1965 Bobby Tolan Louisville Slugger 22" Mini Baseball Bat Cincinnati Reds (E)
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Robert Tolan (born November 19, 1945) is an American former professional baseball center fielder / right fielder, and coach, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Cardinals (1965–1968), Cincinnati Reds (1969–1973), San Diego Padres (1974–1975, 1979), Philadelphia Phillies (1976–1977), and Pittsburgh Pirates (1977); he also played one season in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), for the Nankai Hawks (1978). Tolan batted and threw left-handed.
Career
Tolan served during the Vietnam War in the 478th Engineer Battalion of the U.S. Army based at Fort Thomas, Kentucky.[1] His unit included several of his teammates including Johnny Bench, Pete Rose and Darrel Chaney.[1]
Tolan was a reserve outfielder during his years with the Cardinals, with whom he won a World Series title in 1967. He also played on the 1968 National League champions; however, the Cardinals lost to the Detroit Tigers in the World Series in seven games, after leading three games to one. Seeking to boost their offense, the Cardinals traded Tolan and reliever Wayne Granger to Cincinnati for veteran outfielder Vada Pinson.
Finally given the opportunity to play every day, Tolan blossomed. As Cincinnati's regular center fielder, often batting second behind Pete Rose and in front of Alex Johnson in the Reds' lineup, Tolan in 1969 hit .305 and established career highs in home runs and runs batted in (21 and 93 respectively). In this, the first year both leagues were split into two divisions, the Reds finished third in the National League West, four games behind the division-winning Atlanta Braves. The "Big Red Machine", which also featured future Hall of Famers Johnny Bench and Tony Pérez (and would later feature a third, Joe Morgan), was just beginning to take shape.
In 1970, Tolan batted a career high .316 with 16 home runs and 80 RBIs, and led the National League in stolen bases with 57 (the only time former Cardinal teammate Lou Brock did not lead the National League in steals between 1966 and 1974) for a Reds team that won the National League West title for their first postseason berth since the 1961 World Series. The Reds swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the NLCS in three games; in the second game, Tolan scored all three runs in a 3-1 victory, including hitting a fifth-inning home run off starter Luke Walker. However, the Baltimore Orioles defeated the Reds in the World Series in five games. Tolan went 4-for-19 in the Series, including a home run off Mike Cuellar in Game Two.
Tolan missed the 1971 season after rupturing his Achilles tendon playing basketball, which violated a specific clause in his contract barring him from that activity. He came back in 1972, winning both the Comeback Player of the Year award and the Hutch Award after batting .283 with 82 RBI and 42 stolen bases. Tolan became only the second player to win both the Hutch Award and his league's Comeback Player of the Year Award (Tony Conigliaro was the first) and the first to do so during the same season. His Reds again defeated the Pirates in the NLCS (this time with the winning run scoring on a wild pitch by Bob Moose, after the Reds entered the ninth inning trailing by a run) to win the pennant; however, they were defeated by the Oakland Athletics in the World Series in seven games. Two Tolan miscues contributed to the Game 7 loss. In the first inning, Tolan's 3-base error on a misplayed ball hit by Ángel Mangual led to Oakland's first run. In the sixth, Tolan looked like he had a bead on a double to the base of the center field wall by Sal Bando but the ball fell for a hit. Tolan said his hamstring tightened which inhibited his ability to make that play. After the 3-2 loss to Oakland, Tolan apologized to his teammates in the locker room.
The poor 1972 finish spilled over into the next year for Tolan, as 1973 was a disastrous year for him. Tolan's batting average plummeted to .206, he became a malcontent and had several squabbles with Reds management, who were still unhappy with his 1971 basketball injury. Tolan also went AWOL for two days in August and broke team rules by growing a beard. On September 27, the team suspended Tolan for the remainder of the season. The Reds won yet another division title but the suspension forced Tolan to miss the NLCS, which the Reds lost to the New York Mets. At the end of the season the Reds traded Tolan to the Padres for pitcher Clay Kirby. After the trade the Major League Baseball Players Association filed a grievance on Tolan's behalf. During the 1974 season, in which he batted .266 in 95 games, he learned that he had won his grievance. Tolan demanded that the Reds publicly apologize to him because his name had been slandered but never got the apology.
Tolan was released by the Padres after batting .255 in 1975. He signed with the Philadelphia Phillies as a free agent, and in 1976 batted .261 as a part-time outfielder. The Phillies won the National League East title to earn their first post-season appearance since the "Whiz Kids" were swept by the New York Yankees in the 1950 World Series. However, Tolan's former team, the Reds, defeated the Phillies in the NLCS.
Tolan played professionally in Japan in 1978. He was also a coach for the Padres from 1980–1983. During the strike of 1981, Tolan was dispatched to Walla Walla, Washington, where he was Tony Gwynn's first hitting coach. [1] Tolan also was player-manager of the St. Petersburg Pelicans, a team in the Senior Professional Baseball Association, in the two years of the league's operation, 1989–1990.
In his major league career, Tolan batted .265 with 86 home runs and 497 runs batted in, in 1,282 games played.
History of Baseball
Two
important developments in the history of baseball occurred in the
post-Civil War period: the spread of the sport to Latin America and Asia
(discussed later) and the professionalization of the sport in the
United States. The early baseball clubs such as the New York
Knickerbockers were clubs in the true sense of the word: members paid
dues, the emphasis was on fraternity and socializing, and baseball games
were played largely among members. But the growth of baseball’s
popularity soon attracted commercial interest. In 1862 William Cammeyer
of Brooklyn constructed an enclosed baseball field with stands and
charged admission to games. Following the Civil War, this practice
quickly spread, and clubs soon learned that games with rival clubs and
tournaments drew larger crowds and brought prestige to the winners. The
interclub games attracted the interest and influence of gamblers. With a
new emphasis on external competition, clubs felt pressure to field
quality teams. Players began to specialize in playing a single position,
and field time was given over to a club’s top players so they could
practice. Professionalism began to appear about 1865–66 as some teams
hired skilled players on a per-game basis. Players either were paid for
playing or were compensated with jobs that required little or no actual
work. Amateurs resented these practices and the gambling and bribery
that often accompanied them, but the larger public was enthralled by the
intense competition and the rivalries that developed. The first
publicly announced all-professional team, the Cincinnati (Ohio) Red
Stockings, was organized in 1869; it toured that year, playing from New
York City to San Francisco and winning some 56 games and tying 1. The
team’s success, especially against the hallowed clubs of New York,
resulted in national notoriety and proved the superior skill of
professional players. The desire of many other cities and teams to win
such acclaim guaranteed the professionalization of the game, though many
players remained nominally in the amateur National Association of Base
Ball Players until the amateurs withdrew in 1871. Thereafter
professional teams largely controlled the development of the sport.
The
National Association of Professional Base Ball Players was formed in
1871. The founding teams were the Philadelphia Athletics; the Chicago
White Stockings (who would also play as the Chicago Colts and the
Chicago Orphans before becoming the Cubs; the American League Chicago
White Sox were not formed until 1900); the Brooklyn Eckfords; the
Cleveland Forest Citys; the Forest Citys of Rockford, Illinois; the
Haymakers of Troy, New York; the Kekiongas of Fort Wayne, Indiana; the
Olympics of Washington, D.C.; and the Mutuals of New York City. The
league disbanded in 1876 with the founding of the rival National League
of Professional Baseball Clubs. The change from a players’ association
to one of clubs was particularly significant. The teams making up the
new league represented Philadelphia; Hartford, Connecticut; Boston;
Chicago; Cincinnati; Louisville, Kentucky; St. Louis, Missouri; and New
York City. When William Hulbert, president of the league (1877–82),
expelled four players for dishonesty, the reputation of baseball as an
institution was significantly enhanced.
Formation of the American and National Leagues
In
1881 the American Association was formed with teams from cities that
were not members of the National League and teams that had been expelled
from the league (such as Cincinnati, which was disciplined in 1880 for
playing games on Sunday and allowing liquor on the grounds). In 1890,
after the National League tried to limit salaries (a $2,000 maximum for
pitchers), the players formed the Players’ League, but it quickly
failed. The American Association unsuccessfully challenged the National
League and late in 1891 merged with it in a 12-team league that
constituted a monopoly, an arrangement that prevailed through 1899. By
1900 the National League had shrunk to eight teams—Boston (the team that
would eventually become the Braves), Brooklyn (soon to be the Dodgers),
Chicago (soon to be the Cubs), Cincinnati (the Reds, who had returned
to the league in 1890), New York City (the Giants), Philadelphia (the
Phillies), Pittsburgh (the Pirates), and St. Louis (the Cardinals)—and
it remained so constituted until 1953, when the Boston Braves moved to
Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Western League, organized in 1893,
had Midwestern members. When in 1900 Charles Comiskey moved his St.
Paul, Minnesota, team to Chicago as the White Sox and the Grand Rapids,
Michigan, team was shifted to Cleveland as the Indians, the National
League agreed to the moves. However, when permission was asked to put
teams in Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., the National League
balked, and the “baseball war” was on. The Western League, renamed the
American League and officially elevated to major league status in 1901,
transferred teams from Indianapolis; Kansas City, Missouri; Minneapolis,
Minnesota; and Buffalo, New York, to Baltimore (the first of two
American League teams to be called the Baltimore Orioles), Washington,
D.C. (the Senators), Philadelphia (the Athletics), and Boston (the Red
Stockings). American League teams were also established in Detroit (the
Tigers) and Milwaukee (the first of two teams to be named the Milwaukee
Brewers); the latter club moved to St. Louis as the Browns in 1902. When
the Baltimore club moved to New York City in 1903 to become the
Highlanders (after 1912, the Yankees), the league took the form it was
to keep until 1954, when the St. Louis Browns became the Baltimore
Orioles.
During the “war,” the American League wooed away
many of the National League’s star players. In 1903 the leagues agreed
to prohibit single ownership of two clubs in the same city and the
shifting of franchises from one city to another by either league without
permission of the other. They also established rules for transferring
players from one league to the other and for moving minor league players
into the major leagues. The peace of 1903 resulted in the first World
Series, which, after a hiatus in 1904 (the New York Giants refused to
play, believing the opposition to be unworthy), was held each year
thereafter (with the exception of 1994, when a work stoppage led to the
cancellation of the World Series), the winner being the team to win four
games out of seven (five out of nine from 1919 to 1921). In the period
following the “war,” the two leagues enjoyed a long period of growth.
The “inside game” dominated the next two decades, until hitter-friendly
rules were instituted in 1920, ushering in the “live-ball era” (the
period of inside-game dominance was also known as the “dead-ball era”).
The inside game was a style of play that emphasized pitching, speed, and
batsmanship. Bunting was very common, and doubles and triples were more
heralded than home runs (which during this era were almost exclusively
of the inside-the-park variety). Two managers were credited as the
masters of the inside game and brought success to their respective
teams: John J. McGraw, manager of the National League New York Giants
(1902–32), and Connie Mack, manager of the American League Philadelphia
Athletics (1901–50).
Babe Ruth and baseball’s “golden age”
Kenesaw Mountain Landis, c. 1907.
Baseball
suffered a major scandal—subsequently called the Black Sox scandal—when
eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of accepting bribes
from known gamblers to “throw” the 1919 World Series. Although Charles
Comiskey, owner of the White Sox, suspended the players for the 1921
season, they were found not guilty because of insufficient evidence.
Presuming a need to restore baseball’s honour, however, Judge Kenesaw
Mountain Landis banned the eight accused players from baseball for life
after he was named baseball’s first commissioner, supplanting the
three-man National Commission that had been created in 1903.
During
the 1920s, generally known as a golden age of sports in the United
States, the premier hero was Babe Ruth. A New York Yankee outfielder
affectionately known as the “Sultan of Swat,” Ruth was a large man with
an even larger personality, and his reinvention of the home run (the
sort that traveled over the outfield wall) into a mythic feat enthralled
the nation. His performance not only assured the success of his team
but spurred a tactical change in baseball. The inside game, with its
bunts and sacrifices, gave way to the era of free swinging at the plate.
The resulting explosion of offense brought fans to the ballparks in
droves. Even the Great Depression of the 1930s did little to abate the
rise in popularity and financial success of the game except at the minor
league and Negro league levels. The commercial growth of the game was
aided by several recent innovations. The first All-Star Game, an
exhibition game pitting the best players in the National League against
the best in the American League, was played at Comiskey Park in Chicago
in 1933. During the 1920s club owners also cautiously embraced radio
broadcasting of games. The first major league game broadcast took place
in Pittsburgh in 1921, but during that decade only the Chicago Cubs
allowed broadcasts of all their games. Many owners feared that radio
would dissuade fans from attending the games in person, especially
during the Great Depression. However, the opposite proved to be true:
radio created new fans and brought more of them to the ballpark. Night
baseball, which had already been used by barnstorming and minor league
teams, began in the major leagues at Cincinnati in 1935. Initially,
caution and tradition slowed the interest in night baseball, but the
obvious commercial benefits of playing when fans were not at work
eventually won out. Delayed by World War II, night baseball had become
almost universal by the 1960s: all teams scheduled about half of their
home games at night except the Cubs, who acceded to night baseball at
home only in 1988. The first nighttime World Series game was played in
1971.
From 1942 until the end of World War II, baseball operated
under the “green light” order of Commissioner Landis, approved by U.S.
Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Soon after the Pearl Harbor attack, Landis
asked Roosevelt if he felt that baseball should “close down for the
duration of the war.” Roosevelt, a lifelong baseball fan, replied in a
letter dated January 15, 1942, that he felt baseball was valuable to the
nation and should continue throughout the war. Once Landis received
this letter giving baseball the go-ahead, organized baseball threw
itself behind the American war effort, billing itself as “the national
nerve tonic” for workers in wartime factories. Attendance at baseball
games was still off slightly. Furthermore, many players went into the
armed services—most notably Ted Williams, the last man in organized
baseball to have a season batting average of more than .400 (.406 in
1941)—and the quality of play suffered somewhat.
Baseball after World War II
Roy Campanella of the Brooklyn Dodgers tagging out Jack Lohrke of the New York Giants, 1950.
The
years following the conclusion of World War II were marked by rising
attendance, the growth of the minor leagues, and in 1947 the racial
integration of the game (for more on the integration of baseball, see
Blacks in baseball, below). This period was also marked by new efforts
by players to obtain better pay and conditions of employment. A portent
of things to come was the formation in 1946 of the American Baseball
Guild. Although the guild failed in appeals to national and state labour
relations boards, its very existence led to reforms before the 1947
season: a minimum major league salary of $5,000, no salary cuts during a
season for a major league player moved to the minors, weekly
spring-training expense money of $25, a 25 percent limit on annual
salary cuts, and establishment of a players’ pension fund.
Newsreel footage of highlights of the 1955 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
See all videos for this article
Landis’s
successor as commissioner, Albert B. (“Happy”) Chandler (1945–51),
assured the soundness of the pension fund in 1950 by signing a six-year
contract for broadcasting World Series and All-Star games; the
television portion alone amounted to $1 million a year, a large
proportion being earmarked for the pension fund. Radio and television
rights for regular-season games remained with each club. Later
commissioners included Ford C. Frick (1951–65), William D. Eckert
(1965–69), Bowie Kuhn (1969–84), Peter Ueberroth (1984–89), A. Bartlett
Giamatti (1989), Fay Vincent (1989–92), and Allan H. (“Bud”) Selig
(1998− ).
Franchise relocation and league expansion
Learn
about the highlights of game 3 in the 1959 World Series by watching this
newsreel footage. The Los Angeles Dodgers bested the Chicago White Sox
3−1 in the contest, the first World Series game to be played on the U.S.
West Coast.
See all videos for this article
The postwar boom
was short-lived, however. America was going through tremendous changes.
Millions were moving out of the cities and into the suburbs, and
population centres in the South and West were growing. Americans had
more time and money to enjoy themselves, which they did through
vacationing and outdoor recreation. Moreover, the rapid growth of
television preoccupied the country. Baseball was slow to adapt. Major
league clubs were located only as far west as St. Louis and no farther
south than Washington, D.C. Many of the ballparks had fallen into
disrepair, were outdated, and were inconvenient for surburbanites
driving in for a game. Despite exciting play on the field, attendance
began to wane. The added revenue from radio and television broadcast
rights could not offset the losses at the gate. The 1950s saw the first
franchise changes since 1903. In 1953 the Braves, always overshadowed in
New England by the Red Sox, moved from Boston to Milwaukee, where they
were offered a new stadium (in 1966 the franchise moved again, to
Atlanta, Georgia). The next year, the St. Louis Browns, themselves
overshadowed by the Cardinals, moved to Baltimore and became the
Orioles. In 1955 the Philadelphia Athletics franchise was moved to
Kansas City, Missouri (and in 1968 to Oakland, California). The impact
of these moves was slight compared with the move of the Dodgers and
Giants from New York City to California (the Dodgers to Los Angeles and
the Giants to San Francisco) in 1958. Frustrated in his attempts to win
city support for a new stadium, Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley jumped at
an offer to relocate the team to Los Angeles, which was then the third
largest city in the country. O’Malley persuaded the Giants to move to
San Francisco in order to maintain their rivalry and ease the travel
burden on National League teams.
Despite the betrayal felt by
fans in Brooklyn and Manhattan, the moves were a successful business
decision for the clubs. The decade of franchise movement was followed by
several rounds of expansion that lasted into the 1990s. Expansion began
in 1961 when the Washington (D.C.) Senators were moved to
Minneapolis–St. Paul and renamed the Twins, and a new franchise was
granted to Washington (also named the Senators); however, it lasted only
until 1971, when it was transferred to Dallas–Fort Worth and renamed
the Texas Rangers. Also in 1961 another American League franchise was
awarded to Los Angeles; it later moved to Anaheim as the California
Angels, now known as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. In 1962 the
National League also expanded to 10 teams, admitting new franchises in
New York City (the Mets) and Houston (the Colt .45s; after 1964, the
Astros). In addition, the 154-game season was expanded in the American
League to 162 in 1961, and the National League followed suit in 1962.
Along
with this first round of expansion came an era of superb pitching that
dominated the league for a generation. The earned run averages for
pitchers during this era averaged 3.30, and the major league batting
average fell as low as .238 in 1968. Several changes in the game are
believed to account for the resurgence of pitching: the strike zone was
expanded in 1963; managers explored more-strategic uses of the relief
pitchers; and new glove technology improved defensive play. At the same
time, a new generation of large multipurpose stadiums came into use.
These stadiums typically used artificial turf that was harder and faster
than natural grass. As a result, new emphasis was placed on speed in
the field and on the base paths. Fearing that the dominance of pitching
was hurting fan interest in the game, the major leagues tried to improve
hitting by lowering the mound and narrowing the strike zone in 1969. In
hopes of further increasing offensive play, the American League
introduced the designated hitter in 1973. The changes did increase
offensive output, but pitching still dominated through much of the
1970s.
In 1969 new franchises were awarded, this time to Montreal
(the Expos, the first major league franchise outside the United States)
and San Diego (the Padres), bringing the National League to 12 teams.
In the American League in 1969, new franchises in Kansas City, Missouri
(the Royals), and Seattle, Washington (the Pilots), brought that league
to 12 teams, and both leagues were divided into Eastern and Western
divisions.
Playoffs between division winners determined the
league pennant winners, who then played in the World Series, which was
extended into late October. California, which had had no major league
baseball prior to 1958, had five teams by 1969. Of the new franchises,
only Seattle failed outright and was moved to Milwaukee, where it became
the Brewers (moved to the National League in a 1998 reorganization). In
1977 a franchise was again granted to Seattle (the Mariners) and one
was granted to Toronto (the Blue Jays), bringing the number of American
League teams to 14. In 1993 the National League was also brought to 14
with the addition of teams in Denver (the Colorado Rockies) and Miami
(the Marlins). In 1998 the Arizona Diamondbacks (located in Phoenix)
joined the National League, and the Tampa Bay (Florida) Devil Rays (now
known as the Tampa Bay Rays) began play in the American League.
In
1994 both leagues were reconfigured into East, Central, and West
divisions. The playoff format was changed to include an additional round
and a Wild Card (the team with the best record among the
non-division-winning teams in each league). The playoffs were again
expanded in 2012, when a second Wild Card was added to each league, and
once more in 2022, when a third Wild Card was added, bringing the number
of teams that qualify for the playoffs in each league to six. Under the
revised system, the two division winners with the best regular-season
records receive a bye into the division series. The third division
winner plays the Wild Card team with the worst record while the top two
Wild Card teams play each other in best-of-three series in the Wild Card
round. The top seed in each matchup hosts all of the games in the
series, and the winners of each series move on to play a best-of-five
division series against the teams that received the byes. Both the
league championship series and the World Series have a best-of-seven
format.
An explosion of offense occurred in the mid-1980s and
after. In particular, home runs increased dramatically, reaching
record-breaking numbers from 1985 to 1987 and again in the late 1990s.
The reasons for the change from dominant pitching to hitting are not
entirely clear. Many have claimed that the ball had been engineered to
fly farther, while others have claimed that continual expansion had
diluted the quality of pitching. The improved off-season conditioning
(which now often included weightlifting) made players stronger and
quicker with their bats. Moreover, the 1990s saw another generation of
new ballparks, many of which featured small dimensions that were more to
the liking of power hitters.
During the second half of the 20th
century, expansion was perceived by baseball executives as both a source
of added revenue for clubs (large entry fees were charged to new
franchises) and a means of generating new interest in the game. In 2001,
however, concerns over economically underperforming clubs prompted
owners to announce plans to eliminate two teams (widely believed to be
the Minnesota Twins and the since-relocated Montreal Expos). The plan
was put on hold after the player’s union pursued legal action to prevent
the move, and a 2002 Minnesota court order that forced the Twins to
play out the lease at their home stadium effectively ended the talk of
contraction for the foreseeable future.
The minor leagues
The
minor leagues formed an association in 1901 to deal with the problems
resulting from the lack of agreement on contract ownership, salaries,
territoriality, and other issues. The current structure was created when
the major leagues reached their agreement in 1903, and the minor
leagues became a training ground for prospective major league players
and a refuge for older players.
In 1919 Branch Rickey, then
manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, devised what came to be known as the
“farm system”; as the price of established players increased, the
Cardinals began “growing” their own, signing hundreds of high-school
boys. Other major league clubs followed suit, developing their own farm
clubs that were tied into the minors. In 1949 the minor leagues were
tremendously popular: 448 teams in the United States, Canada, Cuba, and
Mexico played in 59 leagues with an aggregate attendance of some 39
million—about twice that of the 16 major league clubs. The minor leagues
at that time were divided into six classifications, graded according to
the level of playing skills: AAA (triple A), AA (double A), A (single
A), B, C, and D.
Attendance eroded soon thereafter when the major
leagues began broadcasting and televising their games into minor league
attendance areas. By the early 1980s, after the American and National
leagues annexed 10 choice minor league territories, the number of minor
league teams had been greatly reduced, and only 17 leagues remained.
Attendance had dropped, and the minor league clubs generally looked to
the major league parent clubs for heavy subsidization. The purpose of
the minor leagues had evolved from mainly providing local entertainment
to developing major league talent.
This situation improved in the
early 1990s. As ticket prices for major league games escalated,
attendance at less-expensive minor league games rose apace. Furthermore,
development of new stadiums and renovation of existing facilities
created more interest in minor league baseball. By 2009 attendance at
minor league games had reached more than 41.6 million. The minors had 16
leagues with 174 teams falling into one of five classifications—AAA,
AA, A (full season), A (short season), and Rookie. The minor league
franchises successfully concentrated on drawing families to their parks
with both games and promotional entertainment.
Labor struggles
From
the beginning of organized professional baseball, the owners had
controlled the game, players, managers, and umpires. The players had
begun to organize as early as 1885, when a group of New York Giants
formed the National Brotherhood of Base Ball Players, a benevolent and
protective association. Under the leadership of John Montgomery Ward,
who had a law degree and was a player for the Giants, the Brotherhood
grew rapidly as a secret organization. It went public in 1886 to
challenge the adoption of a $2,000 salary ceiling by the National
League. Rebuffed in attempts to negotiate with league owners, the
Brotherhood in 1890 formed the short-lived Players League.
During
the National League–American League war of 1900–03, the Protective
Association of Professional Baseball Players got National League players
to switch to the other league, but with the peace treaty the
association died. In 1912 came the Baseball Players’ Fraternity, which
included most professional players. It was organized after the
suspension of Ty Cobb for punching a fan. Later a threatened strike was
settled the day before it was to begin.
Beginnings of player empowerment
After
a 1953 U.S. Supreme Court decision reaffirmed a 1922 decision stating
that baseball was not a business that was subject to antitrust rules,
baseball felt assured that its legal and economic foundation was firm.
This foundation is primarily based on the Reserve Rule, or Reserve
Clause, an agreement among major league teams, dating from 1879, whereby
the rights of each team to the services of its players are observed by
other teams; i.e., a team could designate a certain number of players
who were not to be offered jobs by other teams. The original number of 5
such players was increased to 11 in 1883 and ultimately included a
whole team roster.
The recourse the court failed to provide was
in substance achieved by the Major League Baseball Players
Association—founded in 1953 but largely ineffectual until 1966, when it
hired as executive director Marvin Miller, a former labour-union
official who also had been active in government in labor-management
relations. A skillful negotiator, he secured players’ rights and
benefits contractually and established grievance procedures with
recourse to impartial arbitration. In 1968 the minimum salary was
doubled to $10,000, and first-class travel and meal allowances were
established in 1970. A threatened players’ boycott of spring training
was averted in 1969 by a compromise assuring a $20,000 median salary.
In
1970 a new suit was brought in federal court contesting the Reserve
Clause. The suit was supported by the players’ association, which hired
as counsel Arthur Goldberg, a former U.S. Supreme Court justice. The
plaintiff was Curt Flood, star outfielder of the St. Louis Cardinals,
and the defendants were the commissioner, the two major league
presidents, and the major league clubs. Flood claimed that, in trading
him to the Philadelphia Phillies without his knowledge or approval, the
Cardinals had violated the antitrust laws. He refused to report to the
Phillies and sat out the season. The court found against Flood, who
appealed, and in 1972 the Supreme Court reaffirmed the 1922 and 1953
decisions exempting baseball from the antitrust laws, but it called on
Congress to correct through legislation any inequities. Meanwhile, Flood
had signed for the 1971 season with Washington on the understanding
that he would not be sold or traded without his permission. He quit in
mid-season, however.
In 1972, baseball had its first general
strike, lasting 13 days; it caused the cancellation of 86 regular-season
games and delayed the divisional playoffs and World Series by 10 days.
The players asked for and ultimately got an addition to the pension
fund. Another players’ strike was averted in 1973, when an agreement was
reached that provided compulsory impartial arbitration of salary
negotiations and established a rule that allowed a player with 10 years
of service in the major leagues and the last 5 years with the same club
to refuse to be traded without his consent.
These were
unprecedented victories for the players, but their greatest triumph came
prior to the 1976 season. Pitchers Andy Messersmith of the Los Angeles
Dodgers and Dave McNally of the Montreal Expos played the entire 1975
season without signing a contract; their contracts had expired but were
automatically renewed by their clubs. Miller had been waiting for such a
test case. The players’ union filed a grievance on behalf of McNally
and Messersmith, contending that a player’s contract could not be
renewed in perpetuity, a custom first established in 1879. Arbitrator
Peter Seitz found for the players. This decision substantively
demolished the Reserve Rule.
Stunned, the owners appealed but
without success. Negotiations followed, however, and the union agreed to
a modification of the Reserve Rule: players with six or more years of
major league service could become free agents when their contracts
expired and would be eligible to make their own deals. The ruling
allowed eligible players who refused to sign their 1976 contracts to
choose free agency in 1977.
Twenty-four players took immediate
advantage of this new opportunity and went on the open market. Frantic
bidding by the clubs followed. Bill Campbell, a relief pitcher with the
Minnesota Twins, was the first free agent to make a new connection. He
signed a four-year $1 million contract with the Boston Red Sox, which
annually paid him more than 10 times his 1976 salary. The free agency
procedure was the principal issue when the players struck for 50 days at
the height of the 1981 season (June 12–July 31), forcing the
cancellation of 714 games. Once again the players won. In the settlement
it was agreed that clubs losing players to free agency would not
receive direct compensation from the free agents’ new teams. The union
contended that such compensation would impede movement, forcing the
signing club, in effect, to pay twice: a huge sum to the player and
further compensation to the player’s former employer. Under certain
conditions relating to the quality of the player, however, the team that
lost the free agent could draft a player from among those assigned to a
compensation pool by their teams, and it could select an amateur draft
choice from the signing team.
After another, brief shutdown
(August 6–7, 1985) centring on salary arbitration, the owners agreed to
increase the minimum salary from $40,000 to $60,000, but the number of
major league seasons a player had to serve before qualifying for
arbitration was raised from two to three. Fan interest continued to
rise, and major league attendance records were broken six times in the
1985–91 seasons. The major source of revenue, however, was television.
The combined revenue from network television in 1984 was $90 million;
one network purchased the rights to televise games in the 1990–93
seasons for $1.1 billion.
In 1994 the owners, unhappy with
escalating payrolls and wary of declining television revenues and the
growing financial gap between large- and small-market clubs, proposed a
new collective bargaining agreement that included a salary cap (a limit
on a team’s payroll), elimination of salary arbitration, and a revised
free agency plan. The proposal was a dramatic shift from the previous
contract and was promptly rejected by the players’ union. The
negotiations that followed were inconclusive, and on August 12 the
players went on strike, shutting down all major league play for the
remainder of the season. When the owners unilaterally imposed the salary
cap in December 1994, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
threatened legal action, and the cap was withdrawn. The owners again
acted unilaterally in February 1995, eliminating salary arbitration,
free agent bidding, and anti-collusion provisions. Again the NLRB
responded, seeking an injunction that would force ownership to operate
under the old contract until a new agreement could be reached with the
union. A U.S. district court granted the injunction on March 31, 1995,
and the players’ union quickly announced that the strike was over. The
owners accepted the players’ offer to return without a new agreement and
to continue negotiations.
The 1994–95 strike lasted 234 days,
erased 921 games (669 from the 1994 season, 252 from the 1995 season),
forced the first cancellation of the World Series since 1904, disrupted
the economies of cities and states, and disappointed millions of
fans—all without reaching a resolution. As a result, there was an
unprecedented decline in attendance during the 1995 season.
By
2000 attendance had improved but player compensation had soared. The
average salary paid to a player had risen dramatically, but the median
player salary had not, meaning that the salaries paid to superstars of
the game had increased at a much greater rate than those paid to
ordinary players. The average salary was about $41,000 in 1974, $289,000
in 1983, nearly $590,000 in 1990, nearly $2,000,000 in 2000, and more
than $3,300,000 in 2010. Median salaries were not compiled in the 1970s,
but in 1983 the median salary was $207,000, in 1990 it was $350,000, in
2000 it was $700,000, and in 2010 it was more than $1,100,000.)
In
2023, as interest in baseball continued to wane and the length of games
(on average more than three hours) was often cited as a cause, Major
League Baseball and the players agreed to several rules changes intended
to make the game more exciting and quicken the pace of play. The most
significant of these was the introduction of a pitch clock, which
limited the amount of time between pitches. Other changes included
eliminating the infield shift rule and making the bases bigger in order
to encourage base-stealing. The average length of a game in the 2023
season was almost 24 minutes less than in 2022.
African Americans in baseball
Racial segregation
During
baseball’s infancy, a colour barrier was put up by the first formal
organization of baseball clubs, the National Association of Base Ball
Players, which decreed in 1867 that clubs “which may be composed of one
or more coloured persons” should not be permitted to compete with its
teams of gentlemen amateurs. When the first professional league was
formed four years later, it had no written rule barring Black players,
but it was tacitly understood that they were not welcome.
However,
the colour line was not consistently enforced during the early years of
professionalism. At least 60 Black players performed in the minor
leagues during the late 19th century—mostly in all-Black clubs. In 1884
two African Americans played in a recognized major league, the American
Association. They were Moses Fleetwood (“Fleet”) Walker, a catcher for
the Association’s Toledo, Ohio, team, and his brother Welday, an
outfielder who appeared in six games for Toledo.
The number of
Black players in professional leagues peaked in 1887 when Fleet Walker,
second baseman Bud Fowler, pitcher George Stovey, pitcher Robert
Higgins, and Frank Grant, a second baseman who was probably the best
Black player of the 19th century, were on rosters of clubs in the
International League, one rung below the majors. At least 15 other Black
players were in lesser professional leagues. Although they suffered
harassment and discrimination off the field, they were grudgingly
accepted by most of their teammates and opponents.
A League of
Colored Base Ball Clubs, organized in 1887 in cities of the Northeast
and border states, was recognized as a legitimate minor league under
organized baseball’s National Agreement and raised hopes of sending
Black players to big league teams. However, the league’s first games
attracted small crowds, and it collapsed after only one week. While no
rule in organized baseball ever stated that Black players were banned, a
so-called “gentlemen’s agreement” to exclude Blacks eventually
prevailed.
There were other disturbing signs of exclusion for
Black players in 1887. The Syracuse (New York) Stars of the
International League suffered a mutiny when pitcher Douglas (“Dug”)
Crothers refused to sit for a team portrait with his Black teammate
Robert Higgins. In Newark, New Jersey, Black pitcher Stovey was kept out
of an exhibition game with the major league Chicago White Stockings at
the insistence of Cap Anson, Chicago’s manager and one of the most
famous players of baseball’s early days. And the St. Louis Browns,
American Association champions, refused to play an exhibition game
against the all-Black Cuban Giants. The night before the scheduled game,
eight members of the Browns handed a message to the team’s owner that
read: “[We] do not agree to play against Negroes tomorrow. We will
cheerfully play against white people at any time.”
In mid-season
that year the International League’s board of directors told its
secretary to approve no more contracts for Black players, although it
did not oust the league’s five Blacks. The Ohio State League also
wrestled inconclusively with the colour question. It was becoming clear
that the colour bar was gradually being raised. Black players were in
the minor leagues for the next few years, but their numbers declined
steadily. The last Black players in the recognized minor leagues during
the 19th century were the Acme Colored Giants, who represented Celoron,
New York, in the Iron and Oil Leagues in 1898.
As the 20th
century dawned, separation of the races was becoming the rule,
especially in the South. The U.S. Supreme Court had written segregation
into national law in 1895 in Plessy v. Ferguson, which approved separate
schools for Black and white children. In the South, state laws and
local ordinances placed limits on the use of public facilities by
African Americans and forbade athletic competition between Blacks and
whites. In the North, African Americans were not usually segregated by
law, but local custom dictated second-class citizenship for them.
Nevertheless,
the idea of Black players in the major and minor leagues was not yet
unthinkable. In 1901 John J. McGraw, manager of the Baltimore Orioles in
the new American League, tried to sign a Black second baseman named
Charlie Grant by saying that he was a Cherokee man named Tokohama. The
effort failed when rivals correctly identified Grant instead as a member
of the Chicago Columbia Giants, a Black team. Five years later there
was an abortive attempt to bring African American William Clarence
Matthews, Harvard College’s shortstop from 1902 to 1905, into the
National League.
Increasingly, Black players who wanted to play
professionally had to join all-Black teams. (Several swarthy players in
the big leagues were widely assumed to be Black although they claimed to
be white Latin Americans. No admitted Black men played in the white
leagues at the time.) Ninety percent of the country’s African American
citizens lived in the South, but migration to Northern states was
increasing. With the growing base of potential fans in the North,
top-quality Black teams appeared in the Northeast and Midwest. Among
them were the Genuine Cuban Giants and Cuban X Giants of New York City
(both made up of African Americans despite their names), the Cuban Stars
and Havana Stars (both with real Cubans), the Lincoln Giants of New
York City, the Philadelphia Giants, the Bacharach Giants of Atlantic
City, New Jersey, the Homestead (Pennsylvania) Grays, the Hilldale Club
of Philadelphia, and the Norfolk (Virginia) Red Stockings. In the
Midwest the leaders were the Chicago American Giants, the Columbia
Giants, the Leland Giants, and the Union Giants of Chicago, the Kansas
City (Missouri) Monarchs, and the Indianapolis ABCs. Especially
noteworthy was the All Nations team, composed of African Americans,
whites, a Japanese, a Hawaiian, a Native American, and several Latin
Americans. On its roster at various times before World War I were two of
the greatest Black pitchers, John Donaldson and José Méndez.
These
teams vied for the mythical “colored championship of the world” and
also played white semipro and college teams. Salaries were modest.
Journeymen players earned $40 to $75 a month, while a star might command
more than $100. Some Chicago teams played in the city’s semipro league
on weekends, occasionally competing against big leaguers from the Cubs
and White Sox who played under assumed names. During the week, they
played white clubs in nearby towns.
Major league teams often
played Black teams during spring training trips to Cuba and sometimes
had postseason games against Black clubs in the United States. In 1909,
for example, the Chicago Cubs won three close games in a series with the
Leland Giants. In 1915, eastern Black teams won four of eight games
against big league teams, including a five-hit shutout of the National
League champion Philadelphia Phillies by Smokey Joe Williams of the New
York Lincoln Giants. In the late 1920s, Commissioner Landis forbade big
league clubs from competing in toto in the off-season. Partisans of
Black baseball believed it was because Black teams often beat the major
leaguers.
In the Midwest a few teams barnstormed all season long.
The Kansas City (Kansas) Giants, for example, were on the road all
summer, traveling mostly by railroad. Their opponents were white semipro
teams throughout the Midwestern states and southern Canada. Although a
Black face was a novelty in the small towns, the players remembered that
by and large they had little trouble finding food and lodging in the
rural areas.
Formed in 1920 and 1921, respectively, the Negro
National League and the Negro Eastern League played in New York City;
Chicago; St. Louis, Missouri; Kansas City, Missouri; Detroit, and other
cities that had absorbed a large influx of African Americans from the
South during and after World War I. In the 1920s a Negro World Series
was begun and was held annually until the Negro leagues failed in the
1930s. A second Negro National League was founded late in that decade,
and the Negro American League, formed in 1936, ultimately had Eastern
and Western divisions that in 1952 played a Negro East-West game. Among
the most famous players in the various Negro leagues were Josh Gibson
(who was credited with hitting 89 home runs in one season), Satchel
Paige, Bill Yancey, John Henry Lloyd, Andrew (“Rube”) Foster, and James
Thomas (“Cool Papa”) Bell. After World War II, attendance at Negro
league games declined as outstanding players were lost to formerly
all-white teams. (For more in-depth information on this topic, see Negro
leagues.)
Robert W. Peterson The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Integration
Several
major league teams either discussed or attempted the racial integration
of professional baseball in the 1940s. The interest in integration then
was sparked by several factors—the increasing economic and political
influence of urban Blacks, the success of Black ballplayers in
exhibition games with major leaguers, and especially the participation
of African Americans in World War II. The hypocrisy of fighting fascism
abroad while tolerating segregation at home was difficult to ignore.
During the war, protest signs outside Yankee Stadium read, “If we are
able to stop bullets, why not balls?” A major obstacle to integration
was removed in 1944 with the death of Commissioner Landis. Though he had
made several public declarations that there was no colour barrier in
baseball, during his tenure Landis prevented any attempts at signing
Black players. (He blocked, for example, Bill Veeck’s purchase of the
Philadelphia Phillies in 1943 after learning that Veeck planned to stock
his team with Negro league All-Stars.) On the other hand, Landis’s
successor, Happy Chandler, was openly supportive of bringing integration
to the sport.
Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers stealing
home in a baseball game against the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field,
Brooklyn, August 22, 1948.
In 1947 Jackie Robinson became the
first Black player in the modern major leagues. His arrival was the
result of careful planning by Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey,
who began researching the idea of signing a Black player and scouting
for the right individual when he joined the Dodgers in 1942. In a
meeting with Robinson in 1945, Rickey badgered the player for several
hours about the abuse and hostility he would receive from players and
fans and warned him that he must not retaliate. Robinson agreed and
spent the 1946 season with the Dodgers minor league franchise in
Montreal in preparation for playing in the big leagues. His first season
with Brooklyn was marred by all the hostility that Rickey had predicted
(even from a handful of teammates), but it also was marked by
Robinson’s determined play, which eventually won over fans and
opponents, as well as helping the Dodgers win the National League
pennant and earning him the Rookie of the Year award. Robinson, who was
named Most Valuable Player in the National League after his third year,
was followed into the major leagues immediately by Larry Doby and in
1948 by Satchel Paige. Both played for the American League Cleveland
Indians, who won the World Series in 1948. Despite the successes of
Robinson, Doby, and Paige, full integration of the major leagues came
about slowly and was not completed until 1959 when Elijah Green joined
the Boston Red Sox.
The impact of Black players on the field was
significant. They brought over from the Negro leagues an aggressive
style of play that combined power hitting with daring on the base paths.
Black players soon established themselves as major league stars. In the
1950s and ’60s, players such as outfielders Willie Mays and Hank Aaron
(who set the all-time career home-run record) and pitcher Bob Gibson
posted statistics that ranked them among the best ever to play the game.
Later, Reggie Jackson, Ozzie Smith, and Barry Bonds were definitive
players of their respective eras. In 1962 Robinson became the first
Black player inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame. In the 1970s,
membership in the Hall was opened to the bygone stars of the Negro
leagues.
By that time acceptance of Black players had become
commonplace. However, inclusion of minorities in coaching and
administrative positions was virtually nonexistent. In 1961 Gene Baker
became the first African American to manage a minor league team, and in
the mid-1960s there were only two African American coaches in the major
leagues. In 1975 the Cleveland Indians made Frank Robinson the first
Black field manager in major league history. However, opportunities for
minorities in managerial positions were rare, and their representation
in leadership positions remains an issue.
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