ATHENS, Ohio -- Cleats with metal spikes, uncushioned outfield walls made of cement, double headers in the heat of summer and inside pitches that laid flat any batter who dared crowd the plate. These were a few symbols of baseball during the Great Depression, conditions met head on by what one researcher says were some of the toughest players in the sport's history.
The 1930s saw the end to America's economic boom at the decade's onset and the beginning of World War II at the finish. They were tough times for the country and for baseball, argues Charles C. Alexander, author of "Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era," published this month by Columbia University Press.
"Baseball was a tougher game in the 1930s -- a tougher profession to follow and a tougher game to play on the field," said Alexander, distinguished professor emeritus of history at Ohio University. "It's a great period in baseball history, for all the difficulties the sport had."
Those difficulties included sharp decreases in players' salaries, the elimination of 32 player positions (two from each of the 16 teams) and the loss of 14 minor leagues -- half of those in existence in 1930. Attendance waned at most ballparks: By 1933, major leagues were filling 40 percent to 45 percent fewer seats than in 1930. Team owners suffered a collective loss margin of 23.9 percent.
Owners tried many things to drum up attendance including the expansion of the farm-team system and the creation of night baseball. The first nighttime game was played in the minor leagues in 1930; Cincinnati became the first major-league team to hold a game at night in 1935 according to Alexander, who will give a talk about his book at the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture June 5 in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Minor leagues suffered a tremendous hit early in the 1930s. To survive, the teams began offering gimmicks to get fans to buy tickets, Alexander said, including cow-milking contests, raffles and beauty and ugly contests. This entertainment tactic continues to be a hallmark of minor-league play.
"It was really a matter of desperation," said Alexander, who began working on the book four years ago. The work, he said, is a continuation of earlier research he conducted for other books on the topic; he is the author of 11 previous books, including books on John McGraw, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby and the history of baseball.
"I thought it would be a challenge to do baseball in the context of the Great Depression and to see how the Depression affected baseball financially, the lives of players and organized baseball," he said.
Jobs were scarce all over during that time, Alexander said, and especially so in baseball. Men who wanted to play were forced to accept substantial cuts in pay. Players stayed in the lineup with concussions, pulled ligaments, broken bones and all manner of injuries that Alexander predicted would bench most ballplayers today. To complain about pay or injuries could cost players their spot on the team, he said, so most just kept quiet.
Teams played scheduled double headers -- a practice the players' union got rid of in the early 1970s during contract negotiations. Pitchers were expected to play all nine innings; relievers who were called in usually didn't start because they weren't as good as the starting pitchers. Players traveled to away games on coal-powered trains, sleeping in hot cars with the windows open and awakening to find their bodies covered in soot from the engine.
"Ballplayers were expected to do what they had to do in those days, and that's what they did," he said. "Allowances that are made now for players were not made in the 1930s."
How has the game changed today? The rules are different -- pitchers are no longer allowed to bring a batter to the ground with an intentional too-close pitch, Alexander said. Cleats have plastic spikes. Outfield walls are covered in padding. Batters wear helmets and batting gloves. The players are bigger and, overall, healthier. Tobacco products have been outlawed in the minor leagues, although players still spit. And even though Alexander contends that players today aren't as tough as players were 70 years ago, the reason they play hasn't changed.
"Baseball is baseball. The game has changed less and the players have changed less than is the case in any other sport," he said. "The baseball ethic still prevails: You love to play baseball, and if you're getting paid well to do what you love to do, how could it get any better than that?"
