, and President Wilson - that baseball was effectively an
"essential industry," and that baseball players should be exempt from
the draft because they were already in effective compliance with the work-or-fight
order. "The game offers a field for relaxation, diversion and recreation
unequaled by any amusement throughout the country," read a portion of
baseball's formal presentation to Provost Marshal Crowder, and that was true
not only for fans on the home front but for the troops in uniform, the
Commission claimed. Giving the game up would be "a serious detriment to
the morale of our forces;' read the report.
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If
the morale of the country wasn't reason enough to keep the turnstiles open,
baseball owners also suggested the government consider the contribution that
the game was making to the war effort financially. Club owners and officials
had purchased $8.5 million worth of Liberty Bonds, and players another quarter
of a million dollars worth. Twenty-two thousand dollars had been collected for
the Red Cross, and despite a rainy spring throughout the game, baseball had
already collected more than $88,000 in the government's new war tax on tickets.
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The
argument for exemption for organized baseball - which was in effect an amicus
curiae brief in the case of Washington Senators catcher Eddie Ainsworth, who
had had his draft status reclassified and was appealing to the War Department -
had been prepared by Garry Herrmann, and baseball's emissary in presenting it
to the government was Herrmann's personal friend Senator Warren Harding of
Ohio. Harding presented the game's case personally to Provost Marshal Crowder
on Monday June 17, and reported back to the National Commission that while
Crowder was inclined to look favorably on baseball's petition, Secretary of War
Baker was not. Harding urged Herrmann and the Commission to approach President
Wilson directly.
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This
Garry Herrmann did not do, a decision that angered Ban Johnson, and one
Herrmann himself had cause to regret when Secretary Baker ruled that baseball
was not an exempt industry and that players must comply with the work-or-fight
ruling. Baker did, however, make one significant concession; he granted a
two-month extension, ruling that players did not have to comply with
work-orfight until September 1. Baseball could very nearly play out its full
season.
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The
immediate question was what this would mean for the World Series.
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Would
the regular season have to end on August 20 or thereabouts, in order to complete
the Series before September 1? Would the government give an extension to the
two pennant winners and allow them to play past the September 1 deadline? The
magnates of the game were of several minds on what the best course might be.
John Tener was adamant that no World Series be played. So intransigent was he
on this point that National League owners named Pittsburgh owner Barney
Dreyfuss to replace Tener as the league's representative to the National
Commission meeting to discuss the matter.
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That
meeting was held in Cleveland on August 3, and while it resulted in a
determination to petition the government to hold the Series in early September -
a petition the War Department swiftly and happily granted - its greater legacy
was that it probably marked the beginning of the end for the National
Commission.
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John
Tener wasn't there; after being replaced at the meeting, he had resigned. He
had been restless in the job for several months, frustrated at his lack of
power relative to that of his colleague Johnson, as well as with having to deal
with Johnson, whom he had grown to dislike. His disagreement with the owners
over their eagerness to hold the World Series was the final straw.
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But
the bigger loser in the meetings was Johnson, and, again, it was a combination
of hubris and his own big mouth that got him in trouble. Before the Cleveland
meetings began, for the third time in a year, Johnson wandered off the
reservation in his remarks and aroused the ire of the men who paid his salary.
Without consulting his owners, Johnson announced that the American League
season would end on August 20, and that the World Series would conclude before
the War Department's September 1 deadline. Going into a meeting of American
League owners in Cleveland on August 3, he reiterated to reporters that August
20 would be the end of the regular season. When the meeting in Cleveland
convened, however, the owners let Johnson know that this was not the case.
Their interests were at stake here, they informed him, not his, and they fully
intended to play out the schedule until Labor Day. The owners were in effect
unwilling to forego ten days of ticket sales, particularly when it wasn't at
all certain when they might be able to sell tickets again. Johnson was contrite
after the meeting when he announced officially that the season would continue
until Labor Day. But he was contrite only to a point. "If the club owners
wish to take a chance on acting contrary to the ruling of the war department,
that is their business," he said.
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The
scolding tone of Johnson's comment rankled at least three American League
owners, including Charles Comiskey, who didn't need much to set him off. The
three American League owners - Comiskey, Harry Frazee of the Red Sox, and Clark
Griffith of the Senators - drafted a statement that was effectively a call for
Johnson's ouster as president.
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"Just
why President Johnson should take the stand he did in this matter is beyond our
comprehension," the statement read; "he has bungled the affairs of
his league in this particular case ...
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"His
'rule or ruin' policy is shelved... He has tried to close our gates several
times this season, but he is through spending our money. From now on the club
owners are to run the American League. If anyone is to close our gates it will
be the government or club owners, not a salaried official."
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Charles
Fountain "The Betrayal: How the 1919 Black Sox Scandal Changed Baseball"
(2016)
