An investigation of the development and growth of baseball farm systems: With special reference to its inventor, Branch Rickey

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Content AN INVESTIGATION OP THE DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OP
BASEBALL FARM SYSTEMS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE
TO ITS INVENTOR, BRANCH RICKEY
A Thesis
Presented to
the Faculty of the School of Commerce
University of Southern California
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Business Administration
ky
Albert Karan
July 19
UMI Number: EP43409
All rights reserved
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This thesis, written by
Albert Karan
under the guidance of his Faculty Committee,
and approved by all its members, has been
presented to and accepted by the Faculty of
the School of Commerce in partial fulfill
ment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Business Administration
Date & — 1 2 . —
Approved
TABLE OP CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE [
INTRODUCTION . . 1 |
I. THE PROBLEM AND DEFINITIONS OP TERMS USED . 2 |
The problem............................. 2
Statement of the problem. ....... 2
Importance of the study.............. 2
Definitions of terms used.............. 3
Baseball farm system 3 1
Spring training 3 1
Branch Rickey........................ if
Baseball franchise.................... l j _ j
Baseball contract .................... 4 I
Draft system........................ if
The scout............................ if
Baseball ladder...................... if
Ma jor-leagues........................ if
Minor-leagues ... ........ ..... 5
Sources of material .............. 5
Organization of the remainder of the
thesis 5 1
II. BRANCH RICKEY INNOVATES THE FARM SYSTEM
WITH THE ST. LOUIS CARDINALS............ 8
III. RICKEY'S STORMY ADVENT TO BROOKLYN 17 1
iv
CHAPTER PAGE
Rickey’s predecessor, Larry MacPhail. . . 17
Cold welcome for Rickey............ 19
IV. RICKEY--THE MAN OP MANY IDEAS........ 21
The erasure of baseball’s color line. . . 21
Spring training difficulties........ 22
Technical aspects of spring training. . . 27
V. MASS SPRING TRAINING AT VERO BEACH.... 31
Staff and materials to run Dodgertown • • l j . 1
Evaluation of the Brooklyn organization
and mass spring training. .......... i j . 5
Intensified training shortens develop
ment time of rookies.............. l j . 7
VI. HON BRANCH RICKEY GOT HIS START IN BASE
BALL.................. i j . 9
VII. FARM OPERATIONS AND JUDGE LANDIS...... 57
Pinancial aspects of farm clubs ........ 57
Judge Landis’ first case............ 63
The Bob Feller incident............ 6
The Tommy Henrich incident.......... 68
Branch Rickey’s run-in with Judge Landis. 70
VIII. THE DEVELOPMENT OP THE BONUS BOOM 73
Is a big bonus bad for a youngster? . . . 7k-
How the big bonuses came to be...... 80
V
CHAPTER PAGE
The intangibles of raw rookies.......... 8 i | .
Undercover bonuses. . . ............... 86
Earl Mann— against farm systems....... 90
IX. THE BALLPLAYERS CLIMB UP THE LADDER..... 9lf
A look at the New York Giants organization. 9k
The events of a ballplayer trying to make
a big league team................... 97
The first few days in a big-league camp • 102
X. THE INITIATION OP THE NEW YORK YANKEE AND
BOSTON RED SOX FARM SYSTEMS........... 110
The New York Yankees and George Weiss . . . 110
The Boston Red Sox.............. 117
XI. THE BALANCE SHEET OP A BIG-LEAGUE BALL CLUB . 12i^
A look at the New York Yankees, a decade
ago........................ 12k
The St. Louis Browns, 1952............. 128
The cost of building a ball park today. . . 130
XII. THE FOUNDATIONS OP BASEBALL, WITH EMPHASIS
ON THE MINOR LEAGUES................... 133
Park ownership or a solid lease ....•• 135
The franchise . 137
The contract. . ........................ 139
Anti-trust action..................... lipl
vi
CHAPTER PAGE
Salary and player limits • II4J4.
The guarantee deposit.................. 145
The draft system. ................ 147
The scout............................... lij .8
Investments.............. * * 152
XIII. THE QUESTION OP THE MAJOR LEAGUES SUFFOCAT
ING THE MINORS........................... 1511-
Attendance figures through the years. . . 154 |
Is baseball in trouble?.......... 156
Conclusion. . ........................ 160
XIV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.................... 162
Summary................................. 162
Conclusion............................... 166
The farm system turns baseball into a
complex business organization .... 166 j
Evaluation of the farm system • • • . • 168
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................... 173
APPENDIX A. 1954 Camp Rules and Regulations for
Brooklyn Dodgers Training Camp,
Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida . . . 178
APPENDIX B. Daily Worksheets from Dodgertown,
Vero Beach, Florida, 1951p.......... 184 j
APPENDIX C. Executed Player Contract, Exhibit 1 . 191 ‘
LIST OP TABLES
TABLE PAGE
I. Dodgertown Worksheet......................... 3^-
II. 1954 Camp Rules and Regulations for Brooklyn
Dodgers Training Camp, Dodgertown, Vero
Beach, Florida.......................... 179
III. Dodgertown Worksheet......................... 185
LIST OP FIGURES
FIGURE PAGE
1. Brooklyn Dodgers and Affiliated Clubs Train
ing Camp, Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida. • 32
2. The Tree That Grows in Brooklyn, the
Dodgers1 Minor League Farm Clubs of 195>lj- • •
3* Rookie Lou Gehrig Had So Little Money in
Spring Training that He Expected to Work
Nights as a Waiter..................... 101
I j . * A Traditional Gag About Baseball Rookies . • . 108
5* The Anatomy of a Ball Club............... 13ij.
INTRODUCTION
This thesis is a study of how the baseball farm sys
tem was developed by Branch Rickey and how it flourished
to help make baseball a complex business organization.
In its way, the farm idea was simple industrial "rational
ization” applied to baseball. Just as it made sense for
Andrew Carnegie to own his own ore mines, his own ore
boats, and his own coking supplies to support his steel
mills, so did it make sense for the Rickey St. Louis
Cardinals of 1920 to control their own supply of future
stars.
For the most part, this paper consists of abstracts j
from periodicals, with a few experiences of the author,
who, at this writing, has been a member of the Brooklyn
Dodger farm system for four years.
This study is not solely the experiences of the
author in the Brooklyn organization, but rather, a study
and discussion of how the farm system was developed and
how it grew to its present proportions with interjections
of personal experiences and interviews wherever it has
been feasible.
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM AND DEFINITIONS OF TERMS USED
The complexities of baseball organization are be
coming more and more involved with big business each
year. Though many books have been written on the differ
ent phases of baseball, very little attention has been
focused on the baseball farm systems.
I. THE PROBLEM
Statement of the problem. It is the purpose of
this study to help the sports minded person to get a better
understanding of how the baseball farm systems started
under Branch Rickey and how it has progressed up to the
present. It is hoped that, through a reading of the
materials presented in this thesis, the average fan will
get a clearer picture of the problems involved in operating
a baseball farm system and will have some knowledge of the !
principles, methods, and techniques that are employed in
running such organizations.
Importance of the study. Baseball represents our
national pastime. It has always occupied an important
The courts call baseball a lfsportf f and not a
"business.1 1
3
place in our way of life, and as far as one can foretell,
always will. To this writer it would he no surprise to
find how little the average fan, and some students of the
game, know about the involved procedures of bringing a
youngster up to the major leagues.
It is intended, by this study, to help both the
students of the game and the fans visualize the methods of
organization, costs of operation, and efficient operating
procedures so that they will have a greater knowledge of
baseball.
II. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS USED
Baseball farm system. The integrated organization
of minor league clubs which a major league club owns or
controls for the purpose of developing its own players.
It is also possible and feasible for indepent minor league
teams, in higher classifications, to have a few farm clubs
of their own.
Spring training. The six or seven weeks period that
is devoted to the conditioning of ballplayers previous to
the start of the regular season. This training siege
usually takes place in the South or Far-west where the
climate is warmest at that time of year (March and April).
The players receive no compensation in spring training, but
k \
everything is expense free.
Branch Hickey# The man who evolved the farm system |
with the St. Louis Cardinals some thirty years ago.
Baseball franchise. A grant by which a club secures
the exclusive right to operate a baseball club in a league.!
Baseball contract. An agreement between a player
and a club by which the player undertakes to perform cer
tain tasks at the direction of the club to the best of his |
ability, and the club agrees to compensate him for such
performance.
Draft system. A device by which higher clubs (under
certain conditions) may select players from clubs of lower ]
classification by paying a fixed price for the contract of !
such selected players.
The scout. The person who looks for available
talent that he can sign to a contract for the organization |
that he represents.
Baseball ladder. The classification of baseball
leagues from Glass D to the major-leagues. The classes
from bottom to top include: D, C, B, A, AA, AAA, and the
majors.
Major-leagues. The sixteen baseball clubs that
comprise the American and National leagues.
Minor-leagues* The rest of the baseball family.
These leagues include Class D through Class AAA (inferior
to superior).
III. SOURCES OP MATERIAL
The data listed in the bibliography served as a
basis for this study. It consists mainly of articles from
periodicals, and some books.
This writer1s personal experience in the Brooklyn
farm system and interviews with people connected with that
organization were also used.
IV. ORGANIZATION OP THE REMAINDER OP THE THESIS
This paper consists of fourteen chapters, plus an
introduction and appendix. The following brief outline
will show this study1s organization by chapters.
Chapter II is a study of how Branch Rickey initiated
the farm system with the St. Louis Gardinals.
Chapter III follows Rickey from St. Louis to
Brooklyn. It concludes some historical background on the :
Brooklyn organization previous to Rickey1s advent.
Chapter IV brings forth many of Rickey1s thoughts, j
It includes some of the technical aspects of spring
6
training.
Chapter V is devoted to mass spring training at the
Brooklyn Dodgers* present training site at Vero Beach,
Florida.
Chapter VI is a flashback on how Branch Hickey got
his start in baseball.
Chapter VII is a discussion of farm operations and
Judge Landis, the game*s first high commissioner. It in
cludes the financial aspects of farm clubs and some of the |
earlier cases that Judge Landis had in his administration, j
Chapter VIII brings forth the development of the
bonus boom.
Chapter IX is a study of a ballplayer*s climb up
the baseball ladder to the major leagues.
Chapter X takes a look at the New York Yankee and
Boston Red Sox farm systems.
Chapter XI consists of the financial aspects of the
New York Yankees a decade ago and the defunct St. Louis
Browns of more recent years. The costs of building of
ball parks are also discussed.
Chapter XII is a discussion of the foundations of
baseball, with emphasis on the minor leagues. This discus
sion includes park ownership, the franchise, the contract, j
anti-trust actions, salary and player limits, the guarantee
deposit, the draft system, the scout, and investments. 1
7
Chapter XIII discusses the possible ill-effects the
jor-leagues may have upon -the minor-leagues.
Chapter XIV is the summary and conclusions.
CHAPTER II
BRANCH RICKEY INNOVATES THE FARM SYSTEM
WITH THE ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
It was in midseason of 19 i |- 3 that Branch Rickey suc
ceeded Larry MacPhail as top man in the Brooklyn baseball
organization. It was not long after that that Rickey un
folded the outlines of a campaign which amazed his board
of directors. This in itself was no mean feat, since the
Dodger directorate properly assumed that it had reached
the saturation point in amazement during the-reign of
Larry MacPhail.^
Rickey took the Dodger directors to an oratorical
mountaintop and unfolded a dazzling prospect. It was a
brilliant plan, with only two discernible drawbacks. One
was that the country was engaged in the greatest war in
history. The other was that it required $50,000 cash on
o
the barrelhead, to start the wheels moving.
In those early days of 19^3> baseball magnates were
dropping scouts from the payrolls and closing most of their
farm clubs with t f Closed for the Duration” signs. Why scout
1 Tom Meany, ”The Dodgers Ain’t No Accident,”
Collier’s, 125:23, June 2 l j . , 1950.
^ Loc. cit.
a teen-ager when Uncle Sam already had him scouted and
earmarked for future services'? With the exception of
Rickey, most baseball executives viewed the ideal baseball
prospect as a man past forty, with three dependents and a
hacking cough.
It was scarcely the time to sell a ball club a pro
gram of expansion with the accent on youth, but that was
precisely what Mr. Rickey set out to do.3
”The war will not last forever,” declared Rickey.
It was hardly an original statement, but what followed was:
I propose we sign every available young man our
scouts can certify as possessing baseball talent,
paying particular attention to those under eighteen.
Even if eventually they all go into service, the great
majority will return and when the war is over we will
have a pool of material for our farm, clubs and a
surplus to sell to other organizations. The sale of
this surplus will defray the production costs.h-
That is how the present dynasty of the Brooklyn
Dodgers started— with Branch Rickey’s guiding hand. But
this is the middle of the story. One has only to go back
a few years to observe that he initiated the farm system
with the St. Louis Cardinals and made the Cardinals what
they are today.
^ Ibid., p. 6 i | . .
k
Loc. cit.
10
The modern game of baseball, with its short fences,
\
its hopped up “rabbit1 1 ball, and its concomitant home-run
slugging, owes its character to Babe Ruth. Its integrity
is undoubtedly due to the late Judge Landis, the High
Commissioner who purged it of gambling influences after
the scandalous behavior of the Chicago “Black Sox” of 1919
in throwing the World's Series to the Cincinnati Reds.
But the creativeness of modern baseball is almost entirely
the product of Branch Rickey, who has been responsible for
most of the innovations of the past four decades.^
When he was field manager of the St. Louis Cardinals!
he devised the farm system, our major point of discussion I
in this paper. The so-called farm system enables a major
league club to save money by developing its own players
on minor league teams which it owns or controls. The farm
idea was simple industrial rationalization applied to
baseball.
But Mr. Rickey did not evolve his farm system idea
out of any philosophical bias in favor of business ration- ;
alization. He did it because of a condition in St. Louis. |
Back in 1919? the St. Louis National League club had no
John Chamberlain, “Brains, Baseball, and Branch
Rickey,” Harpers Magazine, 1175J3^7> April, 19ij-8.
11
money. When a Cardinal scout would put in a bid in
Albuquerque for a potential Ty Cobb, the resourceful
Albuquerque owner would immediately call up the rich New
York Giants or the plush Chicago Cubs and get a really
good price for the rookie. This created a vicious circle
in St. Louis: The rich Giants got better, but the poor
Cardinals, unable to secure and develop young stars with
box office appeal, just couldn*t earn any money at the
£
gate to buy stars from anybody elsel°
Rickey tried various ways to counteract the impov
erishment of the Cardinals, even going so far as to borrow j
his wife1s rugs for office use when he was trying to im
press a visitor and put over a deal. Such make-shift
shenanigans could not compensate for the absence of a good |
double-play combination. Therefore, Rickey who had been a j
bright young school-teacher in Scioto County, Ohio, before I
going to college at Ohio Wesleyan and to law school at the |
University of Michigan, bethought himself of a ehainstore
system of primary, secondary, and tertiary baseball schools.
He talked over his proposition with Sam Breadon, a young
automobile salesman whom he had persuaded to put $2,000
into the Cardinals, and together they pioneered the idea at
6
Ibid.. p.
12 j
Houston, Texas and Port Smith, Arkansas.?
With Breadon!s support and money, Rickey’s Cardinals;
subsequently bought 50 per cent of the stock in the
Syracuse club of the International League. First baseman
Jim Bottomly alone was worth the purchase price. Prom
here on the Cardinals branched out, buying into Sioux City |
and many smaller clubs. By 1928, the Cardinal investment
in farm clubs amounted to $91+6,000. And likely-looking
youngsters were moving upward for nominal sums to the
parent St. Louis team.®
Rickey’s farm system, which at its peak consisted
of thirty-two clubs, soon made the Cardinals the most im
pressive organization in the National League, athletically |
and financially. Between 1925 and 19^2, the team won six
pennants and four world championships. Even in non
championship years, it was usually near the top of the
standings. Gate receipts mounted steadily. Some years,
the club met all Its operating expenses simply by selling
at handsome prices the contracts of surplus players who
had been developed on the farms
7
Loc. cit.
8
Loc. cit.
9
Robert Rice, T!Profiles,1 1 The New Yorker, 26:1+2, |
June 3» 1950.
13
In twenty-seven years with the Cardinals, Rickey
made more than a million dollars in salary and commissions.
But the St. Louis attendance could not equal the figures
achieved in such metropolitan areas as Chicago and New
York, so Rickey had to develop the selling of players into
a fine art in order to create and justify his financial
1 1 take •"
With his uncanny eye for the nature of reflex action,
Rickey could tell just when the ripeness of a young star
was about to become the rottenness of baseball middle age,
which may begin even in a player1s late twenties# In
1937, pitcher Dizzy Dean looked to Rickey to be through
forever. Since he is constitutionally unable to tell a
lie, Rickey announced to Phil Wrigley of the Cubs that
Dean’s arm was dead— but that he would not take less than
$185*000 for Dizzy’s contract. Wrigley could not believe
that Rickey would be holding out for $185*000 for a dead
armed pitcher, so he bought Dizzy, anyway. But dead the
arm was, and Rickey chuckled to himself as he pocketed his
20 per cent of the profits.^
Rickey left the St. Louis Cardinals late in 19l±2
when the war destroyed the basis for his customary $80- or |
$90,000-a-year take. With the military draft scooping up
Chamberlain, op. cit., p. 3^9.
1 k
the promising farm club kids, the St* Louis club decided
that it must hang on to its veterans— and there was liter
ally nobody for Rickey to peddle to the other clubs for
fantastic sums and fantastic commissions.
So Rickey left St. Louis at the age of sixty-one,
with key scouts and business managers in the Cardinal chain
system who could be counted on to follow Rickey anywhere,
and entered previously hostile Flatbush as general manager*
(Later he and his friends bought stoek control of the
club.)11
Before the advent of Rickey, Brooklyn baseball had
been on a hit-or-miss basis. Once upon a time, when Charles
Ebbets and Steve McKeever were alive, the team had made
money. But, with the death of Ebbets, the confusion among
heirs, and easy credit at the bank, the club had fallen
under the sway of the Brooklyn Trust Company, which had
everything to recommend it except a knowledge of inside
baseball.^
During the pre-Rickey days, Brooklyn sometimes won
a pennant or staggered home in second place with ancient
castoffs who were prone to "September wilt."
11 Ibid., p. 352.
12
Loc. cit.
15 I
The first attempt at rebuilding Brooklyn was made
in 19379 when the Dodger directors hired the flamboyant
Rickey protege, Larry MacPhail, to rebuild the club from
scratch* MacPhail installed new lighting fixtures, paint- 1
ed the stands, and purchased a whole army of Big Name
ballplayers, including some extra-special ivory from
Rickey’s barracks in St. Louis. But the cost of getting
championship athletes from Rickey and elsewhere was stag
gering, and the profit-starved Brooklyn directors evidently!
thought it cheaper in the long run to buy Rickey direct.13 ]
As was stated above, when Rickey came up with the
idea of initiating a program of expansion with the accent
on youth, the Brooklyn directors met it with some misgiv
ings; nevertheless, the Brooklyn directors were willing to |
go along with Rickey. j
Rickey then proceeded to send out his scouts on the j
prowl as cradle-snatchers. Letters were written to more
than 18,000 high school baseball coaches asking for talent j .
recommendations. Some 4,000 replies were received, and ;
tryout camps were established throughout the country at
which Dodger scouts inspected no fewer than 2,000 young
sters, 400 of whom were signed to contracts. The net
13
Ibid., p. 353*
16 |
result was to give Brooklyn a corner on the market of youth.
When the war ended, 30 months after Rickey had
initiated his youth drive, there was a great demand for
young ballplayers, and only the Dodgers had the man-power
with which to supply it* Other clubs, seeking frantically
to restock long-neglected farm clubs, had to turn to
Brooklyn *4-
Tom Meany, f l The Dodgers AinT t No Accident,1 1
Collier1 s, 125*61;, June 2 1 ;, 1950.
CHAPTER III
RICKEY1S STORMY ADVENT TO BROOKLYN
I. RICKEY1S PREDECESSOR, LARRY MACPHAIL
When Larry MaePhail took over the Dodgers in 193$,
the elub had been losing money for six years, and was over j
a million dollars in debt. The elub owed the Brooklyn
Trust Company, alone, so much that the bank was practically
running the team. A year earlier, the Dodgers had finished
sixth in the National League; the players were listless
and the emotional Brooklyn fans were sulking in their
homes. To introduce glamour, MaePhail hired a drillmaster ;
to improve his ushers1 stance and dressed them in flashy
green-and-gold uniforms. f t The head usher looked like a
rear admiral,” one reporter wrote. f f Many of the fans |
saluted him.” MaePhail put murals on the walls of the
refreshment stands, built a luxurious free bar for the
press, and announced that eventually he was going to pipe
radio music into the restrooms. Then, with noisy but
inspired strategy, he went to work to build a winning team.
Shortly after taking over his job, he walked into
the office of the president of the Brooklyn Trust Company
and said, ”1 need $£0,000 for a first baseman.” Then he
opened wide the floodgates of his wonderful syntax. In
slightly more than four minutes he had the money. Before
18
MaePhail*s arrival, the Trust Company had been in the
habit of calling a directors1 meeting to consider the
purchase of catchers* mitts or rubbing alcohol.^
He next announced that he was going to experiment
with night baseball* He went to the General Electric
Company and bought $72,000 worth of lighting equipment*
Having no money, he told the company to charge it* The
first night game in the New York area, between the Dodgers
and the Cincinnati Reds, was a bizarre event* MaePhail
led off with a monster fireworks display and followed it
with a sprinting contest between Jesse Owens, the Negro
runner, and several ballplayers. When Johnny Vander Meer
that night pitched his second no-hit game in a row, Mac-
Phail acted as if this was no more than he had expected.
During the remainder of the 1938 season, he whooped up
attendance by various types of buffoonery. But, while
successful financially, athletically the team collapsed
into seventh place.^
MaePhail fired the manager and appointed short-stop
Leo Durocher in his place. Durocher was the natural candi
date for the job. He is one of the most belligerent men in
* * ■ Robert Lewis Taylor, "Larruping Larry MaePhail,"
Readers* Digest. 39 i l l 9 September, 19^1*
2
Ibid.. p. 78.
19 i
baseball, his vocal stamina second only to that of MaePhail.
Soon after the money started flowing into the box
office, MaePhail went on a shopping spree for ballplayers. |
He hired fifteen talent scouts and sent them to look over
minor-league and sand-lot players.3 He had some success,
winning a pennant in 194-1 * But after the 19l±2 World fs
Series, Branch Rickey replaced Larry MaePhail at the helm
of the Dodgers, and proceeded to build them into a peren
nial power plant.
II. COLD WELCOME FOR RICKEY
When Branch Rickey came to Brooklyn from St. Louis, |
he was greeted with open arms— palms out, as if to shove
him back where he came from.
"Carpetbagger!” the uninhibited Brooklyn fans
jeered.
"Cheapskate!” they yelled. "Skinflint! Nickel
nurser!”
Thatfs the kind of welcome Rickey received in
Brooklyn. The Vociferous citizens of the borough that
became famous for growing a tree paid no attention to
Branch1s brilliant record in baseball. He was a foreigner |
3 ■
Loc. cit.
20
from the West, wasn’t he? And a slow man with a buck, at
that* He sold stars for cash money, and he didn't care
how many pennants he lost*
Brooklyn was hardly overjoyed at Rickey’s approach*
The only thing that saved his advent from assuming the
proportions of a total flop was the fact that a rumor had
swept the New York press to the effect that MaePhail might
be succeeded by Bill Terry, the ex-New York Giant who once
made the mistake of asking: f,Is Brooklyn still in the
league?” Any loyal Dodger fan would rather have accepted
Charlie McCarthy or the Crown Prince of Transylvania than
Terry* So Rickey, with a few misgivings, was accepted.^-
^ Ed Fitzgerald, "Branch Rickey— Dodger Deacon,”
Sport, 3*67-68, November, 191+7•
CHAPTER IV
RICKEY--THE MAN OP MANY IDEAS
Behind his youth drive at Brooklyn, Rickey had
another and far more revolutionary plan* He decided that
the time was ripe for Negroes to play in organized base-
ball.1
I. THE ERASURE OP BASEBALL'S COLOR LINE
All this started when the New York State Anti-dis
crimination Law was passed* The late Mayor La Guardia
appointed a Committee for Unity with a subcommittee to
consider the problem of the Negro in baseball* The sub
committee included Larry MaePhail, who had moved over to
the Yankees, Bill Robinson, the Negro tap dancer, Judge
Jeremiah Mahoney, Arthur Daley, sports columnist of the
New York Times, and — Branch Rickey*2
The slow deliberations of the committee drove
Rickey into a frenzy, and characteristically he decided
to bypass the committee business by going out into the
field and hiring a good Negro player to play for Brooklyn
^ Tom Meany, MThe Dodgers Ain’t No Accident,1 1
Collierfe, 125:6I 4 . , June 2if, 1950*
2
John Chamberlain, ! l Brains, Baseball, and Branch
Rickey,1 1 Harper’s Magazine, 1175:35^* April, 19l j. 8*
22
or for one of the Brooklyn farm teams# While other clubs
were debating the Negro problem in doubletalk as a sociolo
gical issue, Hickey was spending $>25*000 to search the
continent*3
Rickey-also suggested that the Dodgers subsidize a
team in a newly formed Negro league# This team, the Brown |
Dodgers, would play its home games at Ebbets Field while
Brooklyn was on the road#
To obtain players for the Brown Dodgers, Brooklyn
scouts were sent on talent hunts in other Negro leagues
and on exploratory trips to Cuba, Mexico and other Latin-
American countries where there was no color line# Only
the Dodger directors knew that Rickey actually was seeking |
the Negro player whose talents were great enough to permit |
him to smash prejudice.^* Finally it was decided that
Jackie Robinson had the best major league potentialities
and he was signed to a contract. He became one of the
great players of all time.
II. SPRING TRAINING DIFFICULTIES
Branch Rickey1s official problems always accelerate !
in number as the spring training period approaches. His
^ Loc. cit# ■
k
Meany, o£. cit#, p# 61^..
23 |
failure to complain or protest has forced intimates to
believe his hyperactivity a form of occupational therapy,
particularly since he seems happiest when caught in a
cloudburst of baseball difficulties. But in late February,
194- 7* he was lucky to escape annihilation as the swirling
flood of perplexities engulfed him.
A major problem of baseball training was geographic,
due to the presence of several Negroes on the pioneering
Montreal Royals, top Dodger farm club. One of these was
Jackie Robinson, International League batting champion of
19^-6. Regular appraisal of all rookies for consideration
as major leaguers was imperative. As regrettable events
of the previous year had proved, Negro players could not
train freely in Florida, competitively or otherwise.^
Rather than embarrass any segregation state or
municipality, Rickey decided to condition all teams con
taining Negroes outside continental United States until
f f boys with deeper pigmentation ean be welcomed as ball
players.1 1 He arranged for both Montreal and the Dodgers
to train in Havana, with a twelve-day junket to the Canal
Zone in mid-March for exhibition games.
5
Arthur Mann, Baseball Confidential (New York:
David McKay Company, Inc., 19^1), p. &2.
2k I
Rickey also set up and supervised operation of a
gigantic minor-league training camp for Brooklyn*s several I
hundred farm-club players on lower classification teams.
He had opened the first postwar camp of this type in 194&
at Sanford, Florida, a location later used by the New York
Giants* minor-league teams. For 1947 he leased most of the
Naval Air Training Base at Pensacola, Florida, because of
its barracks-type housing facilities. Another considera
tion was concrete landing strips on the grounds, which
permitted flight of the Dodgers* five-passenger BeechcraftI
plane right to his barracks doorstep. This camp was later
moved to Vero Beach, Florida, where it was enlarged to
include the whole Brooklyn organization.
The Pensacola mass-training idea, later adopted by
many big-league organizations, was more than a means of
developing mere baseball skill. It encompassed develop
ment of the men through a comprehensive program— a swimming!
pool, tennis courts, bowling alleys, pool and table tennis |
equipment, small games and darts, reading matter, a juke
box, regular motion picture shows, modem medical super
vision, all the milk, food and fruit a growing boy could
pile on a tray three times a day, and religious services
for all denominations. Only the unregenerate could get ;
into trouble.
25
Prom his barracks bedroom, or from his sumptuous
suite in Havana, Rickey would keep in constant communica
tion by telephone, telegraph and letter with the Brooklyn
office.^
Building a major-league club under the Rickey sys
tem of player supply is a complicated procedure, made more
so by the fact that the manager is the boss on player
selection and lineups. Considerable nonsense has been
written to picture Rickey peering constantly over his
manager's shoulder and whispering, or yelling about what
players to pick and when.
His big league managers would get a lot more sleep
if this were a fact. Actually, the responsibility of
player selection is their own, without influence unless
it is requested. Regardless of published claims to the
contrary, this has always been the fact.
f , A manager who cannot make up his mind, or has none
of his own,” Rickey has always said, “is no earthly good
to me.*'7
Within a long-range program of player production,
purchase or development in the lower classification
Ibid., pp. 62-63.
Ibid., pp. 69-70.
26
leagues, Rickey has plenty to say. He will be heavily
identified with the movement or promotion of likely pro
spects. He might even wish to high heaven one player would
be selected over another, but he will not lower the dignity
or confidence of his major-league manager by making deci
sions for him*
An illuminating example of his respect for indi
vidual opinion can be taken from one of the early mass-
production camps operated by the St. Louis Gardinals* The I
entire staff seemed to agree one evening that a certain
young player of eighteen was hopeless. When Rickey an
nounced that the boy would be cut loose and forgotten, one |
hand of protest was raised. It belonged to Joe Schultz, a |
scout, who expressed belief that the boy had a future.
Might go "all the way.1 1
"Twenty-four men believe he can!t do it, Joe,"
Rickey reminded. "Do you actually think he's got some
thing?"
The scout repeated his belief.
"Well, one voice is enough when a boy's future is
at stake," Rickey said. "We'll look at him for another
week or ten days."
The player was Enos Slaughter, who became one of
the Cardinals' great outfielders and hitters.®
* * Ibid., p. 70. |
27
III. TECHNICAL ASPECTS OP SPRING TRAINING
In addition to the intra-squad games at Pensacola, |
Rickey would watch the results against his novel mechanical
pitcher, an electrically driven contraption that could
propel within a single day 2,500 baseballs over the plate i
to hitters standing in a batting cage.
"It's an old idea, I suppose,1 1 Rickey explained and
dismissed the suggestion of invention.
It was evolved at one of our Cardinal camps as a
necessity. A pitcher will average one hundred and
twenty-five pitches in a good nine-inning game. This
machine, then, does the work of twenty pitchers work
ing nine innings. It's an obvious saving of man
power. 9
A variety of pitching machines are manufactured and I
sold today, and most of the big-league camps employ one
type or another. At a later Vero Beach camp, Rickey used
three different machines, in addition to Iron Mike, the
original contraption.
And, after a look at the pitching machines, he would
go to the sliding pits, another of his innovations that
dates back to early American League days.
9
Ibid., p. 78. However, the biggest drawback is
that the electrical pitcher cannot vary speeds as can a
human pitcher.
28
When one tries to pin down facts and dates, Rickey
storms:
Who cares who invented what? I was managing the
St. Louis Browns for Mr. Robert Hedges, and I wanted
to make more use of our running speed. Our sliding
wasn’t good enough, so we dug a pit and filled it
with sawdust and sand and slid into it to get the
knack of the hood slide and the scissors slide and
avoiding broken ankles.
Rickey would also work at one of the several sets
of pitching strings, an ingenious but simple arrangement
of fishing cord strung between two upright posts. Two
horizontal strings, about 36 inches apart, stretch from
pole to pole, representing chest and knee height. Two
vertical strings are affixed to the horizontals, 17 inches
apart, to mark plate width. The resulting rectangle out
lines the all-important strike zone. The white strings
are over the plate and the control-seeking pitcher throws
from the regulation distance to a catcher squatting behind
the strings*
”The important job is to hit the strings,” Rickey
would explain to each new rawboned rookie. 1 1 Anybody can
put a ball through the rectangle, but when you can hit the
strings, you have eaught the edge of the plate.”
The teaching of "leads and breaks,” over the
10
Ibid., p. 79.
29 \
sprawling expanse of diversified activity, is another in- |
tegral part of spring training. The "leads and breaks”
are how to get a jump on the pitcher’s motion to steal a
base.
And then into the night-long staff meetings, with
the blackboard of endless names, with the day’s many
written reports of failures, successes, surprising dis
coveries, suggested changes, the early battle among minor-
league managers for "that big first-baseman on the Blue
team," the violent disagreement over half-developed pros
pects, and the near battles that make the blue-smoke air
even bluer, but not cloudy enough to hide Branch Rickey’s
beam of inner joy and complete escape from all earthly
annoyances."
As has been already seen, Branch Rickey devised the‘
farm system and grew his own big league ballplayers. As
other clubs turned to chain-store baseball tactics, Rickey
maintained his advantage by developing the "tryout camp."
The tryout camp is almost elemental in its simplici
ty. Brooklyn scouts, following the sun, established them |
throughout the country the year ’round. A central point,
which will enable the scouts to investigate kids for miles j
around, is selected and advertised locally as the campsite.
Teen-agers are invited to bring their own equipment and
30
work out during a three-day period under the eyes of a
staff of scouts. Those with promise are signed, usually
to a farm club near their homes.12
12
Tom Meany, "The Dodgers Ain't No Accident,”
Collier's 125:64, June 24, 1950.
CHAPTER V
MASS SPRING TRAINING AT VERO BEACH
The farm system and the tryout camp having proved
sound enough to be imitated, Rickey came up with a new
wrinkle--a baseball school at the annual spring training
camp, where the major-league club and all its affiliated
teams went through their paces together. The Pensacola
camp just housed the minor-leagues.
Rickey*s Florida assembly-line at Vero Beach, which
at its peak has £00 or 600 athletes perspiring on its
premises, is about as mechanized as a camp can get. Ball- I
players from Brooklyn to Bakersfield, California, all
drill under the watchful eyes of Walter Alston, the present
field manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and some thirty
other assorted brain trusts. Rickey is no longer with the j
Brooklyn organization, but his methods are still utilized
to the utmost, as they were at the outset of festivities
at Vero Beach in 191^8.^
Everybody has to bounce out of bed at 7^00 a.m.^
After breakfast, there is usually a classroom session on
^ ”Life Visits Dodgertown,1 1 Life. 2ij.: 117»‘ April 5,
1948 •
2
See Appendix A for 195U- Dodgertown camp rules and l .
regulations.
32
A. Heart-shaped lake
B# Holman Stadium
C. Holman Stadium elub house
D. Sliding pits
E« Field Number 2
F. Running track
G. Batting cages
H. Field Number 1
I. Pitching string area
J. Triple A club house
K. Press headquarters
L. Kitchen
M. Dining room
N* Lobby
0. Main barracks
P. Annex
Q. Parking area
R. Minor-league club house
S. Calisthenics area
T. Shuffle board area
U. Swimming pool
V. Apartments
W. Citrus groves
X. Auditorium
Y. Field Number 3
Z. Field Number
FIGURE 1
BROOKLYN DODGERS AND AFFILIATED CLUBS TRAINING CAMP,
DODGERTOWN, VERO BEACH, FLORIDA

the intricacies of "inside baseball,1 1 followed by mass
calisthenics. Prom here, instructors wheel out formidable
gadgets to assay hidden baseball aptitudes and to deter
mine three elementary facts about every Dodger hopeful:
Can he run? Can he throw? Can he hit?
Daily work sheets tell every man in camp where he
is supposed to be at a certain time and what he is supposed
to be doing. An actual replica of a work sheet from
Dodgertown is presented in Table 1.3
The ballplayers in camp report to their respective
clubs that they signed contracts with during the winter.
They work with these clubs during the whole of spring
training unless reassigned to another club during that J
period. It will be noted on the work sheet that there is
a squad called the “civilians.” This group consists of
signed ball-players who have just gotten out of the armed
forces and have not been placed on a club until they have
been looked over to see if they can perform as they did I
before entering the Service. It should also be noted
that all of the farm clubs do not arrive in camp at the
same time because of different starting dates in their
respective leagues.
3 !
See Appendix B for a further study of these daily;
work sheets. i
3h
TABLE I
DQDGERTOT WORKSHEET
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 19$k
MORNING SESSION
Players of all teams except Montreal, St. Paul, Elmira, Pueblo,
Thomasville, Bakersfield and Great Falls ■will assemble on Field #1
at 9:15 A.M.
9:1$ - 9:30 - calisthenics _____ _____
Fort Worth Vs Mobile - Field #1 - Game Time 10:00 A.M.
Mobile mil be the home team. Both teams mil have a short infield
workoub and begin the game. Time limit 12:00 noon. Both teams ■will
lunch at 12:00 noon.
Great Falls Vs Bakersfield - Field #2 - Game Time 10:1$
Bakersfield will be the home team and will take batting practice on
Field #2 from 9:1$ - 9:h$ A.M.
Great Falls will have batting practice at batting cages l-2-3“U~5
from 9:1$ - 9:h$ A.M. Both teams will have a short infield workout
and begin the game. Time limit 12:1$ P.M. Both teams will lunch at
12:15 P.M. __ ' ____
Elmira schedule:
9:15 ~ 9:30 A «M» “ throwing and loosening up at Holman Stadium
9:30 - 10:15 A.M. - batting practice
10:15 - 10:U5 A.M. - throwing and pepper games - right field Holman
Stadium
10:ii5 ” 11:15 A.M. - game critique (ri^it field Holman Stadium)
Elmira will lunch at 11:30 A.M.
Pueblo schedule:
9:h$ ~ 10:15 A.M. - game critique - ri^it field Holman Stadium
10:15 “ 11:00 A.M. - batting practice
11:00 - 11:15 A.M. - throwing and peper games (left field Holman
Stadium)
Pueblo will lunch at 11:30 A.M.
i
5
1
35
TABLE I (continued)
DODGERTOWN WORKSHEET
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 19$k
MORNING SESSION
Montreal schedule: Field #3
9:30 - 10:00 A.M. - throwing and pepper games
10:00 - 10:30 A.M, — pitcher covering first base practice
10:30 - 11:00 A.M. - cutoffs and relays practice
11:00 - 11:30 A.M. - batting practice
Montreal 'will lunch at 11:U5 A.M.
Thomasville schedule: Field #U
9:30 - 10:00 A.M. - throwing and pepper games (occasional running)
10:00 - 10:30 A.M. - pitcher covering first base practice
10:30 - 11:15 A.M. - batting practice
11:15 - 11:30 A.M. - infield and outfield practice
Thomasville will lunch at 11:U5 A.M.
Newport News schedule:
9:30 - 10:00 A.M. - throwing and pepper games (strings)
10:00 - 10:30 A.M. - batting cages 1-2-3-S-5
10:30 - 11:00 A.M. - sliding pit #1
11:00 - 11:30 A.M. - track (breaks and leads)
Newport News will lunch at 11:30 A.M. __
Asheville schedule:
9:30 - 10:00 A.M. - batting cages 1-2-3-lr-5
10:00 - 10:30 A.M. - sliding pit #1
10:30 - 11:00 A.M. - track (relay races)
11:00 - 11:15 A.M. - throwing and pepper games (strings area)
11:15 - 11:30 A.M. - game critique (strings area)
Asheville will lunch at 11:30 A.M.
36
TABLE I (continued)
DODGERTOWN WORKSHEET
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 195k
MORNING SESSION
Miami schedule:
9:30 - 10:00 A.M. - throwing and pepper games (right field #1)
10:00 - 10:30 A.M. - track (relays)
10:30 - 11:00 A.M. - game critique (strings area)
11:00 - 11:30 A.M. - batting cages 1-2-3-E-5
Miami id.ll lunch at 11:30 A.M.
Civilians schedule:
9‘30 - 10:00 A.M. - track (practise starts for future races)
10:00 - 10:15 A.M. - game critique (strings area)
10:15 - 10:30 A.M. - throwing and pepper games (strings area)
10:30 - 11:00 A.M. - batting cages 1-2-3-U-5
11:00 - 11:30 A.M. - sliding pit #1
Civilians will lunch at 11:30 A.M.
There will be special batting instructions for the following players
at 12:00 noon to 1:00 P.M.
Rufer - Kerr - Koranda - Korcheck
Andy High will be in charge - Bartley and Carey mil assist._______
The following pitchers will report to the pitching strings at
12:00 noon:
Johnson - Earley - Sprankle - Huffman
Hathaway and Campanis will be in charge.__________________
AFTERNOON SESSION
St. Paul players will be permitted to be first in the chow line in
uniform at 11:30 A.M. St. Paul team will travel to Melbourne to play
Minneapolis and all players should be ready to depart from the rear
of the kitchen at 12:00 noon. Good luck.
37
TABLE I (continued)
DODGERTCWN "WORKSHEET
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 195k
AFTERNOON SESSION
Ebnire Vs Pueblo - Holman Stadium' - Game time 2:00 P.M.
Pufeblo will be the home team and will take their infield drill from
1:1$ - 1:30 P.M. Elmira will take their infield drill from
1:30 - 1:U$ P.M. ____ __________________________
Newport News Vs Civilians - Field #1 - Game time 2:00 P.M.
Civilians will be the home team. They will have batting practice on
Field #1 from 1:1$ - 1:1£.
Newport News will have batting practice at the batting cages
U-$ from 1:1$ - 1:U$. Both teams will have a short infield workout
and begin the game. Time limit U:Q0 P.M.________________
Asheville Vs Miami - Field #3 - Game time '2;00 P.M.
Players of both teams will report to their respective managers at
1:1$ P.M. Both teams will have a short infield workout and begin
the game. Time limit U:00 P.M.________ ___________________
Montreal schedule:
1:30 - 2:00 P.M. - batting cages 1-2-3
2:00 - 2:30 P.M. - batting cages l j . - $
2:30 - 3:00 P.M. - defense on double steal - Field #2
Fort Worth schedule:
1:00 - 1:30 P.M. - batting cages 1-2-3
1:30 - 2:00 P.M. - batting cages U-$
2:00 - 2:30 P.M. - defense on double steal - Field #2
2:30 ~ 3:00 P.M. - track (breaks and leads)_________
Great Falls schedule:
1:00 - 1:30 P.M. - batting cages 1 ; -$
1:30 - 2:00 P.M. - defense on double steal - Field #2
2:00 - 2:30 P.M. - track (breaks and leads)
2:30 - 3:00 P.M. - throwing and pepper games (strings area)
3:00 - 3:30 P.M. - batting cages 1-2-3______________
38
TABLE I (continue^)
D C D G E R T C J W N WORKSHEET
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 19$k
AFTERNOON SESSION
Bakersfield schedule:
1:00 - 1:30 P.M. - defense on double steal - Field #2
1:30 - 2:00 P.M. - track (breaks and leads)
2:00 - 2:30 P.M. - throwing and pepper games (strings area)
2:30 - 3:00 P.M. - batting cages 1-2-3
3:00 - 3:30 P.M. - batting cages ___________________
Thomasville schedule:
1:00 - 1:30 P.M. - track (breaks and leads)
1:30 - 2:00 P.M. - throwing and pepper games (strings area)
2:00 - 2:30 P.M. - batting cages 1-2-3
2:30 - 3:00 P.M. - batting cages iH?
3:00 ~ 3:30 P.M. - defense on double steal - Field #2
TODAY'S QUOTE
"Every man is enthusiastic at times. One man has enthusiasm for
thirty minutes, another man has it for thirty days, bub it is the
man who has it for thirty years who makes a success in life."
..... Edward B. Butler
SOURCE: Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida, March 31, 19$k*
39
Five baseball diamonds, dozens of batting cages,
four mechanical pitchers, stationary batting tees, two
sliding pits with two-way approaches, and a straightaway
cinder path, complete with track coach and stop watch,
comprise the layout which serves to keep all the athletes
and all the thinkers occupied simultaneously. Between
morning and afternoon sessions, the players lunch in their
uniforms in the mess hall cafeteria of the former naval
air training station where the campsite is located. All
this, today, is practically the same as when Branch Rickey
first developed this Florida assembly line years ago.
Of course, a few things have been added since
Rickey’s departure from the picture. One of the most
beautiful ball parks, anywhere, was built last year. And
when the ballplayers are not playing ball, there is a new
swimming pool at this camp for their disposal. The Brook
lyn brass also constructed a small three-acre lake on the
base for the one who likes to relax by fly-casting for
trout.
The cost of this operation is enormous. Walter
O’Malley has estimated the annual costs of the Vero Beach
Camp to be approximately $2f>0,000 for the two months of
the year that it is open for purposes of spring baseball
practice.^-
Most of the minor-league affiliations operate at a
loss during the year* Brooklyn pays all the bills which
the outright owned teams accumulate# The minor-league
teams that have working agreements with the Dodgers operate
on their own expense accounts except that Brooklyn supplies
these teams with ballplayers. If there is a profit at the (
end of a season1s operation, Brooklyn does not share in it.
The sale of minor-league players that Brooklyn can- |
not use enables the Dodgers to maintain their vast and far-
flung farm system. Between the time the Dodgers concluded !
their dismal showing against the Yankees in the World
Series of 19i+9 and their assembling at Vero Beach in March
of 19509 Brooklyn had sold $600,000 worth of ballplayers.
Or, at least, Brooklyn received $600,000 for ballplayers
they could not use.5
Dick Walsh, assistant director of the Brooklyn farm
clubs, told this writer that they had sold seventy men into
the major-leagues in the past five yearsHe declined to
^ From a lecture by Walter 0!Malley, President of
the Brooklyn Dodgers, on March 2 l j . , 1953> at Vero Beach,
Florida. Remember, this figure includes all the teams in
the organization.
Meany, op. cit., p. 6 1 j . .
6 !
Interview with Dick Walsh, assistant director of
minor-league operations in the Brooklyn organization,
Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida, April 2, 1954*
k l
mention the remuneration Brooklyn received for these
transactions, though*
I. STAFF AND MATERIALS TO RUN DODGERTOWN
Fresco Thompson is the vice-president and director
of minor-league affairs at Dodgertown* Included on the
19$k staff were: Andy High, chief scout; John Gorriden,
managerial consultant; Greg Mulleavy, scout and infield
instructor; Buck Lai, scout; A1 Campanis, field supervisor;
Bill Brenger, West Coast scout and catching instructor;
Art Dede, metropolitan scout; John Carey, scout; and Joe
Hauser, hitting instructor. Also included in the staff
were the fifteen minor-league managers: Max Macon,
Montreal; Clay Bryant, St# Paul; A1 Vincent, Fort Worth;
Stan Wasaik, Mobile; Tommy Holmes, Elmira; Goldie Holt,
Pueblo; George Sherger, Newport News; Doc Alexson, Miami;
Ray Hathaway, Asheville; Lou Rochelli, Great Falls; Ray
Perry, Bakersfield; Ed Naylor, Union City; Boyd Bartley,
Thomasville; Jack Banta, Shawnee; and John Angelone,
Hornell# ?
These are the men who make it possible for the ”tree
to grow in Brooklyn*” Most of them are former major-league
7
' Article in the Vero Beach Press Journal, (weekly) j
Vero Beach, Florida, March lb, 19^4«
A. Brooklyn, New York (MAJOR LEAGUE)
B* Montreal, Canada (CLASS AAA)
C* St* Paul, Minnesota (CLASS AAA)
D* Fort Worth, Texas (CLASS AA)
E* Mobile, Alabama (CLASS AA)
F. Elmire, New York (CLASS A)
G. Pueblo, Colorado (CLASS A)
H* Asheville, North Carolina (CLASS B)
I. Miami, Florida (CLASS B)
J* Newport News, Virginia (CLASS B)
K. Great Falls, Montana (CLASS C)
L. Bakersfield, California (CLASS C)
M* Union City, Tennessee (CLASS D)
N. Thomasville, Georgia (CLASS D)
0* Shawnee, Oklahoma (CLASS D)
P* Hornell, New York (CLASS D)
FIGURE 2
THE TREE THAT GROWS IN BROOKLYN
THE DODGERS* MINOR LEAGUE FARM CLUBS OF 19$}±
I lf ll H H " " " "
ballplayers. The managers are hired with the idea that
they will be instructors and be able to teach the young
aspirants something of value, not just managers who will
know when to take out a pitcher in a crucial game.8
To officiate the many games that occur at all the
spring training sites, there have to be umpires. The
leagues in which Brooklyn has a club ask if they can send
an umpire to Dodgertown for "his" spring training. Most
of these requests are granted. The league furnishes trans-
portation for the umpire to Vero Beach. He receives no
remuneration, except that all further expenses are taken
care of by Brooklyn. All umpires are sent back to their
respective leagues at Brooklyn*s expense, plus a $100 bonus
for each individual. The only difference in the setup for|
umpires and ballplayers is that ballplayers have their
transportation to camp furnished by Brooklyn, and they do !
not receive any remuneration whatsoever, not even the $100 I
bonus.^
The baseball equipment at Dodgertown^ comes from
many sources. The uniforms, socks, caps, and belts are
"used paraphernaliaf f that has been sent down by farm clubs j
that Brooklyn owns.
8
Walsh, op. cit. i
9
Loc. cit.
1 * 4
The baseballs are bought directly from the factory
(Rowlings Manufacturing Company). As an inducement to
purchase these balls many are given free, so, therefore
in essence only 60 per cent of all baseballs used at
Dodgertown are paid for* These balls are not of major-
league grade, but of about Class B or A*
These baseballs are bought just for the season* It
is best not to have any carry-over stock because they lose
life if aged too long* To extend longevity, they are kept
in a cool place.
Baseball bats are also bought directly from the
factory (various manufacturers). Though a baseball bat
does not receive any ill effects from long storage as a
baseball does, they are bought on a one year’s basis*
The new laminated bats^ that became abundant on
the market in the winter of 1953-511. were given to Brooklyn,
free of charge, from the manufacturer as a promotional
stunt.
All this equipment and paraphernalis is furnished
the ballplayer by the club to which he is under contract.
This includes spring training and the regular season
activity. All organizations abide by the ^rules.” Only
TT
A bat made from more than one piece of wood,
glued together. It’s longevity is, thus, supposedly in
creased. A bat such as this was illegal prior to 195^*
45 !
undergarments, plus baseball glove and shoes does the ball
player furnish himself— just as the carpenter furnishes
his own hammer and saw*
II* EVALUATION OP THE BROOKLYN ORGANIZATION
AND MASS SPRING TRAINING
When all the minor-league affiliations plus the
varsity train at one site, it gives the Brooklyn personnel
a better chance to screen all the athletes in the organiza-j
tion and play them as high as possible. All the instruc
tors and managers are not divided up in different parts of I
the country. This gives them all a chance to work with
every boy in the organization and see him perform.
It is cheaper in the long run to have the players
all in one place rather than to have three or four strategy
ic locations throughout the country. ^ The lesser cost
for lodgings and food circumvents the higher cost of
furnishing transportation to the one site.
This one-site training system also gives the players
a chance to see all that there is to see about the organ
ization and who they have to contend with to move up the
ladder.
n ?
Interview with Golden Holt, manager of the |
Pueblo, Colorado, entry of the Western League, Dodgertown, ;
Vero Beach, Florida, March 22, 1954*
i ^ 6 I
Prom this writer*s experience in talking with some
of the ballplayers in the Brooklyn organization, it is
their belief, that such a large organization as Brooklyn* s j
with its many ballplayers and farm clubs, inhibits a
player*s advancement, especially in the higher rungs of
the baseball ladder.
What is Brooklyn*s side of the story?^^
(a) There are at least two clubs in every classifi
cation up the ladder. In some organizations
with a limited amount of farm clubs, a ball
player that cannot quite make Class A ball has
to play Class C ball because there are no
Class B clubs.
(b) Temperaments of some are such that they have to
be brought up slower than others and vice versa.
(c) If a player is not moving up, there is usually
some logical reason for it in his own short
comings.
(d) The ballplayers can be taught more.
Brooklyn’s biggest job is to keep the talent rolling
to the big leagues and not to shorten the varsity in any
place where help may toe needed in the near future. Prom
this writer's observations this is the most logical reason
^ Walsh, op. cit.
for keeping a promising ballplayer from advancing (covering
up). For example: if a shortstop will be needed on the
varsity in a year or two, a player ready for the major
leagues is a likely candidate to be covered up until the
varsity job becomes vacant.
In summary, the Brooklyn farm system is a replace
ment pool. It is a continuous supply of young men, the
ultimate aim of which is to have them force the old men off
the varsity or to be sold for a profit. In a setup such
as this and with the Brooklyn varsity filled with capable
men at every position (in contrast with perennial tail-
enders who need replacements to improve their clubs) there
is bound to be some "slowness1 1 in moving the ballplayers
to the major leagues.
III. INTENSIFIED TRAINING SHORTENS
DEVELOPMENT TIME OF ROOKIES
These days the kid from Crossroads is having it
better than many major leaguers of earlier days. To find
him, the Brooklyn club alone is paying scouts $125*000 a
year in salaries and another $100,000 for expenses. It is
giving him and his kind $200,000 a year in bonuses just to j
sign up untested. Another $250,000 is being invested
annually in his training place, Dodgertown (Vero Beach), !
where a Class D rookie gets the same weather and the same
1*8
facilities enjoyed by Brooklyn’s big leaguers# The routine
at Dodgertown is intensified mass training*^
To the authoritative eye, of Connie Mack, Baseball’s
intensified methods "can’t make Cobbs and Wagners out of
ordinary material, but it has made ballplayers as a class
better than ever before.”
Brooklyn has computed, with deeimal-point exactness,!
the effect of present methods. "Our records,” according
to Fresco Thompson, Vice President of the Dodgers, "show
that our present system has shortened the development
period of a big-league prospect by 1*1* years. One con
centrated month in Dodgertown is equal to one year in
experience.”
From the veteran John Drebinger of The New York
Times, the Yankees’ pre-training camp received a propor
tionately high rating as a timesaver:
Its two weeks are worth half a season— the half
a season that a good kid once had to spend in proving, !
back in the minors, things that a major-league manager |
didn’t have time to find out about him last spring.
^ "Intensified Spring Training Methods,” Newsweek,
39:1121-, March 1952.
Ibid., p. 116.
CHAPTER VI
HOW BRANCH RICKEY GOT HIS START IN BASEBALL
One of the reasons why some folks in baseball, and
some baseball fans, do not like Rickey is the fact that he
acts like a man who owns six college degrees--which he
doesl Three are the kind that certify that he was well
educated— two from Ohio Wesleyan University, of which he
is a trustee, and a law degree from the University of
Michigan. The other three are honorary. Another trouble
with him is that he goes to church regularly and practices !
what is preached, which apparently, for a baseball magnate,!
is unpardonable. Mainly, however, his enemies, who in
clude several influential baseball writers, are people who ]
cannot stand him because he talks too much.-*-
At a recent dinner of baseball writers who wanted
to know what he intended to do with the Pittsburgh Pirates,!
Rickey, according to the Sporting News, orated for fifteen i
minutes about a college professor he had met who "accepted i
the Communist ideology without having read the speeches of
Jefferson and Madison and with no fundamental knowledge of j
the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence.1 1
^ J. B. Griswold, "Rickey Starts in the Cellar
Again," American Magazine, CLI:q.3, May, 19^1.
5 0 i
His indignation was commendable, but wasted the time of
men who were looking for something they could write for
their sports pages*
Rickey is so full of profundity that he just cannot j
keep quiet. Whether his listeners are interested or not,
he will declaim at the drop of a hat on the potency of a
prayer, or his latest invention, the six-man infield; the
obscure philosophy of Benedette Croce, the wisdom of
Abraham Lincoln, when to play for a quick out in Canasta,
p
or how to cure a pitcher’s Charley horse.
If Rickey had not become a great baseball magnate,
through self-confidence, drive and determination, he would i
have been a success in almost any other kind of business he
might have tackled. When Rickey was about to leave the
St. Louis Cardinals to go to Brooklyn Dodgers, the politi-j
cal insiders in St. Louis tried to get him to stay in
Missouri and run for governor. Rickey, on the other hand, ]
decided to stay with baseball.
Here is an historic ’ ’if”: If Branch Rickey had
accepted the opportunity to run for governor of Missouri,
he probably would have been elected. ’ ’If” he had been
governor of Missouri during the time when President
Roosevelt was looking for a vice-presidential running mate,
]
2 !
Loc. cit. I
51
Robert Hannegan, the campaign manager, would without doubt
have backed “Governor Rickey*’ 1 Rickey would have won with
Roosevelt.
What does all this add up to? Just this: Vice-
President Rickey would have become President of the United
States upon the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.^
Rickey is the kind of fellow who becomes the hardest
worker in the Chamber of Commerce, head man in the leading
businessmen1s luncheon club, chief collector of funds for
charity drives, prime mover in the Y.M.C.A. and Boy Scouts,
Number One deacon in his church, occasional substitute in
the pulpit, master of ceremonies at every civic event,
ready to oblige with an opinion on anything at the drop of
a hat.
This kind of citizen irritates a lot of folks, but
most, forgiving his officiousness, admit that his presence
is good for the town. There is probably a fellow like that
in every community. If they had one in Pittsburgh a few
years ago, they’ve got two of them now. His impact,
undoubtedly, has been felt already.
Riekey has a magnetic personality and is always
3
Connie Mack, My 66 Years in the Big Leagues
(Philadelphia: John C. Winston Company, 1950), p. 202.
Griswold, Q£. cit., pp. 43 ?
i
looking for innovations, never living in the past# His
success in developing pennant winners is based upon his
uncanny ability to pick potential stars when they are un
distinguished kids, and to develop them. His additional
success in making money for himself and his employers
derives from a talent for shrewd trading. Rickey is
acknowledged to be the best judge of potential baseball
material in the business.^ His first achievement in spot
ting hidden genius occurred about forty years ago. Rickey i
was baseball coach at the University of Michigan, and on
his squad he had a young left-handed Delta Tau Delta
fraternity brother who wanted to become a pitcher.
"Forget pitching. You1 re a natural hitter,1 1 Rickey
told him, just as a few years later somebody on the Boston
Red Sox was to tell the same thing to another left-handed
pitcher named Babe Ruth. So, with Rickey’s help, the
Michigan boy, instead of becoming a so-so pitcher, turned
out to be a .1^00 hitter and world1 s greatest first baseman.
He is George Sisler, and with all due respect to Lou
Gehrig. Sisler, now sixty-one years old, was Rickey’s
chief scout and batting coach with the Cardinals, followed
----------
^ Interview with Dick Walsh, assistant director of
minor-league operations in the Brooklyn organization,
Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida, April 2, 19$^*
53 |
him to Brooklyn in 19^3> and is now with him in Pittsburgh.^
Rickey’s education and religion have not dulled the j
edge of his showmanship. In spite of his gentlemanly
instincts, he has produced, operated, and stimulated what
probably have been the two most popular, toughest, fighten^
est, umpire-baitin’est clubs in modern baseball history—
the St. Louis Cardinals’ Gas House Gang and the Daffy
Dodgers. Such rough and ready guys as Frankie Frisch,
Pepper Martin, Dizzy Dean, and Leo Durocher were Rickey's
boys.
For a man who is a leader in a glamorous branch of
show business and who would be greeted as an honored guest I
at the most expensive night clubs and theater first nights,!
Rickey leads a pretty ordinary personal life, avoiding
such stuff. Except that he chews almost constantly on a
cigar that usually is unlighted, and that he sometimes,
without taking the cigar out of his mouth, uses 1,000 words
to say ’ ’yes’ 1 or ”no,” he has no bad habits.
Although he is proud that one of his father’s
cousins invented the Gin Rickey, he doesn’t drink, play
cards for a stake, or swear, but he doesn’t mind if his
friends do. His only effort to promote his religious
beliefs, except when he is invited to speak in churches, id
6 Ibid., p. 107. !
5k
through his support of Guideposts, edited by a friend of
his.7
Branch Rickey grew up on his father’s farm in Ohio,
fifteen miles by horse and buggy from a railroad. His
parents were Hard-Shell Baptists who went to the Methodist
Church, and now Branch and Mrs. Rickey attend a Congrega
tional Church. Prom his father, descended from Connecticut
Yankees, Branch got his trading instincts.
Branch’s first bankroll was $68, saved from his
salary as a schoolteacher, and that, added to money earned
as a waiter and furnace tender, and as a professional base
ball and football player, plus a loan from his father, put
him through Ohio Wesleyan with the class of 190ij..^
Continuing, in the fall, in professional football—
which was an important sport in Ohio in those days— Rickey I
broke into big-time baseball as a catcher for a few days
with Cincinnati, after a spell with the Dallas Club.
Cincinnati fired him when he announced after his first
Saturday game that he would not be around the next day.
The St. Louis American League Browns took him the next
season, however, and he caught two seasons and went to the
New York American League Yankees in 1907* He had been
7 Ibid., p. 109.
8
Ibid., p. 110.
55
married to a former schoolmate in 1906.
The climax of Rickey’s career as a Yankee came on
June 28, 1907, when he set a record that has never been
beaten: The Washington club stole 13 bases on him in nine
innings. That not only was the climax; it was the finish,
and, a friend had said, 1 1 The last time anybody stole any
thing from Rickey.1 *^
It turned out that not only was his throwing arm
gone, but he also had, as it was known in those days,
consumption. He had to borrow money from his father to
carry him and his wife through his long siege at a tuber
culosis sanitarium at Saranac Lake, New York. Finally
cured, but wasted away, he decided to revive his ambition
to become a lawyer, which he had abandoned when he began
to make good money as a catcher.
Needing a steady income quickly, Rickey plowed
through the University of Michigan's three-year law course
in two years, and in 1911 was able to open a law office in
Boise, Idaho. After two years, however, the St. Louis
Browns needed a secretary, and somebody there remembered
catcher Branch Rickey, who was always telling other people
what they ought to do about things. So they offered Rickey
9
Loc. cit.
56
the job* He took it after some deliberation*
It took only two years for Rickey to become vice-
president and business manager of the Browns and to dis
cover that there is a lot of money to be made out of base
ball clubs run by smart businessmen, like Rickey* He
wanted to own a piece of the Browns, but he had no money.
Rickey went to his parents’ Ohio farm and performed
a miracle of salesmanship* With the help of his mother—
who had a mother’s deep faith in the ability of her son—
he persuaded his frugal and conservative father to mortgage
the family farm and lend him $5,000 to invest in, of all
things, the St. Louis Browns, a baseball team! If Branch
was wrong, the family fortune was gone* But he was not
wrong. His parents profited, too, as through the years
Rickey became rich.
Prom the Browns, Rickey went over to the rival
St. Louis Cardinals, and there he proceeded to make base
ball history. ^
10
Loc. cit.
CHAPTER VII
FARM OPERATIONS AND JUDGE LANDIS
Almost all big-league clubs now concede that a farm |*
organization is essential to their set-up. After all, they
cannot laugh off the standings. The chain-produced Yankees
and Dodgers have hogged the pennant races in their respee- ;
tive leagues for the past few years. They both have far-
flung farm systems.
Those Triple-A clubs (one step below the major
leagues) are vital. That is where the farm comes to flower.
The Triple-A teams have to do well in the standings, and
also produce players who will help the parent team.
There is a financial angle, too. The AAA club is
the spot where the entire chain pays off or dives into red I
ink. The smaller farms below Class A are development
classes, with the pennant regarded lightly* Those clubs
are money-losers, in the main. A Class D flag-winner may
lose $5*000 and a tail-ender $20,000, and the difference
is essentially inconsequential so long as players move
toward the majors. Such expenses, and those in Classes B, !
C, and sometimes A, too, have to be made up in Triple-A. j
j
What deficit there is left, the big-league club takes over.;
A successful season in a Triple-A city such as Montreal, ;
I. FINANCIAL ASPECTS OF FARM CLUBS
58
Kansas City, Columbus, or Rochester, can mean $150,000 to
$1,000,000 in profit for the entire chain operation, in
player sales, local box-office receipts, and gate attrac
tions for the parent big-league team!**-
The Triple-A manager never can understand why he
should lose a star in the midst of a flag fight in August,
when the major club demands help. Successful chains like
the Yankees and Dodgers seldom issue emergency calls,
Rickey refused to disturb Montreal a few years ago when the
Dodgers were seeking pitching reinforcements. George Weiss
general manager of the Yankees, had a policy of ”value for
value.” That is, if a man must be brought up from AAA or
AA in August, the farm should receive player strength of
equal value in return.^
The temptation is strong to raid the farm, and when
it is done, the minor-league manager is likely to blow his
top because he drops in the standings and looks bad before
the home folks.
The Triple-A manager, however, does not always see
the whole picture, all 20 or 25 clubs in his chain. That
is what the head man must think of. He has bought a number
Joe King, ”You Gotta Have a Farm System!” Sport,
4:37-38, April, 1948-
Ibid., p. 90.
of key clubs outright. He has made various working agree
ments with other clubs. A limited agreement permits the
major team to select one to four players from the farm each
year. A full agreement gives the top club unlimited selec
tion. In each case, the chain pays the local owners for
the privilege, and that subsidy enables the club to operate.
Pew minors could exist on their own.3
A chain operator does not buy all his clubs out
right, first, because he does not wish to sink vast sums
in real estate holdings, and second, because he does not
want to be at the mercy of unsympathetic local folks,
particularly in the lower minors. With working agreements,!
he can shop from year to year for local owners who promise ]
the most cooperation.
Incidentally, leagues are not arbitrarily classified,^
but are rated on the total population of the eities In the !
circuit. Glass D includes cities which run up to 150,000
population, B to 250,000, A to 1,000,000, AA to 1,750,000, |
and AAA to 3,000,000.
Whether the farm is owned or on agreement, the chain;
always selects the manager and almost always provides all
the players. That is another headache for the big bosses. I
60 ;
Before a player reaches Triple-A, or the big-
leagues, he has been well "cased." The front office knows |
all about him, physically, personally, and competitively*
The file starts with the scout who "discovers" him* His
report covers everything observable and measurable, and
includes an appraisal of future value-**whether the boy has ]
a big-league chance, or represents a "money value” only up !
to A, AA, or AAA*
Most people do not realize the tussle with the
rules which the major-league executive has had to get the
prospect up to Triple-A, nor the decisions he has had to
make. The complicated code of law covering farm operations
is being strengthened continually to protect the players
and the poorer clubs.^
This is a relatively new department of baseball
jurisprudence, because there was no need of it prior to
1926. That is the year Branch Rickey launched the chain
era as a practical proposition with a Cardinal squad which
, included fifteen farm products* Farm legislation started
because of flagrant abuses, such as "covering up" and
"double ownership."
To this day, the curbing of the farms to permit
equality of opportunity among players and clubs continues*
^ Ibid., pp. 90-91.
61 |
George Trautman, mlnor-league czar, laid down new edicts
in January of 19i|.8« No contract may include a bonus clause
for performance, he decreed, and there may be no side
agreement in connection with the signing of a player.^
The draft and the bonus rule are the two chief laws
controlling farm operations. The draft makes it possible
for a weaker club to take a good player from an overstocked
farm, and therefore circumvent a monopoly.
The bonus rule does not forbid the payment of huge
sums to a boy, but it makes the practice extremely risky.
If a major club gives a boy more than fc?>000 in any form
for his first season, the player is marked "bonusf f for the I
rest of his baseball career. The club may not option him, I
that is, "lend1 1 him, to a minor club. The major-league
club may ask waivers--!.e., permission to sell a big
leaguer or assign him to the minors— but the waivers may
not be withdrawn. That means if any other major-league
clubs claim him, it may have the bonus player for the
regular claim price of $10,000, no matter how much the
initial club invested in him. With other players, waivers
may be asked and withdrawn— if the man is claimed--twice
during a year. If a bonus player is signed by a minor-
league team, he is subject to the draft in his first
-------- 5-----------
Ibid., p. 91.
62
7
season.'
The draft is a device to protect a player's right
to advance in his trade. A player of a B, C, or D club
who has b een in baseball for two seasons may be selected
(or “drafted11) by any club of higher rating. The higher
classifications afford a longer period in the minors free
from the draft. Only one player, however, may be drafted
from a minor club of A or higher grade, unless the club so
desires.
The farm boss has to fret about the draft. His
bottleneck is Class B. The majority of his players are
B, C, and D, and he has only two years to make up his mind
which he will keep. He is dealing with teen-age youngsters
in the main, and it is difficult to figure how far they
will progress as they mature. Some kids flash lots of
stuff early, and stop dead. Others learn slowly, but keep
coming on for years. The boss must exercise his option on
a player to raise him to a club in the A group, before
September 15 of the second year, or risk losing him in the
unlimited draft of the lower minors.
Brooklyn, for instance, had 678 contract players
in 19^8, but only 25k- could be included on Dodger rosters
above Class B, because all teams are limited in the number
7
Loc. cit.
of active and reserve players they may control.®
63
II. JUDGE LANDIS* FIRST CASE
When Kenesaw Mountain Landis donned his toga as the
game's Commissioner, the first case to come before him was
a routine dispute between the two St. Louis clubs, the
Cardinals and the Browns, over title to the contract of a
former high school first baseman named Phil Todt. Although
Landis had been a lifelong fan, his first intimate contact I
with the backstage aspects of the game came when he heard
a Federal League suit. Now, as Commissioner, he was to
discover that the legal life of baseball was a strange law \
unto itself, and that various magnates of the pastime were j
complex individuals who employed methods that covered a
wide range measured on the scale of ethics.
Landis blinked his eyes when he discovered that
Todt had been signed by Branch Rickey, vice president and
manager of the Cardinals, only to be subsequently signed
and released by two teams in Texas, Sherman and Houston,
clubs for which he had never been contracted to play.
Meanwhile, the Browns had signed Todt, and now both St.
Louis clubs claimed him. Landis ruled that Todt should
remain with the Browns because it seemed evident that
Loc. cit.
64
Rickey was introducing something new to baseball, or at
least new to Landis, secret agreements with both the
Sherman and Houston clubs.9
Actually, the option, that device by which a major
league club retained title to a player while he was per
forming in the minor leagues, was nothing new. It was
first suggested by the Emporia, Kansas club in January,
1087, when an Emporia magnate proposed to the Cincinnati
Reds that if they would send a pitcher and catcher to
Emporia, the Kansas team would pay them the same salaries
they would normally receive at Cincinnati and then return
them to the Reds at the end of the season.^ But baseball
was slow to adopt businesslike methods, and for years
major-league club owners controlled players in the minors
without any written agreements whatever.
III. THE BOB FELLER INCIDENT
In 1938 Judge Landis made what was the most impor
tant player decision since the old National Commission
awarded George Sisler to the St. Louis Browns in 19l£*
^ Lee Allen, 100 Years of Baseball (New York:
Bartholomew House, Inc., 19^0), p.""2235•
10
Ibid., p. 226.
65
The Commissioner validated the Cleveland contract of
pitcher Boh Feller, then an eighteen-year-old kid of great
promise# Signed by the Cleveland organization in 1935*
Bob had flashed like a meteor in the baseball skies ever
since he broke in with the Indians in July of 193&*
In some respects the Feller case was similar to that
of Sisler, as Bob was signed to two minor league contracts
without ever having thrown a ball in the minors# On July
22, 1935* when Feller was only sixteen and still attending I
high school at Van Meter, Iowa, he was signed by the Fargo-;
Moorhead Club of the Northern League, which in 193& trans- I
ferred the contract to New Orleans, then a Cleveland
affiliate# The Pelicans, in turn, transferred the player
to Cleveland in July of 193&*’ 1 ' ' * '
It looked at the time like one of "Slap" Slapnicka* s
"coverups," and for years Landis had despised and rebuked
this business of major leagues covering up players in the
minors, although it has since become a common practice and ;
permitted under the present code* Most baseball people
feared Landis would set Feller free and give Slapnicka,
the former Cleveland general manager, a boot; and everyone I
then expected to see a wilder scramble for Feller than for I
any other free agent in the history of the game#
J# Gr# Taylor Spink, Judge Landis and 25 years of ;
Baseball (New York: Thomas Y# Crowell Company, 19^7)* P* 225.
66 i
The situation was brought on by the Des Moines
club of the Western League, which operated not too far
from Feller’s home pasture* The Des Moines club protested ;
to Landis that it had sought to contract Feller in the
summer of 1930, tut that its efforts had been thwarted by
the action of the Cleveland club in signing Feller in
violation of the Major-Minor League Agreement and Rules.
The violation allegedly was the signing of a sand lotter,
other than a college player, by a major league club.
However, in his findings Landis called attention to I
legislation relating to "recommended" players, adopted by
both the National Association and the major leagues in
their 193& annual meetings, which the Commissioner said
"precluded1 1 him from nullifying the Cleveland-Feller
IP
contract. ^
Even though it might have proved profitable for
Feller to be declared a free agent, the Commissioner
pointed out that both the young pitcher and his father had ]
"zealously sought" validation of the Cleveland contract.
Then he pointed out that nullification would be futile, as
far as the Des Moines club was concerned, because the only ]
result would be "to recreate precisely the same situation
through Feller’s signing a new contract in the name of some j
Ibid., p. 227.
67
other minor league club acting for some major league club,”
The Des Moines club, however, was awarded a $7*500 wind
fall, that amount having been offered for Feller’s contract
as a free agent prior to the promulgation of the Fargo-
Moorhead contract.
The Commissioner made no bones about it that it was
a Slapnicka transaction all the way, and that the Fargo-
Moorhead club served only as a handy means of getting
Bobbie’s name on a baseball contract. According'to the
findings:
The case has been thoroughly investigated. It
turns out that, in reality, Fargo-Moorhead had nothing \
whatever to do with signing Feller, which was done by
the Cleveland Club, its agent Slapnicka, using for
that purpose a minor league contract because he could
not sign him to a Cleveland contract.
Judge Landis then dwelt on the ’ ’recommending method,1 * ;
later approved by both the majors and minors, and was at
his satirical best in relating the many recommendations in ;
the then brief career of the 18-year-old Feller. He said, !
This was the procedure followed in the Feller case
wherein Cleveland "recommended" that Fargo-Moorhead
contract Feller, “recommended* 1 that New Orleans offer
and Fargo-Moorhead accept $200 for the contract,
’ 'recommended** that Feller "retire," "recommended" that j
he go to Cleveland, where he was given employment by
Cleveland in its concessions department and "recom
mended" for semi-pro ball in that vicinity, "recom
mended" that he be gotten off the retired list (after
Cleveland used him--ostensibly a New Orleans player
"retired" from baseball— in an exhibition game with
the Cardinals), and finally "recommended" that New •
Orleans transfer him to Cleveland for $1,500, the $200 ;
68
New Orleans-Fargo-Moorhead and the $1,500 Cleveland-
New Orleans transfer considerations being mere frac
tions of the then market value of the player's con
tract.
There is no doubt that Landis' personal disapproval
and private scorn for this "recommending method" subterfuges,
approved only a short while before by the minor leagues,
was largely responsible for the Commissioner's approving
Feller's contract with the Cleveland club.^-
IV. THE TOMMY HENRICH INCIDENT
If Judge Landis gave the Cleveland Club, and its
former vice-president C. C. Slapnicka, a break on the
Feller case, he slapped down on them less than a half year ]
afterwards, when he freed a promising twenty-one-year-old
Cleveland outfield farmhand, Tommy Henrich, and made it
possible for the young Ohioan to pick up a neat $25>,000
bonus for signing with the Yankees and subsequently star
ring at Yankee Stadium.
Both Tommy and his father appealed to Judge Landis
in 1937* accusing the Cleveland club of blocking Henrich's !
advance to the majors. The Cleveland club always believed j
that Billy Evans, who had left the Indians under strained
!3
Ibid., pp. 228-229.
Ik
Ibid.
circumstances, put the idea in the Henrich household that
if they brought Tommy’s minor-league transfers before the
Judge, they might come out of it with a free hand.^
In his decision making Henrich a free agent, the
Commissioner said:
Investigation of the status of Player Tom Henrich,
initiated at his own request, discloses that he had
been "covered up" for the benefit of the Cleveland
club and that this prevented his advancement to a
major league club under the selection clause. Because
of the violation of the player’s rights under his
contract and the major-minor league rules, he is here
by declared a free agent.
Landis said further that if Cleveland had desired
to retain legal control of Henrich’s services, it should
have signed the player to an American League contract and
optioned him to the various clubs. However, he said, the
Indians clearly had failed to do this, and his decision
served notice on other clubs that despite the "recommending
method,1 1 he would stand for no shenanigans and would ferret
out anything under the surface that he thought was not for
the best interest of the players. He also barred the
Cleveland club from entering the bidding when major league
teams joined in the scramble to put the young free agent
under contract. Three years later, when Cleveland lost
the 1940 American League pennant to Detroit by a single
i
Ibid., pp. 229-230.
70 |
game, Henrich, who hit .307 for New York that year, unques-!
tionably could have thrown the balance in favor of the
Indians.^
V. BRANCH RICKEY1 S RUN-IN WITH JUDGE LANDIS
While Landis permitted the Cleveland club to keep
Bob Feller in 193& because the minor leagues had approved
the so-called "recommending method,” the old Judge still
heartily disliked both the farm system and Branch Rickey,
the man responsible for it. He always seemed to think that!
Rickey, a Sunday School teacher, was trying to put something
over on him six days in the week.
It was Landis’ contention that Branch’s farm system ]
often victimized young players by keeping them captive in
leagues of low classification. And the grim Judge fought
the scheme bitterly. Through the years he reserved a
special carpet for Branch— and the then vice-president of
the Cardinals was on it frequently. Invariably the charge |
was the same— eovering-up young ballplayers.^7
Along with the eternal argument about covered-up
players, Rickey also differed hotly with the Judge on this |
l5
Ibid., pp. 230-231*
17
Ed Fitzgerald, "Branch Rickey— Dodger Deacon,”
Sport, 3:&6> November, 19i^7*
71
question of having an interest in more than one team of
the same league* Apparently Branch thought that it was
perfectly okay for the Cardinals to be interested in two
teams in one circuit* Landis thought it was reprehensible,
and considered such a situation loaded with dynamite.
Probably the most famous kick in the pants given
i f t
Rickey by Landis was the Cedar Rapids decision.xu
During the spring of 1938 the Cardinal front office
heard that Landis had a big ace up his sleeve. The word
was being passed around the baseball circuit that the Judge
finally was ready to pounce on the Deacon.
Landis struck in the last week of March of that
year. He declared ninety-one of the St. Louis farmhands
free agents; he fined the Sacramento club of the Pacific
Coast League and Cedar Rapids of the Western League the
sum of $>5>88 each; and he fined Springfield of the Western
Association $1,000. Rickey, himself, got away without a
penalty, but there was no doubt in anybody’s mind— least
of all Rickey’s— that the whole swoop by the Commissioner
was aimed directly at him.
The basis of the Judge’s action was a rule that no
major-league club should have a working agreement with more
18"
Loc. cit.
72
than one team in any one league. Rickey was perfectly
aware of this rule, and violated it cheerfully. He had no
paper agreement with Cedar Rapids, because he controlled
another team in the circuit, but he did have an "under-
standing” with the Cedar Rapids owner, and Landis knew
that he had first call on the clubfs players.
The Cardinal organization took a terrible loss in
the Cedar Rapids case. One of the ninety-one ballplayers
set free by Landis was Harold (Pete) Reiser, who was to
become the Brooklyn Dodger1s batting champion of the
National League just three years later.
CHAPTER VIII
THE DEVELOPMENT OP THE BONUS BOOM
The bonus boom is a development of the past half-
dozen years. Not many people realize just how big it is.
Since World War II, big-league teams have risked millions
of dollars in bonus money to sign kid ballplayers. So far,;
few of the big-bonus boys have given their proprietors
much cause for rejoicing."**
Most bonus boys come from families in moderate-to-
poor circumstances. Many have fathers who, following the
classic example of Bob Feller’s dad, raised them from
childhood to be ballplayers. This can cause trouble after
the boy enters baseball. His club understandably expects
to take charge, but some fathers, having brought their sons
this far, continue to feel that papa is the best judge of
what the boy should do. The ex-owners of one $>20,000 bonus
pitcher who did not develop, attribute his failure to inter
ference by the father, who kept counseling the boy, ^Don’t
throw too hard. You want to make your arm last as long as ;
possible.1 1
1
Harry T. Paxton, "Have the Bonus Boys Paid Off for
Baseball?" Saturday Evening Post, 221+:28, June 21, 1952.
I. IS A BIG BONUS BAD FOR A YOUNGSTER?
74
Those who think so may cite the history of Bob
Feller, the original boy-wonder pitcher# Feller was only
seventeen when he began pitching in 193& the Cleveland !
Indians, who gave him a bonus of $1,5>00— plus three auto
graphed baseballs I Later, as we have seen, it was charged |
that Cleveland had not signed him according to baseball law ;
and that the contract should be declared invalid# The case
came to Commissioner Landis for a ruling#
By then Feller was universally recognized as a boy
with phenomenal talent. Judge Landis wound up merely
fining the Indians, but he could have set aside the contract
and declared Feller a free agent. Then Feller might have
gotten, even in those pre-inflationary days, a bonus of
$100,000 or more to sign with some other club.^
In a similar case in 1940, the Philadelphia Athletics
gave #45,000 to Benny McCoy, a young second baseman cut
loose from Detroit— who proved to be a bust. As for Feller,|
he has, of course, gone on to earn several times $100,000.
Some people argue that if he had received a huge bonus at
the start it would have lessened his hunger for success.
He might never have become such a great pitcher or made
such money. \
2 Ibid., p. 29.
75
However, Hew club officials today seem to go along
with this theory. ”1 suppose a big bonus could make a
boy a little less hungry,1 1 says Hank Greenburg, present
general manager at Cleveland* f f But it really depends upon
the boy. It!s not so much a matter of being hungry. It’s
whether he has that certain spark. Like Joe DiMaggio.
He wasn’t hungry when he came up.1 1 3
George Weiss, vice-president and general manager
of the New York Yankees, similarly believes that most boys
will succeed or fail regardless of their bonuses. Accord
ing to Weiss,
Ninety-five per cent of the youngsters who have been
getting big money recently are pretty level-headed.
They’re bound to be. Once a boy becomes a hot pros
pect these days, he’s under such constant observation
by so many different scouts that he might as well be
living in a goldfish bowl. If he’s the wrong kind of
boy, it’s sure to become known.
Bonus players themselves insist that the money has
not affected their ballplaying. Take Dick Wakefield, the
original $50,000 bonus boy— $51*000 and an automobile,
to be exact— who was signed by the Detroit Tigers off the
University of Michigan campus in 19ifl. Dick was hitting
• 355 by the time he left the Tigers for the Navy in 19i|4>
but after the war his batting average trailed off to a low
in 192+9 of .206. Next winter the Tigers traded him to the
3
Ibid., pp. 29 ff*
76
Yankees, and he ended up in 1950 in Oakland* By 1951 he
was out of baseball.^-
Wakefield, a big, articulate, wavy-haired young man
with many personal friends, but few professional admirers,
said at the time Detroit traded him that he probably made
a mistake in accepting his bonus* In 1951* however, in
the course of an unsuccessful tryout with the Cleveland
Indians, Wakefield was asked whether, if he had it to do
all over again, he would take the money*
! t 0f course I would,” he declared* ”1 had to take
it* I was a poor boy I No, I wouldn’t have been a better
ballplayer without the bonus* And I wouldn’t have made
more money. I had great years at the start. I was able
to demand big salaries.”
According to Wakefield, the bonus boy’s one big
disadvantage is that he is subject to extra pressure from
the writers and fans* ”When you’re going badly,” he says,
”they get on you more than they would with the average
ballplayer. Can’t a fellow have a bad year? The bonus
boy is all right--as long as he’s having good years.
Ibid., p. 100.
5
Loc* cit.
77
The Brooklyn organization^ seems to think it is up
to the temperaments of the individuals receiving money to
sign whether they can receive a large bonus and not become
complacent* They are of the opinion only a very small
percentage receiving a large bonus will not fall into
complacency* In the author*s opinion it is more feasible
to apportion a large amount of bonus money among many
prospective boys than to invest it in one "sure" prospect.
Giving ten boys five thousand dollars each is sounder busi
ness than giving the "sure” prospect the whole sum of
fifty thousand. Two or three boys receiving five thousand
dollars are just as apt to make the major leagues as the
one receiving fifty thousand. It is just better business
rationalization to follow such a procedure* Its only
discernible drawbacks are that it may take a larger farm
organization to stock the "quantity prospects" than the
"quality prospects," and, of course, the cost is greater
in bringing up ten boys than one. Brooklyn, in the main,
follows this procedure.
Are the other players antagonistic to bonus boys?
As a rule, not unless there is provocation--and the bonus
boy usually is careful to display no manifestations of a
-------- g-----------
Interview with Dick Walsh, assistant director of
minor-league operations in the Brooklyn organization,
Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida, April 2, 195^4-*
78
big head* He does come in for a special kind of kidding,
though. This writer has witnessed ballplayers chalk
dollar signs on a bonus boyfs locker and address him
f , Money Bags.” If he pauses during a game to hitch up his
trousers, there are shouts from the opposing bench of:
! l Thatfs the stuff I Hitch up that money belt 1”
Every time the newspapers carry a story about a boy
receiving a big bonus, it means that the scouts are going
to have that much more trouble signing the next kid.
Scouts say that the newspaper figures often are inflated,
particularly in stories emanating from a boy’s home town,
where the family may do some exaggerating to impress the
neighbors.
Bonus contracts seldom are quite as big as they
sound anyway. That is, when a boy gets himself a $>$0*000
deal, it does not mean that he is handed the money in one
lump sum. It generally is spread over a period of three
or more years and may include his salary for those years
too. Occasionally a bonus contract is contingent on the
boy’s making good. The $75*000 package Oakland gave in
19i^9 to Jackie Jensen called for $25*000 a year in salary
and bonus for three years. The Yankees took over the
contract after the first year.
The most bizarre of all bonus signings was that of
Paul Pettit. The Pettit deal was quite literally
Hollywood stuff. While Pettit was still in high school,
and therefore untouchable under the rules of organized
baseball, a free-lance movie producer and director named
Frederick Stephani negotiated a private contract for the
boy’s services# When Pettit had graduated, Stephani
promptly resold the contract to the Pittsburgh Pirates#
Some rival clubs protested the whole thing as an evasion
of the high-school rule, but Happy Chandler, Commissioner
at that time, pronounced the transaction valid#
The contract took in such things as $750 for a
honeymoon trip to Hawaii, if and when Pettit got married— !
i
he cashed this in during January of 195l--and division of
the movie and broadcasting spoils which presumably would
come when Pettit established himself as another Bob Feller#
Pettit— and Hollywoodman Stephani, who retained this part
of the contract— are still waiting#
But the basic deal was this: $10,000 in cash to
Pettit, and $5,200 to his father; an additional bonus of
$50,000, to be paid in ten annual installments; a minimum
salary of $6,000 a year for three years# When the Pirates
took over the contract, they added another $15*000 in cash.!
It all amounts to about a $100,000 bundle, but a more
precise way of expressing it would be as follows: the
Pettits got a total of about $30,000 down, plus a guarantee:
of $11,000 a year for the next three years, and $5,000 for !
80
the seven years after that*?
II. HOW THE BIG BONUSES CAME TO BE
However one puts the Pettit deal, it is still a lot
of money. To baseball men of the old school, the whole
business of shelling out such sums to teen-age prospects
is nothing less than a scandal and an outrage. Time was,
they will tell you— and not so long ago— when a boy never
thought of asking for a bonus. He was delighted to get
the chance to break into professional baseball. For many
years the majors left it largely to the minors to find and
develop the kids, acquiring the most promising ones by
purchase from the minor-league clubs.
Then Branch Rickey organized a private chain of
minor-league teams for the St. Louis Cardinals in the
1920’s and began raising his own talent. He was so suc
cessful that other clubs eventually followed suit. When
big-league scouts previously had concentrated on combing
the minor leagues for prospeets, they now had to fan out
to the junior level to search for talent in the raw. As
for hunting for teen-agers intensified, the once-rare
practice of offering a cash bonus to an outstanding boy
7
Connie Mack, M^ 66 Years in the Big Leagues
(Philadelphia: The John (TT Winston Company, 1950),
p. 209.
81
became more and more common*
The bonuses kept getting bigger. A new high was
reached in 19^1 with Detroitfs $51,000 payment to Dick
Wakefield* The World War II draft caused most clubs to
slow down, as some already are doing under the present
draft, but a few went right on stock-piling young prospects
for the future* When the war ended, the race was wide
open again* The first postwar year of 19ij.6 was featured
by a $ij.5>000 Braves1 bonus to shortstop Alvin Dark.^
By the end of 19^6, the majority view was that
something had to be done to check the bonus spiral. So
baseball adopted the so-called bonus rule, designed to dis
courage the payment of fabulous sums. Bonus ceilings were |
set, ranging originally from $800 for Class D contracts to |
$6,000 for major-league ones. If a boy!s bonus was over
the ceiling, he could have no more than one year of season
ing. After that, the parent club either had to bring him
up or risk having him claimed at the waiver price by some
other team.
The rule did make things tougher for the bonus-
minded clubs. But it did not stop them. Although they
lost some expensive boys, they kept on bidding high and
taking their chances. A total of about four hundred
Paxton, ©£. cit., p. 101.
82
players--some of them experienced free agents, but the
majority of them raw kids— were signed at over-the-celling
prices during the four years of the first bonus rule*
Some clubs charged that the true total was even higher--
that the rule was being evaded in many cases by under-the-
table bonus payments. In December of 1950, the rule
finally was repealed, on the grounds that it was unfair
to the ballplayers and had not accomplished Its purpose,
anyway.^
Since the repeal of the first bonus rule, a second
one has come into being. It is basically the same as the
first, except that if a boy is given a bonus over that
i
specified amount for his classification, he cannot be
farmed out. Under this rule, if a boy receives over $>5>000
($1,000 less than formerly), he must stay with the big-
league team he signs with, or else be open for a chance in j
the draft.
The Phils built their 1950 pennant winner largely
with boys to whom they gave bonuses, of which the biggest
were $25*000 to Robin Roberts (the best pitcher in baseball
and a twenty-game winner for the past four years) and
$65*000 to Curt Simmons.
At Pittsburgh, whose baseball fortunes have dipped
Loc. cit.
83
to a modern, Branch Rickey has been industriously working
to build a talent pool to equal those he developed in
St* Louis and Brooklyn. Under Rickey1s general manager
ship the Pirates have not had anything approaching the
earlier $100,000 Pettit deal--Rickey!s top investment to
date is thought to be $1 4 . 0,000* However, Rickey is having
to spend more today than he did with the Cardinals and
Dodgers, and the Pirates have signed a number of boys in
the $20,000 to $30,000 class*
Brooklyn continues to stock the biggest farm system
in baseball, but to steer away, as a rule, from the extra-
expensive boys* Until this year, their peak bonus was
$21,000 in 191+8 to Pitcher Billy Loes, who got off to an
impressive start with the Dodgers this season. Two years
ago they spent $30,000 for a shortstop out of Long Island,
New York*^
In going after prospects, baseball scouts often are
up against competition not only from the other clubs but
from colleges. If a boy has the athletic ability to play
baseball well, he generally can play football well too.
Grid recruiters will plug the advantages of taking a free
football ride to a college diploma, instead of going
straight from high school to pro baseball.
10 Ibid., p. 103.
Qk
The colleges can deal with boys before they get out
of high school, whereas the ball clubs, under baseball1a
high-school rule as it now stands, have to wait until the
boy completes his school eligibility#
Of all the boys who have been paid big money to go
into baseball, the number who have shown much so far is
small. Among those who cost more than $50,000, there are
pitcher Curt Simmons, and Jackie Jensen, traded by the
Yankees to Washington, and in turn to Boston, who is by
way of establishing himself as a major-league outfielder.
Descending to the now-commonplace $25,000-to-$50,000
level, there are a few more names. Alvin Dark is a rank
ing shortstop. Robin Roberts is the best pitcher in base
ball, and Chuck Stobbs has been a moderately successful
11
one. r*L
III. THE INTANGIBLES OP RAW ROOKIES
It is clear that in a number of cases, expensive
boys of whom the talent experts said, l f He can't miss,1 1
are going to do just that. It is reasonable to ask how
come.
One factor may be that the average scout sees so
little first-class competition that he forgets what good
Loc. cit
ballplaying looks like; another, that some youngsters
develop physically earlier than others. But the chief
reason for wrong guesses, in the opinion of most baseball
men, is that so much depends on the intangibles. A boy
may have the physical ability, but lack the internal drive
to surmount the tough competition of the major-leagues.
Former pitcher Hollis Thurston, a West Coast scout for
Cleveland and now for the White Sox, puts it this way,
"Eighty per cent of it is desire. It*s tough to scout
that."^
Some clubs try hard to scout the temperamental
factors. They check on a youngster*s off-field activities.
They endeavor to pick lads who have not only talented
muscles but also solid personal and family backgrounds.
This sounds sensible, and yet it has been pointed out that
at least one big-leaguer of recent memory would not have
had a look-in under these yardsticks. He started life in
his parents* water-front saloon in Baltimore, and spent
most of his boyhood in a local institution as an "incor
rigible." His name was Babe Ruth.
IV. UNDERCOVER BONUSES
86
When a big-league club owner signs a young player
embarking on a professional baseball career and offers
more than $5,000 for his name on a contract, that club
makes that boy a bonus player. As such, he must be re
tained on the major-league team’s roster. Only by securing
waivers on this player from the other fifteen clubs may
he be farmed out--that’s the rule.
How many kids out of high school, or from American
Legion teams, are ready to play in the big leagues right
off the bat, or even after a season in the minors? One
in a generation, perhaps. Consequently, a big-league club
cannot afford to load up with many acknowledged bonus
players who, until they are developed properly, merely sit
on the bench and crowd out experienced if fading men who
can help the team.^
So what are some clubs doing? They are skirting
the rules and defying the whole code of baseball. Accord
ing to Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators,
here is what is actually happening:^
^ Clark Griffith, "Big Money Is Ruining Baseball,”
Sport9 6:10, February, 19i|9 •
Ibid., p. 89• i
87
A big-league scout takes a promising young prospect
aside, a whiz kid in his high school league, and says:
“Look here, we think you've got possibilities* But,
of course, you need seasoning. After a year in Class D
ball and maybe a year in Class A and a year in Class AAA,
you*11 step into a regular job with our club. But you*re
asking for a bonus and, if we give it to you and tell the
world, we can't farm you out properly.
“So here's what we111 do,” continues the scout.
“We*11 sign you according to the rule. Then we*11 give
you $20,000 on the side. That protects us and it protects I
you because, after all, until you get more experience you
canft make the grade in the majors.”
A good many of these bonus wonders are not of legal ;
age and, consequently, they can!t sign a valid contract.
That brings the parents into the picture. The baseball
representative must dicker with them, and don*t think Mom ]
and Pop aren!t pretty cagey these days. The word has
spread that big money is involved. Mom and Pop and the Bey
Wonder play one scout against the other.
There are plane trips to the big city. A big hotel j
suite. A tour to study the culture of their boy's future
residence, if for only part of each year. Cigars for Pop
and orchids for Mom and even an expensive automobile for !
!
Junior and perhaps a matching car for the old folks. j
Maybe even a job for the Old Man. All they have to do is I
sign and keep their mouths shut.-^
If all parties concerned in undercover bonus trans-
actions keep quiet, it is difficult for the staff of the
Baseball Commissioner to track down dishonesty* But there
is no doubt that hundreds of violations have been made,
most of them going undetected.
Now, how does this form of cheating on the part of
club owners affect baseball? In the first place, it under
mines the confidence of the public* Ever since the Blaek I
Sox scandal of 1919» there is no sport in the United
States that has been kept more spotlessly clean, no sport
which the people have believed to be more completely
honest.
And here is another angle. These rich clubs hand- :
ing out under-the-table bonuses are asking young men to
become parties to shady contracts. They are opening the
door to crookedness on the part of these boys. There is
no denying that the inclination to be dishonest is present.
Whether any young bonus player actually has done so
or not, a vista is opened for cheating within cheating.
Let us assume a kid has accepted a ”quiet, f bonus from a
major-league club. What is to prevent his banking the
money, making a pretense of following orders, then subtly
passing the word that he was signed illegally?
The Commissioner steps into the pieture* He repri
mands the club, orders a $500 fine— and "frees” the player.
That leaves fifteen other major-league teams with legal
rights to bid for that player, who stands to collect all
over again. ^
A third reason, according to Griffith, why baseball
is being hurt is this: It is a soak-the-poor and help-the-!
rich deal any way you look at it* In other words, if
major-league clubs get away with signing all the bonus
players they want, legally and otherwise, the pennant races
will be dominated by rich men1 s clubs* According to the
record books, they have been dominated in this way for
years, and that power will become stronger unless correc- j
1
tive measures are taken*
What to do about all this cheating? Clark Griffith;
thinks he has the solution for that, too.-*-® According to |
his account, if any club is found guilty of covering up a
bonus, the Commissioner should levy a fine of $5,000, or
even more. He should continue to cut loose the player,
but he should bar from baseball, for a period of three
r n ..
Loc* cit.
18
Ibid., p. 91.
90
years, that boy and the representative of the ball club
who signed him. That will make the young player and/or
his parents think twice before entering into an illegal
contract.
Griffith goes farther to say that money should not
dominate baseball and, in that respect, also advocates a
curbing of farm systems. Why should New York or Boston
or any city be permitted to overwhelm Washington, etc.,
in baseball because of money? It should be fair and
logical to limit each big-league team to a single AAA club
and no more than one auxiliary in Classes AA, A, B, and C.
As regards Class D, there should be no limit. There is
where big-leaguers of the future come from and those
leagues need big-league financial support as much as the
big-leagues need their products.
V. EARL MANN— AGAINST FARM SYSTEMS
Clark Griffith advocates the curbing of farm opera- ;
: tions, as we have seen, but a minor-league executive, Earl !
Mann, thinks the farm system is a hindrance to baseball
and should be abolished altogether. The late Judge Landis I
thought along these lines, too.
As of today, the Atlanta Crackers have won sixteen
pennants, more than any other team in minor-league history.1
But this would not be an extraordinary record if Atlanta
91
were just another link in a farm chain. Earl Mann,
Cracker owner, for years has been an embattled champion
of independent operation, and still is, although forced
recently into at least temporary surrender. In 1950, hog-
tied by restrictive regulations, he gave in and signed a
working agreement with the then Boston Braves (now Milwau-
19
kee Braves)• 7
Mann, who is one of the most celebrated of minor-
league owners and executives, still maintains that the
farm system has been one of baseball1s worst enemies. He
says that the minor leagues should belong to themselves,
and not to farm chains that direct their policy and pick
their teams. This could be enforced by limiting each
major-league club to control of forty players, twenty-five
on the active roster and fifteen on option. When the
major-league clubs need players, he contends they should
go to the minor-league market to buy them.20 He says
nothing about the rich clubs dominating the market as they
did before Rickey devised the farm system just to fight
such a monopoly.
Mann goes on by contending that over the postwar
—
Furman Bisher, "They Call Him a Genius in Dixie,”
Saturday Evening Post, 22lj.:68, June 28, 1952*
20
Ibid., p. 70.
92
years it had cost the sixteen major-league clubs some
$35>0*000 for each player developed in farm chains that be
came a bona-fide major-leaguer. He asserts they are
actually paying twice for their players— the bonuses they
pay them to sign, and then the cost of developing them on
their farms
For a long time Mann had a gimmick that made
Atlanta attractive to the budding baseball youngster. He
shared the wealth. When a player signed with the Crackers,
a clause was written into the player’s contract setting
him up for a percentage of his sale price, if the big
leagues came knocking for him.
Mann has had a sharp business eye. One particularly
smart trick protected Davey Williams (Giants’ second base
man) from the draft poachers. Williams came up to the
Crackers in 19^8 after two seasons in the lower minors,
and there was no doubt that the little infielder would be
taken in the draft if left vulnerable. But Mann plugged
this hole. He prevailed upon a Chattanooga friend, who
prevailed upon the parent Washington Senators, to draft a
remarkably wild young pitcher off the Cracker roster.
Thus, Williams, who might have been lifted for the standard|
$10,000 draft price, was saved by the rule that allows
I
_
Loc. cit.
93
only one draftee off a club of double-A classification*^
22
Loc. cit.
CHAPTER IX
THE BALLPLAYERS CLIMB UP THE LADDER
I. A LOOK AT THE NEW YORK GIANTS ORGANIZATION
At the New York office of the Giants, 100 West
Forty-Second Street, is where one can get a first impres
sion of the size of the farm system which the Giants
operate* A considerable part of the fifteen-room office
is devoted to the affairs of the farm system. One whole
wall of a big room in the office is covered with a black
board. At the top are printed the names of cities or
towns where the Giants control a team: Minneapolis;
Nashville; Jacksonville, Florida; Sioux City, Iowa;
Knoxville; Sunbury, Pennsylvania; Muskogee, Oklahoma; St.
Cloud, Minnesota; Moultrie, Georgia; Pauls Valley,
Oklahoma; Oshkosh, Wisconsin; and Slatesville, North
Carolina. Under each heading are entered the names of the
players assigned to the team in that town.-*- During March
and April of each year, these players are shifted around
by the Giant hierarchy to meet the apparent needs of the
coming season.
One of the men in the Giant office is Frank
Bergonzi, a clerk who might well be described as Vice
^ John McNulty, "Tryout for the Giants,1 1 The New
Yorker, 28:76 ff, March 22, 1952.
95
President in Charge of Where Is Everybody* By means of
card files, he keeps track of the whereabouts and status
of the hundreds of ballplayers and officials connected
with the Giant organization, from the boys seeking a try
out right up to Manager Leo Durocher.
Before young applicants are accepted for a tryout,
which most clubs hold periodically, their cards are
screened by Giant scouts and other experts* The boys have
to state their baseball history. One can usually tell
from the sand-lot teams they played with whether they are
worth having a look at— worth it on paper, at least. It
is amazing how many little old teams all over the country
the scouts keep an eye on.
Every big-league ball club has scouts. The Giants
have twenty-two, and their job is to find promising young
ballplayers wherever they may be on this continent or its
outlying islands. Scouts are generally, but not always,
former ballplayers. Argument is sometimes advanced that
former players do not necessarily make the best scouts,
because they have a tendency to concentrate on certain
special abilities, such as a good arm or speed on the
bases, in a young player, and thus miss out on his over
all qualities. Usually, it is said, the thing they look
for is what they were best at in their playing days.^
^ Ibid.jP* 76.
96
Garry Schumacher, the man in charge of promotion
for the Giants, says if it were not for the cost, a club
would use at least a hundred and fifty scouts to cover a
country as big as the United States— and Canada and Cuba
and everywhere* But under the circumstances of prohibitive
cost, it is not feasible*
Getting back to tryout camps, more thorough students
of the game may be well aware of the pay situation in base
ball, but some will be astonished at the meager salaries
that go with minor-league baseball contracts* Almost all
contracts offered at tryout camps are for Class D clubs,
and each contract is usually for the same wage— a hundred
and fifty dollars a month.
Professional baseball is a sternly controlled indus
try— controlled from within* Classification of the leagues
is part of the control* The minor leagues run from AAA, at
the top, through AA, A, B, and C, to D* For each of the
minor-league classifications, there is a limit on the
number of active players carried by the club and, except
for AAA and AA teams, on the monthly payroll. In Class A,
the monthly payroll limit is ftftOO and the player limit
is nineteen; the Class B payroll limit is ft,000 and the
player limit seventeen; the Class C payroll limit is $3*^00
and the player limit seventeen; the Class D payroll limit
97
is $2,600 and the player limit sixteen.3
II. THE EVENTS OP A BALL PLATER TRYING
TO HAKE A BIG LEAGUE TEAM
Suppose a player has gone through the extensive
farms of a major-league club and is now ready for a shot
at the big show--what steps brought him there, and what
does he do after he gets there?
First of all, it is presumed that he has shown
sufficient talent for the major-league club to offer him a
contract. It is important that he sign that contract. He
may not like the terms--$5,000 is the minimum big-league
salary, but many club owners act as though it were also
the maximum so far as rookies are concerned in the big-
league. h -
Chances are he will sign, though, because it is the
big opportunity he has been waiting for. Besides, if he
does not sign the contract, all diplomatic relations are
severed. He becomes what is known to the trade as a "hold
out." After signing, he will receive a cozy, friendly
letter from one of the club’s top brass-— usually the vice- !
^ Ibid*» PP* 95-96.
^ Tom Meany, "So You’re a Big-League Rookie,"
Collier’s. 131:20, March 1^, 1953*
98 |
president or general manager--saying that he is glad to
have the rookie aboard* It will also contain detailed in- j
structions on when and where to report. The rookie will
be given a ticket providing first-class passage to the
training camp. Any money spent for meals en route will be
refunded.
The rookie cannot turn in his railroad ticket for
cash and economize by driving to camp. Cars are usually
"verboten” for rookies. There is sound reasoning behind
the restriction. One, it alleviates "running around”
during spring training when a player, especially a rookie, j
has to concentrate on getting into shape so he can be in
the best position to make the team. Two, there is a chance
of about nine-to-one that the rookie will be shipped to a
minor-league club before the conclusion of training.
Say he is with the Giants at Phoenix (spring train-j
ing base) when he*s cut loose. If he had his car with him |
in Arizona, it would mean a cross-country drive to their
minor-league camp at Melbourne, Florida. It would be
different if he were with Brooklyn. The whole organiza
tion trains together at Vero Beach.
Once at the training base, the rookie proceeds to
the assigned hotel and registers. He will discover that
i
he has been provided with a room and a roommate, courtesy
99
of the ball club. He may or may not have known his roomy
in the minors. He might even be a veteran of the club the
rookie just joined. The one fact he can be certain of is
that his roomy is not there by accident.^
While it is' the duty of the traveling secretary to
assign the rooms, both to veterans and newcomers, he does
so only after a series of conferences with the team
manager. The club has a pretty good file on all rookies
before they arrive in camp and tries to pair off the
players compatibly.
Leo Durocher, manager of the New York Giants, like
other managers, exercises extreme eare in rooming his
players together. As one of his aides pointed out,
You group them on the basis of the position they
play, their temperaments, and their age differences.
You put pitchers and catchers together. Theyfve got
something to talk about. Same thing goes for second
basemen and shortstops. There*s no percentage, unless
you've got some other reason for it, in putting an ,
outfielder in with a pitcher. Nothing to talk about.®
In a town like St. Petersburg, Florida, where the
Cardinals and Yankees both train, the families mostly live
near the beach, some ten or fifteen miles from the hotel.
hoc, cit.
6
Gilbert Millstein, "Ring Lardner Wouldn't Know
Them," The New York Times Magazine, p. 39, March 30, 1952.
loo ;
The front offices have found this arrangement upsetting#
The Yanks, in fact, have taken steps about it, and a player;
who 1 1 lives out,” as the phrase has it, finds himself short
changed, since he receives only meal money and no room rent.
Being broke in training camp is the common experi
ence of minor-league rookies# Lou Gehrig reported to his
first big-league camp with the Yankees in New Orleans in
19224. with exactly $12 to see him through a six-weeks
training siege# He expected to add to his bankroll by
working nights as a waiter until manager Miller Huggins
heard of his plight and arranged for a salary advance#7
For the last five years, ballplayers on major-league
rosters in spring training have been receiving $2f? a week
to cover tips, laundry and cleaning bills. This conces
sion would have saved many a headache for rookies of
earlier years, including one of the Hall of Famefs most
recent additions, Dizzy Dean. When Dean first reported
to the Cardinals for spring training at Bradentown,
Florida, the secretary kept the great man on a dollar-a-
day dole, a salary advance which Dean promptly invested
and lost in the nearest slot machines. As a result, Diz1s
first major-league shutout victims were the waiters.
7
Meany, op. cit., pp. 20-21.
101
FIGURE 3
ROOKIE LOU GEHRIG HAD SO LITTLE MONEY IN SPRING TRAIN
ING THAT HE EXPECTED TO WORK NIGHTS AS A WAITER
C N iiversitv o t t e a t t u m Ualitosra&a

102 1
The rooms, of course, are provided free and so are
the meals* But the players pay for all incidentals. In
most camps, the players simply sign the check in the hotel I
dining room, although some clubs distribute real money,
enabling the athletes to eat where they please* The
National League has set a $6-per-day standard where this
practice is followed* The New York Giants, dismayed by
some of the truly notable dining tabs their noble athletes
were running up at the Adams Hotel in Phoenix in recent
years, have cancelled signing privileges and now issue a
daily meal allowance of $8*50— a concession to the cost of j
o
living in Phoenix.
The first few days in a big-league camp* The
rookies and veterans alike have been issued uniforms and
are now gathered in the clubhouse* The rookies should not *
be disillusioned if the clubhouse is just as shabby as the |
accommodations they remember from the minor-leagues* The
rookie need not get overly optimistic when the manager, in I
his introductory speech, stresses that every job on the
ball club is open and that all candidates in training will |
have an equal chance*
This speech is standard operating procedure* The
8
Ibid*, p. 21.
103
manager does not expect a rookie to replace Phil Rizzuto
or Stan Musial, but he does want him to feel that he can,
so that he will bring forth his best efforts.^
Aside from the inevitable butterflies which flutter
in a rookie's stomach as he steps out on the practice
field for the first time in a major-league uniform, his
main feeling will be one of loneliness. The rookie will
be fortunate if he personally knows more than two or three
of the forty men on the squad.
The manager was not kidding when he said all would
have an equal chance. Long before intrasquad games are
played, the squad is divided into two groups for batting,
fielding and pitching drills. The rookies are interspersed
with veterans, all getting their full measure of attention
from the manager and his coaches.10
On the first day of training for the Giants, Leo
Durocher has his pitchers and catchers out jogging easily
around the ball park at nine o!clock in the morning for
about a half hour. The running is followed by about
twenty minutes or so of easy throwing, after which the
pitchers and catchers play pepper, a bunting game which
9 Ibid., p. 22.
10
Loc. cit.
loif I
calls for a lot of bending and is fine for the back.
In their first couple of days the rest of the squad
does not do much more than run, throw tentatively, chase
fly balls and play pepper. Infield and outfield drill and
batting practice start two days later. This includes
rookies. In the old days a rookie had to fight the regu
lars for a turn in the batting cage.
1 1 There were five or six guys around ready to kill
him if he picked up a bat.1 1 Freddy Fitzsimmons, one of
the three Giant coaches, recalled, 1 1 And they either told
you nothing or they told you something once, and that was
the works.
Thirty years or so ago rookies were hazed with pre
cision. Their shoes and socks were sometimes nailed down
to the locker-room floor. They were made to clean spikes,
carry bats and advised, when mailing letters, to make sure
whether they wanted an eastbound or a westbound stamp.
They were taken on snipe hunts at night, which consisted
mostly of being taken into a forest by a number of veterans
with a flashlight and an empty burlap bag, told to wait
for the appearance of the snipe, and then left there in
definitely by the departing veterans.
11
Millstein, Q£. cit., p. 38.
105
Young pitchers traveling on Pullmans were informed
that they would have to rest their arms in the shoe ham
mocks in their berths* The late John McGraw is believed
to have originated this rib* This troubled one pitcher,
who informed his mentor that he was a left-hander and
that he might have some difficulty getting to sleep. Some
rookies, but only a few, were led to believe that it was
proper to tip elevator boys. Ballplayers may have been
more naive years ago, but they have always been cautious.^2
1111 ve got just about four training rules,1 1 remarked
Leo Durocher, the Giants1 manager. He elaborated on this
statement by saying:
In bed by 12; morning call at 7*30; no whisky drink
ing; if a man wants to stay out past midnight, he’s
got to ask permission. I haven’t refused it yet.
One thing I don’t want on ray club is a stoolpigeon.
If I think you’re doing something on me, I’ll take
care of it myself* I’ll sit up all night in the
lobby. I’ll guard the door and when you walk in I’ll
hand you a slip— maybe for a $200 fine— and you can’t
look around and say, "Who told you?” I caught you.
I haven’t fined a guy in years--never on the Giants.
When you get a real bad actor, you’re better off
getting rid of him than fining him* Let someone else
have the headaches. Times have changed, anyway. You
don’t have that other-type player coming up. These
kids are younger. In the old days, you didn’t pay
too much attention to a ballplayer’s outside activi
ties. Today, with a farm system, he learns from the
beginning what the parent club wants from him and he
comes up that way. You get a yearly report, not only
12
Loc. cit.
106
on his playing, but his background, his married life,
his personal life, everything. In the old days, all
you had to do was manage a club, pick out your players
and get the captain to hand the line-up to the
umpire, 13
Most big-league managers avoid giving personal in
struction themselves. They oversee the entire operation,
walking from instructor to instructor. Just because the
manager does not say anything, it does not mean that he
is not observing the players. If a coach points out that
a rookie, or, for that matter, a veteran, is dipping his
head as he swings and concequently takes his eye off the
ball, it is probably because the manager noticed the
defect and spoke to the coach about it.
After the exhibition schedule starts, a rookie may
find himself in the starting line-up. But just because
he is on first base and Gil Hodges is on the bench, it
does not necessarily follow that manager Walter Alston
has decided that the rookie is to be the Brooklyn Dodger
first baseman. Many a regular sits out the early Grape
fruit League games because the manager knows what the
regular can do, but he does not know yet what the rookie
can do*
One of the traditional gags about baseball rookies
13
Ibid., p. 37.
107 ;
involves the busher who sent his mother a postcard with
the message: ”Dear Mom: 1*11 be home soon* They1 re
starting to curve-em.1 1 Actually, the first boy to leave
camp is usually the boy who starts curving ’em too early,
not the hitter who struck out. Baseball training is a
gradual process, designed to prepare an athlete for a
daily, six-month grind, and the pitchers who embarrass the I '
batters with early curves frequently wind up with arms so
sore they are unable to comb their hair the next morning.-^
(Which, by the way, may be the reason why so many young
pitchers report these days with crew hair-cuts.)
Between the time the Giants show up in Phoenix and
the time they get back to New York for the opening of the
season in April, the club will spend somewhere in the
neighborhood of $86,000; at least 1^0 per cent of which is
left in Arizona* (The club barnstorms home with the
Cleveland Indians and usually stands to get back some
$55,000 to $75,000, depending on the weather.) This in
cludes, among other items, about $55,000 for hotel rooms
and meals; $8,250 in railroad, plane and bus fares;
$10,000 for the general expenses of the club, including the
entertaining of local dignitaries; $1,5000 for baseballs;
and $1,000 to get the Phoenix Municipal Stadium, a pink-
^ Meany, 0£. cit., p. 22.
FIGURE i ) .
A TRADITIONAL GAG ABOUT BASEBALL ROOKIES
L-Jj '
* * * * * *
* ™ z * + 4» j
Lo-K/tV-iy
109
painted concrete park seating about seven thousand people,
in shape.^
A good deal of dispute has been generated lately,
principally by the great Ty Cobb, over the ability and
conditioning of latter-day ballplayers. The way the Giants
run their camp is about as good an example of how things
are done these days as any. Because pitchers naturally
depend on their throwing arms more than the other artisans,
Durocher gets them out to Phoneix, together with four
catchers, a week before the rest of the squad shows up.
This is standard procedure in both major leagues. At
least one argument in favor of the 1954 ballplayer appears
to be that he does not, as a rule, start training as
bloated as some of his predecessors. The daily weight
chart kept by Prank J. (Doc) Bowman, the Giant trainer,
usually shows no more than a four-pound weight loss in any
member of the squad over a three-week period. ”They donft
get off the pavement like they used to,” says Bowman.
”They get here in fairly good condition.
15
Millstein, o£. eit., p. 37*
16
Ibid., pp. 37-3$.
CHAPTER X
THE INITIATION OP THE NEW YORK YANKEE AND
BOSTON RED SOX FARM SYSTEMS
I. THE NEW YORK YANKEES AND GEORGE WEISS
George Weiss's importance to the New York Yankees
can be summed up quickly: He has established and guided
the enormously efficient network of subsidiary, minor-
league teams that discovers, then develops, the steady
stream of fresh talent which has kept the Yankees, the
greatest ball club in the business, young and vibrant.^-
It is customary to ascribe the Yankees1 dominance
to the millions Colonel Ruppert used to lavish on them.
This is a persistent hangover from the 1920's, when
Ruppert raided the Boston Red Sox and spent approximately
$500,000 for such established stars as Babe Ruth, Waite
Hoyt, Herb Pennock, and others* Sure, Ruppert bought
pennants, but that was a quarter of a century ago. After
he was stung badly by expensive failures, Ruppert hired
Weiss in 1932 for the specific purpose of cutting down
heavy cash expenditures for players. Since that time the
Stanley Prank, "Yankee Kingmaker,” Saturday-
Evening Post. 221:23, July 2 l | . , 191^8*
Ill
Yankees have spent less for players than any other team in
either major league except the St. Louis Cardinals and
Brooklyn Dodgers.^
Prom 1936 through 1943* the Yankees put together an
unprecedented string of seven pennants and went into the
open market for exactly five players. The outlay was
$80,000. These players included Joe Di Maggio and Tom
Henri ch.
In the sixteen years, up to 1 9 i|. 8, that Weiss was
associated with the team, the Yankees spent a total of
$100,000 for players. Another $150,000, in round numbers,
was paid to sandlotters and college graduates as bonuses
for signing contracts.^ In recent years, of course, these
figures have increased tremendously, especially the
bonuses.
Only the Cardinals and Dodgers can challenge Weiss
for the distinction of running the most successful bargain
basement in the history of baseball. Between 193& and
1943f the Yankees won eight pennants and seven World
Series with players who cost the grand total of $25>0,000.
This was the sort of thing that depresses people like
2 Ibid., pp. 23 f t .
3
Ibid.. p. 108.
112 |
Tom Yawkey, owner of the Boston Red Sox, who shipped
$1^00,000 in cash and ten chattels to the St. Louis Browns ]
in November of 19i+7 in return for four players who did not )
help win a pennant.^-
Weiss did not originate the farm system* The credit
belongs to Branch Rickey, general manager of the Pittsburgh
Pirates at the moment, who was with the Cardinals twenty-
eight years ago when he devised the scheme for developing
young players by advancing them gradually in faster, more
expert competition until they were ready for the big
leagues. Weiss copied Rickey*s successful formula, added I
a few refinements and was a spokesman for the defense
when Judge Landis tried to abolish the farm system, in
line with his conviction that it stifled competition and
tended to monopolize sources of playing talent for rich
clubs.^
Although Weiss was not the founding father of the
farm system, he was the inventor of an administrative
gimmick which can best be described as the 1 1 c ha in-reaction"
trade. This is a variation of the old shell game whereby
a person with a bland expression and a quick eye can
parley #£00 into $95>5> 00, as in the case of a catcher who
^ Loc. cit.
^ Ibid., p. 109.
113
was picked up with a big sales talk and a small bonus. In
1937* this catcher was sold to Cincinnati for $20,000.
Weiss innocently asked for a ballplayer to placate his
local fans, and the Reds magnanimously threw Eddie Miller,
a shortstop, into the deal* A year later Miller was sold
to the Braves for $12,5>00 and five players— Vince Di
Maggio, Johnny Riddle, G-il English, Tommy Reis and Johnny
Babich* This is what followed: Weiss sold Di Maggio to
the Reds for $37*500, got $7*500 from the same club for
Riddle, and unloaded English and Babich for $7*500 apiece.
It!s easy when you know how
It will come as a great surprise to Buddy Hassett,
the best tenor among the first basemen of his time, to
learn that he was worth $105,000 to the Yankees, if not to
himself. Hassett got a $3,000 bonus for signing with the
Yankees after graduating from Manhattan College in 1933*
He did splendidly down on the farms, but the parent club
happened to have Lou Gehrig, so Hassett was sold to
Brooklyn in 193& Tor $1^0,000. Weiss, again pulling a long
face and explaining he could not play the money on first
base at Newark (their farm club), induced the Brooklyns to
include John McCarthy and Ralph Boyle in the transaction.
6
Ibid., p. 110.
Within the year, McCarthy was sold to the Giants for
flj.0,000 and Boyle was traded for Jimmy Gleeson, who
presently fetched #25*000 from the Cubs* The payoff came
in 19i|-2, when the Braves, in return for Tommy Holmes, sent
#22,500 and Hassett, the fellow who started the whole
thing, back to the Yankees, who were happy to have him as
a regular on a winning team*?
It was about 1931 when Ruppert changed his entire
attitude toward his hobby. The Athletics had supplanted
the Yankees as the ruling power in the American League,
and even Ruppert was staggered by the prices asked for
players during the depression* He had gone overboard for
Lynn Lary and Jimmy Reese to the extent of #135*000. The
#35,000 spent for Jim Weaver, a pitcher, was a total loss,
and recent purchases of Prank Crosetti and Jack Saltzgaver
added up to $150,000* The Cardinals, once the poor rela
tions of the National League, had just won their fourth
pennant in six years with players who had not cost nearly
as much. Determined to adopt Rickey*s new farm system,
Ruppert looked for a man to direct the operation* He got
o
George Weiss.
115
Ed Barrow, former Yankee general manager, had to
be sold on the idea of the Yankees going into the farm
business* Soon^after the farm system was started, Barrow
and Weiss, who was to run the farm system, had their first
difference* Barrow wanted the farms run his way* He
refused to concede the wisdom of buying a player when the
Yankees were supposed to be raising them, and this stub
bornness would have lost Joe Di Maggio for the Yankees had
not Weiss gone over Barrow1s head.9
Although he hit at San Francisco as if he had
invented the game, Di Maggio generally was not regarded as
a good buy because of a knee injury suffered while he was
getting out of a taxicab in 193^»
At the minor-league meetings in Louisville that
year, Bill Essick and Joe Devine, who scouted the far West
for the Yankees, came to Weiss with a tale and a proposal*
"This Di Maggio kid,1 1 said Essick, ”has it in him
to be a great player, not just a good one*1 1
"What about his knee?” queried Weiss*
"I have the San Francisco ball clubfs permission to
take him to our own doctor,” Essick said*
”Do it,” said Weiss*
9
Milton Gross, "Yankee Huckster,” Baseball Year
book, 1950* P* 52.
”Th© kid’s all right,” Essick later revealed* ”Doc
Spence in Los Angeles assures me there’s nothing really
wrong* Why don’t you talk business with Graham?”
Graham, who owned San Franeisco, wanted to sell
Di Maggio* He told Weiss he wanted money, yet was pri
marily interested in players. ’ ’ We’ll help you out for
players,” Weiss told him, ”but money must be contingent.
Weiss bought an option on Di Mag for five players.
Joe was to remain at San Francisco for one season and, if
his knee stood up (Weiss did not disclose Dr* Spence’s
optimistic report), their Newark club, not the Yankees,
would exercise the option for an additional i> 25>,000.
When Weiss informed Barrow of the deal, Ed exploded.
’ ’What’s a farm system for?” he demanded. ’ ’ Find the play
ers. Raise them yourself* Buying them this way is out.”
”We can’t lose this fellow,” Essick pleaded with
Weiss* “Why don’t you go see the old man (Jake Ruppert)
yourself?”11
That evening Weiss and Essick drove to French Lick
Springs, Indiana, where Barrow and Ruppert were vacation-
117
! t If we’re developing on the farms, I don’t see why
we have to buy players,” Barrow insisted*
f , But the bulk of the payment will come from the
farms,” Weiss countered, and turned to Ruppert with a
glowing description of Di Maggio*
”If that’s your judgment, George, then make the
deal,” Ruppert advised*
If Weiss had made no other deal in all his time in
baseball, heads would still have to be bared for this one.
Di Mag hit *398 for San Franciseo that year (1935) and
$25,000 was paid to complete the delivery*
Quick, now! What are the names of the players used
to buy the option on Di Maggio? For the record, they were
Ted Rorbert, Floyd Rewkirk, Les Powers, Jim Densmore and
Eddie Farrell. Only Farrell, who refused to report, is
remembered--by his patients. He later quit baseball to
become a dentist. ^
II. THE B0ST0R RED SOX
Because baseball is such a big business, a player
with precisely the right blend of physical attributes,
professional attitude and experience Is almost a priceless
Doc* cit*
118 I
commodity* Due to the present prosperity, only a few of
the sixteen major-league clubs are weak financially* Sortie
of these make it a practice to sell valuable players
occasionally to meet expenses.
But, today,, it is getting harder to buy a star
player unless a big name player is put into the deal to
counteract the loss of the first star* Therefore, money,
in itself, is no longer as important to baseball management
as it once was* You cannot put $£00,000 on the pitcher^ j
mound and win twenty games with it.
Because it is so difficult to buy established top- j
flight players, the major-league clubs develop their own
talent in their farm systems*
Yet even when it was feasible to buy big-name
players, it did not always help to win a pennant. Some - j
j
of these owners are now finding that a farm system of
their own will be the most logical way to build an eventu
al pennant winner#
Take the case of Tom Y a w k e y , ^ the millionaire
owner of the Boston Red Sox, who is still trying, after
twenty somewhat frustrating years, to build up a consistent!
pennant winner.
^ Article in The (weekly) Sporting News, St. Louis,
August £, 1953•
119 |
Throughout the Yawkey regime, which began in 1933*
when he bought the club from Bob Quinn, the Red Sox have
won only one pennant, in 19i+6, and even that club lost the j
World*s Series to an underdog Cardinal team.
In his attempt to bring a winner to Boston, Yawkey
has gone through two major phases, and he is now in the
process of trying a third.
When he first moved into the Bib, he was convinced
that pennants could be bought, and he spent millions try
ing to buy one. His first move was to hire the late Eddie ;
Collins as vice-president and general manager. Collins
was an astute baseball man with a close connection with
the one person who had a corner on several of the stars
of that day--Connie Mack, then manager of the Philadelphia !
Athletics. Through Collins, Yawkey tried to buy a pennant !
right out of Philadelphia.^-
Yawkey*s second phase dovetailed with the first.
Before he had finished trying to purchase all of the estab-
lished stars in the major leagues--and there were none
whom he failed to go after--he was already attempting to
buy promising youngsters out of the minor leagues. This
was before the Red Sox had an effective farm system, and
it was the only recourse that Yawkey had at the time. Prom
ft- j
hoc. cit.
120
193& to 19ij-0, the Red Sox made several important purchases
from independent minor league clubs, and they were still
following this policy as late as 19^7, when they paid
175,000 to the Atlanta Crackers for Billy Goodman— a good
investment•
It was this second phase which helped produce
Yawkey1s only Red Sox pennant. But, even as the Red Sox
were still beating the bushes for good-looking youngsters
to buy, they were beginning to move into their third
phase, the building of a home-grown winner. The farm sys
tem, into which Yawkey poured millions, is just now be
ginning to produce for him.
The first notification that Yawkey gave that he
intended remodeling the face of the American League in his
attempts to build a winner came in December of 1933, when
the Red Sox paid the Athletics a quarter of a million
dollars and threw in a couple of nondescript players in
return for Lefty Grove, Rube Walberg and Max Bishop.
Actually, the deal was for Grove, since he was the great
est southpaw in the business and a personal Yawkey hero.^
All of the other transactions that Yawkey had made,
and, in fact, all of the deals ever made since, were
Loe. cit.
121 i
dwarfed by his purchase of Joe Cronin from Washington in
November, 193^* Yawkey gave Clark Griffith, the Nation
al’s owner, Lyn Lary and a quarter of a million dollars,
in cash for Cronin, who was brought to Boston to manage
and play shortstop for the Red Sox. A T , boy wonder” at
the time, Cronin had already led the Nats to a 1933 pen
nant, and he was one of the top stars of the game. Cronin
now holds the job that Collins originally had— vice-
president and general manager of the club. To this day,
Yawkey does not regret the deal, the most expensive ever
made for a single ballplayer.
But still the Red Sox could not win, and Yawkey
still was not satisfied. Through Collins, he had been
angling for two years for the longest-hitting right-handed
slugger in the game, Jimmie Foxx. Mack, in selling off
his stars, had kept his slugger, but there was never any
doubt that Foxx eventually would go to Boston.
However, by 1936, the Red Sox were moving into the
second phase of Yawkey*s pennant hunt— the purchase of
promising minor leaguers.^
In the forementioned year, Collins took a scouting
trip to California which must rank with the most
Article in The (weekly) Sporting News, St. Louis,
August 5, 1953. i
122
productive ivory hunt in the history of the game. He went
out primarily to watch a shortstop with the San Diego
Padres, for whom a dozen major-league clubs were willing
to pay heavy sugar. Collins watched the club play a few
games and forgot about this shortstop. Instead, he asked
the owner how much he wanted for his sixteen-year-old
second baseman, a dark, quiet kid named Bobby Doerr.
During the same trip Collins heard about a recent
high school phenom who had a dream swing, a kid named
Ted Williams. The Red Sox general manager bought Doerr
and got an option on Williams, who was already working out
with the San Diego club. Doerr came for something in the
neighborhood of $15,000, a purchase that was completed
before the 193& season ended. Williams was bought from
San Diego a year later for five minor league players owned
by the Red Sox and a price reported to be between $25*000
and $40,000.
The third important minor league purchase during
this second phase was that of Dom Di Maggio. A little guy
with glasses and a famous name, Dom was passed up by many
major league scouts. Cronin scouted Dom in an exhibition
game and recommended that the Red Sox take a chance on
him. They paid the San Francisco Seals $50,000 for the
youngest member of the Di Maggio clan.
The 19^6 team that won the pennant had a combina
tion of early farm products, minor league purchases and
men brought in by trades with other big league clubs*
When the pitching staff collapsed, the Red Sox
failed to repeat, and they moved into the present phase
of development* Actually, as proved by that 19l|6 team,
the farm system already had paid off considerably, but
now the Red Sox are heavily dependent upon their minor-
league talent.^*7
CHAPTER XI
THE BALANCE SHEET OP A BIG-LEAGUE BALL CLUB
I. A LOOK AT THE NEW YORK YANKEES, A DECADE AGO
When Colonel Ruppert died in 1939, public curiosity
over the disposition of his estate was immense because of
the involvement of the Yankee baseball club, which had
become as much of a national institution as the Metropoli
tan Opera or the Emporia Gazette. Because the Ruppert
will was a somewhat complicated legal arrangement, it
received a confused if prominent press.
It was Colonel Ruppert1s expressed wish and hope
that the Yankees would remain indefinitely in a trust,
with his two nieces and another woman friend as benefi
ciaries. But when the executors found that the Ruppert
estate did not have sufficient other assets to pay the
federal and state death taxes, Ruppert1s personal debts
of more than one million dollars, and the heavy expenses
of administration of the estate, the Yankees were put up
for sale.-1 -
When it became known that the Yankees were purchas
able, sportsmen, politicos, Wall Street entrepreneurs, and
1
”The Yankees,” Fortune, 3^:138, July, 19ij-6.
125
just plain publicity seekers had themselves a field day.
At least thirty prospective purchasers were serious
enough to approach the trust on the deal. But, in getting
down to cases, both buyers and sellers were not long in
learning that the economies of baseball had never been
adequately reported in the sports pages of the newspapers.
In a casual conversation with a friend in 1937*
Jake Ruppert dropped the word that he valued his baseball
property at !tsomething between f6 and $7 million.” Even
in those days, it was no surprise to the man in the street,
who could roughly tick off-on his fingers that the two-
million-dollar Yankee Stadium, built on a one-million-
dollar plot, must be written in on anybody*s book for at
least four million dollars; then there were the stadiums
and properties of farm clubs like Newark, Kansas City, and
so on --surely worth more than a million in all. Ihere
was plenty of evidence to indicate that an American League
franchise in New York by its solitary self was worth one
million and, of course, the Yankees easily owned a million
dollars* worth of ballplayers, la/ho wouldn*t pay almost a I
quarter of a million for Di Maggio alone?^
^ Ibid., p. 136. j
126
Nevertheless, the "$6 or $7 million" figure on the
Yankees was, of course, a book figure without reality for i
a prospective operator of the club. The replacement
value of the Yankee Stadium alone might have run as high
as six millions at the time, but the structure is of
operational value only if it is used to house a baseball
team* The farm clubs, it was learned, are of productive
value only as they contribute to the integrated system of
developing players who are capable of performing in the
Yankee Stadium--they do not normally pay off of themselves.
The Yankee ballplayers, it may surprise the average busi- I
nessman to know, are valued at one dollar! That, is a
bookkeeping fiction, of course, but how can you list as
an asset a "property" whose total value can be expunged
over night by a sore arm, a broken leg, or a compulsion
to see that evening sun go down far, far from the side
walks of New York?3
When it was announced in January 1 9 that Larry
MacPhail, Brooklyn’s recent boss, and his associates, Dan
Topping and Del Webb, had unconditionally bought the
Yankees for approximately three million dollars, news
writers promptly labeled the transaction a "steal." That
the purchase at this price offered a once-in-a-lifetime
j
3 Ibid., p. 138. !
127
opportunity for a man of his peculiar talents to coax a
fortune out of baseball, MacPhail, in a candid mood, would j
probably not deny# nevertheless, it is a fact that the
accepted offer of MacPhail1s group was not only the high
est received but it was the only firm bid— with check
attached— to emerge from the numberless discussions between;
the trust and the various intermediaries.
The balance sheets of most big-league ball clubs
are vaulted and possibly written in code, which is a pity, |
because the average businessman would undoubtedly be
interested in some of the wrinkles* Many clubs, including |
the Yankees, list the value of players1 contracts at one
dollar; the sale price of players is treated as operating
income, the amounts paid out for purchase and development i
of players as expense. The value of the franchise is
usually set up as a capital item, however, because it has
a continuing value, regardless of what might happen to the |
physical property or other tangible assets of the club.
Perhaps its closest parallel is a seat on the New York
Stock Exchange.
The Yankee franchise is the right to represent the
American League in New York. It could be sold by itself
at any time, provided the transaction was sanctioned by
s
the league, which is a nonprofit association of restricted
128
membership. At that time, the Yankees carried their
franchise at $300*000 because that was the amount original
ly thrown in by the Yankee (or Baltimore) owners as their
share of the working capital that was pooled to organize
the American LeagueA Actually, if the franchise were
placed on the market, it could conceivably bring three
million dollars or more at the present time.
II. THE ST. LOUIS BROWNS, 1952
For a more detailed look into the books of a ball
club, it might be interesting to inspect the ledger sheet
of the former St. Louis Browns in the year of Our Lord
1952.
The Browns listed total resources at close to
$2,200,000. Gash on hand at yearend was only $2,600.
Notes and accounts receivable were around $62,000, while
intercompany notes receivable (presumably money invested
in minor-league clubs) were about one million dollars.
Carried at around $1^.00,000 was Sportsman1 s Park,
which was sold to the National League St. Louis Cardinals
(Anheuser-Bush, Inc.) for $800,000 early last year.
Other items among assets included $399*000 invested
^ Ibid., p. 139.
129
In subsidiaries (farm clubs) and #77,000 equity in the
players1 pension fund*
On the other side of the balance sheet are #1,1400,000
of liabilities, including $51i 5,000 of notes payable to
banks and others, #50i | . , 000 of intercompany notes and
accounts payable, #243,000 of regular accounts payable*
The owners1 equity in the business includes capital
stock of #307,000 and surplus listed as #1 ^ . 71,000*
Some Wall Streeters, however, believe that the
owners have a larger equity than the balance sheet indi
cates*
For example, the club franchise is carried among
the assets as $200,000* Some big-league franchises are
considered by many to be worth as much as three million
dollars, if not five millions*^ (Anheuser-Bush paid four
million dollars for the Cardinals— including the franchise.)
But it will be remembered that the Yankees carried their
franchise at $300,000 at one time.
Both organizations do not list their ballplayers as
assets* That diminishes the equity on the balance sheets*
5
"Through the Knothole," Business Week, Hay 9»
1953, P. li|0.
III. THE COST OP BUILDING A BALL PARK TODAY
Construction costs have risen so sharply that pri
vate financing in building a ball park is out of the ques
tion today* It has become obvious that an owner who wants
to build a new park, or a city seeking a major-league
franchise, must build it with municipal funds* Oilman
Edwin Pauley, although a multimillionaire, found that out
some time ago, when costs were not as high as they are now.
Long before Bill Veeck got control of the St. Louis[
Browns, Pauley looked into the possibility of purchasing
the St* Louis franchise and transferring it to the Los j
j
Angeles area. Fortnight, a West Coast publication, re
vealed that Pauley finally abandoned the idea when an
estimate convinced him the total cost would run to about
$13,000,000.^ He could see no possibility of a profit on
such an investment in the foreseeable future.
Purchasing the Browns1 franchise would have been
only one of the major cost items* The big expense would
have been the building of a ball park. Fortnight esti
mated the cost at $> 8^.0 a seat, which may have been a mis- j
print. Milwaukee County Stadium to give the new home of
Tom Meany, "Baseball Needs Three Big Leagues to
Survive," Collier1s, 131:56, June 20, 1953*
131
the Braves its proper handle, cost $5*000,000 and seats
28,011, which comes to about $178 per seat* Bleachers
have increased the capacity to nearly 36,000 and funds
have been set aside to add 12,000 more seats.
When the Yankee Stadium the last major-league park
to be built with private funds, was opened in 1923*
Colonel Huston, Colonel Jacob Ruppert1s partner in the
venture, estimated that it cost about $18 a seat. Today
a stadium of 50,000 capacity would cost about $125 P©**
seat, or $6,250*000 in rough figures.?
Since a municipally built stadium must have tenants,
the rent is usually attractively low and there are no tax
problems. Today Cleveland and Milwaukee are the only
major-league clubs playing in such stadiums. Both pay
token rent, the Braves paid only $1,000 for the season
last year which came to about $12.99 per game. Contrast
that with the $175*000 a year the Browns were supposed to
be paying to rent Busch Stadium since they sold the park
to the Cardinals for $800,000.
Operational costs in baseball have increased nearly
100 per cent since the war. Travel and lodging have gone
up at least 50 per cent. The Brooklyn Dodgers figure that
7
Loc. cit.
132
their scouts cost them about $12^,000 a year in salaries
and about $100,000 in expenses.
"The scout's expenses are the same whether he is
Andy High, our chief scout, or Joe Doaks," says Fresco
Thompson, in charge of Brooklyn's minor-league operations.
"The railroad or airline charges just as much to carry
Doaks as they do High, and the hotel charges just as much |
to put him up. Furthermore, Doaks will eat just as much
O !
as High— maybe more, because Andy is used to eating out."
Q
Ibid., pp. 56-57.
CHAPTER XII
THE FOUNDATIONS OF BASEBALL, WITH EMPHASIS
ON THE MINOR LEAGUES
Let us suppose, for example, that a spirited busi
nessman wants to organize a minor-league baseball team.
He can get a few like-minded fans together and start
organizing a baseball club, with himself as president*
All the club needs now is a franchise, a ball park, a
general manager, a manager and some ballplayers— not to
mention money to pay for all these things.
For the franchise, the president of the ball club
goes to the league in which he wants to have his team
located. If that league wants to add a team or two, the
franchise will be granted. For a ball park, he may go to
the city government and talk them into building a park and !
have it leased to the still imaginary club for, say, five
years.
For managers and ballplayers, the president can go
to any organization that does not already operate a team
in the league in which he is trying to add a club. If he
can find such an organization that will want to have a
working agreement in his town, they will supply players
once the club has obtained financing. The general manager j
will also come from the organization that takes up the j
FIGURE 5
THE AHATOMY OF A BALL CLUB
. / * *
BALL CHASERS
INFIELDCRSj
PITCHERS
P. A. SYSTEM
ANNOUNCER
GENERAL
MANAGER
135
working agreement.
For money, the president of the imaginary ball club
goes no farther than his new general manager. He sells
baseball to the fans of the community at, say, #100 a
share. Between the supervision of construction of the new
ball park and selling stock, the president and general
manager get their players— drawn from other farm teams of
the mother organization.
All this sounds rather easy to accomplish— it is
not. The work and headaches "that the directors of this
club, or any club, for that matter, will have bestowed
upon them will be immense if a good job is to be done.
Following are some topics that may help lay a foundation.
They will not all apply to newly-organized teams nor minor-
league clubs in general. Some will apply only to the
major-leagues.
I. PARK OWNERSHIP OR A SOLID LEASE
Experience has shown that the basis for successful
operation of a baseball club rests upon possession of, or j
at least complete control of, the property upon which the j
club proposes to play its games. This is particularly
true in the minor leagues.
This item stated so boldly seems out of proportion,
136
overdrawn, not exactly true* The history of the rise and
fall of club fortunes will prove its truthfulness. The
club which does not control its property is at the mercy
of others. If partial or complete rehabilitation of the
plant is essential to public patronage, the club without
solid control of its playing field, stands and public
conveniences hesitates to spend the money for the probable
benefit of others.
Short-time leases, occupancy of public property
which frequently becomes embroiled in local political
battles and similar arrangements give officials and direc
tors of clubs a constant sense of insecurity. The public
will soon hear about the situation and will regard the
whole set-up as a fly-by-night arrangement.*^*
The baseball club in any city becomes known by the
quality of its physical property. Confidence is given to
the club in proportion to its basic security in the com
munity1 s life.
Since membership in a league is in fact an agreement
between partners in an enterprise, it is hazardous for any
league to admit a club to membership if it cannot control
Robert L. Finch, L. H. Addington, and Ben M.
Morgan, editors, The Story of Minor League Baseball
(Columbus, Ohio: The National Association of Professional
Baseball Leagues, 19j?3)> P* 60.
137
its playing field, stands and public conveniences. If a
club is at the mercy of others, if at any moment during
the playing season schedules may be disrupted by disputes
over sanitation, repairs, upkeep, or a thousand other items
that may arise, it is unfair to other members of the league
and may lead to its complete dissolution. Before ever a
club is granted a franchise by a league, there should be
complete understanding by all members of the league as to
the character of control that can be exercised by the club I
p
seeking the franchise.
II. THE FRANCHISE
A baseball franchise is a grant under baseball regu
lations by which a club secures the exclusive right to
operate a baseball club in a league; by which the club
secures the privileges accorded all other members of the
nation-wide baseball family and by which a club assumes
the responsibilities and obligations toward other members
of its league and toward all other members of the club of
the baseball fraternity.
A franchise may become vastly more valuable to a
club than all the physical property erected upon its play- ]
ing fields.
The franchise is a part of the partnership agreement
^ Loc. cit. j
138
when a league is formed, but the league itself, and each
club within the league, must pass examination as to its
financial stability, the individual and collective reputa
tion of its officiary and directorate for honesty and fair
dealing, and its ability to properly administer a profes
sional baseball club in relation to the general public.
In many respects the operators of a professional baseball
club are quasi-public officials, since the relations of
the club with the public is very intimate.3
The examination of the worthiness of a minor-league
club seeking a franchise is made by the President of the
National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, who
reports his findings to the Executive Committee with his
recommendations. If found qualified, the club is granted
a franchise including exclusive territorial rights by the
National Association and is thereafter protected in its
operation by the rules and regulations governing all
members of the Association.
If, however, a club cannot or will not meet its
obligations to its fellow members in a league, provisions
are made whereby its franchise may be forfeited, its
3
Ibid., pp. 60-61.
players1 contracts may revert to the League, and its visi-
ble assets applied to the payment of its obligations. If
a baseball club contracts obligations in a community which
it does not meet, and if its franchise is forfeited, such
club debts remain as a lien against the territory, and no
other individual or group may operate a professional base
ball club in that community until the liens against base
ball are paid. Thus does professional baseball undertake
to protect its good name.^
III. THE CONTRACT^
A baseball contract is an agreement between a player
and a club by which the player undertakes to perform
certain tasks at the direction of the club to the best of
his ability, and the club agrees to compensate him for
such performance.
When such an agreement is made between a player and !
his club the contract is submitted to the office of the
National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues for
examination. If the contract is in good form, it is
promulgated officially by the President of the National
^ Ibid., p. 61.
5
See Appendix C for an actual player contract.
240
Association, and by the nature of the agreement it thereby
becomes the permanent property of the club.
The contract is therefore subject to nearly all the
experiences of all commercial papers: It may be traded,
sold, leased to another (called an “option”), and re
acquired— all under the legislation which baseball has
agreed to for its own proper government.
At every step in the transaction of a contract from
one baseball club to another club, the players1 interests
are given exactly as much sympathetic attention as are the
interests of the club. Legislation has been provided so
that redress for wrongs may be had by both the player or
£
the club.
In the contract is a clause which gives the Club
the right to reserve the services of the player. The
"Reserve Clause" was introduced many years ago when both
player and management were accustomed to flaunt all con
tracts. Players had no regard for the sanctity of the
written pledge and management, likewise, felt free to
tamper with players who had given their written word to
render service to others.
The confusion resulting from such loose conduct
6
Pinch, o£. cit., p. 62.
341
produced the reserve clause. Baseball men— management and
players alike— realized that no permanent structure could
be built upon so shifting a foundation. The sanctity of
the baseball contract has dated from the introduction of
the reserve clause.
It is probable that if it were found necessary and
desirable, every prominent player in the game would readily
affirm that baseball could not live if the reserve clause
were removed from the contract. Mangement would refuse
to assume the risks involved in producing parks, beautify
ing grounds and adding comforts for the spectator, if his
team identity were at the mercy of contract jumpers.
IV. ANTI-TRUST ACTION
When the first of the Federal anti-trust statutes,
the Sherman Anti-trust Act, was put on the books back in
1890, nobody figured that baseball would ever be considered!
subject to its jurisdiction. The Sherman Act outlawed
"every contract, combination . . ♦ trust, or conspiracy
in restraint of trade or commerce.1 1 The Act also made it
illegal for anyone to attempt to monopolize interstate
trade or commerce.?
7
"Baseball,” Senior Scholastic, f?9tl8, September
19, 1951.
34 2
The Sherman Act was aimed at economic giants such
as the sugar trust, transit trusts, the old American
Tobacco Company, and the old Standard Oil Company. A
trust was in essence a device whereby a single board of
trustees operated various companies as though they were a
single enterprise.
In 1914> t*16 second major anti-trust law, the
Clayton Act, was passed. It outlawed business practices
which tended to nsubstantially lessen competition or . . .
create monopoly in any line of commerce.1 1 But in the mind
of the public and of government, baseball was the great
American game— it was not a business.
During the years 1914 and 19l5» an unsuccessful
attempt was made to create a third major league, the
Federal League. The backers of the league charged that
its failure was the result of monopoly practices in base
ball. They took the case to court. But in 1922, the
United States Supreme Court held that baseball was a sport,;
not a business, so it was exempt from anti-trust legisla
tion.
Many people feel that some of the practices which
have developed in the past fifty years or so may be illegal.!
Washington has been trying to find out whether these prac- j
tices are illegal and then recommend the best way to help
143 ;
baseball.
The “reserve clause” has put the game on the spot.
A number of players who claim the clause restricts competi
tion and works hardships on them have attempted to sue the i
f
owners of clubs. Some players have asked for damages. But
the real trouble was that they were also asking the courts |
to issue injunctions stopping operation of the reserve
clause. If that ever happened, most observers feel, it \
would result in a mad scramble, of clubs outbidding each
other for players, and players jumping contracts.
At the first set of hearings in 195l> A. B. (Happy) |
Chandler, former Commissioner of Baseball, told the House
subcommittee that major-league owners settled out of court |
with Danny Gardella, ex-Giant outfielder. The owners
thought the court would uphold Gardella and felt it would
be wiser to settle the case.
Gardella had jumped to the Mexican League and as a
result was banned from the United States game for five
years. He claimed damages and asked for an injunction
saying the reserve clause and the banishment were illegal
and violated anti-trust laws.
Chandler as well as others in baseball have testified!
that the reserve clause is indispensable. Without it rich j
clubs would wind up with all the top player talent. On the
11* I
other side, a veteran minor-leaguer, told the group that
the clause was unfair to bush leaguers who would never make
the majors but still wanted to play* The clause is still
retained*^
V. SALARY AND PLAYER LIMITS
Professional baseball has imposed upon itself rules|
known as Salary and Player Limit Rules which operate to
equalize the playing strength in any league*
The Player Limit Rule stipulates the number of
players any club may have upon its roster at any given
moment, and further, determines the quality of its playing;
strength by stipulating the years of experience which may j
have been had by three groups* Clubs are permitted a
certain number of "veterans,” players with three or more
years1 experience; a certain number of "limited service,"
players who have a total of less than three years of
experience and a certain number of "rookies,” usually a
required number, who are without any professional experi
ence*^ Leagues are permitted to determine their own
player limit regulations within the framework of the
51---1
Loc* cit,
9 j
Pinch, o£. cit*, p* 63* :
National Association Agreement.
The Salary Limit Rule determines the total amount
that a club operator may pay his club per month. By this
rule it becomes impossible for a club owner to secure
talent that can demand, because of its quality, a higher
rate of pay than prevails in other clubs of the league.
It operates as a leveler creating, normally, similar
strength in all clubs of a league. It prevents an enthusi
astic club owner with ample funds from ruining a pennant
race by contracting for the services of a group of players i
who can make a pennant race a runaway for his club; it
assures the club owner with limited funds an equal chance
to create a pennant winning club.^
VI. THE GUARANTEE DEPOSIT
Every club in the National Association of Profes
sional Baseball Leagues (the minor-leagues), except the
clubs in the larger cities, is required to deposit in the
Treasury of the Association before the beginning of each
season1s play, an amount of money equal to one-half the .
maximum monthly salary of a club in the league of which it i
is a member.
146
This cash deposit is known as the Guarantee Deposit
and the purpose of the rule is to assure the players of
any club that the player payroll will be met promptly and
without failure# Leagues in the larger cities are exempt
from this rule, since experience has shown that such clubs
possess a financial structure that is sound and dependable.
The player payroll has priority over all other
obligations of a club. If and when a club fails to meet
its player obligations, the proper notices are filed with
the President of the National Association and he is em
powered to use the club's Guarantee Fund to satisfy the
situation. The club is then required to replace the amount
used for such payroll payments or forfeit its franchise.H |
The Guarantee Fund may be used for any other obliga
tions of a club in addition to the player obligation. The j
rule provides priorities for such obligations. If the
amount on deposit is totally expended and the club has
still other debts unpaid, such debts remain as liens
against the territory controlled by the club and no other
professional baseball club may operate in that territory
until the liens are met and discharged.12
Ibid., pp. 63-64.
12
Loc. cit.
347
VII. THE DRAFT SYSTEM
The club owners, as baseball "law" evolved, began
to become aware of an item that had escaped their atten
tion in earlier days; that is, that the player must always
feel that he is free and unhampered in attaining the high
est position, with the highest salary, which his ability
warrants.
The "selection” system, generally called the
M draft, f was evolved. This is a device by which higher
clubs may select players from clubs of lower classifica
tion by paying a fixed price for the contract of such
selected players.- * - 3
The subject was the occasion for many forensic
battles in sessions of the National Association. At
various times certain classifications favored what was
called limited selection and at other times they opposed
all selective processes. The higher classifications
threatened at times to walk out of conventions and out of
all organized baseball if the Major Leagues insisted on
the draft.
By the slow process of trial and error, by the
constant pressure of its proponents, the draft came,
t
13
Finch, op. cit., p. 65.
Uj.8
finally, to be adopted. The wisdom of it is undoubted.
By it, professional baseball can honestly affirm that
ownership is genuinely concerned with advancement of the
player; that there is not--there cannot be— a desire to
block the progress of any player to the realization of the
best that is in him*
The draft affords an orderly process by which
players who are thought ready for higher calls to higher
classifications may find that opportunity and by which
club management may recruit its team personnel. The cream
rises to the top. The player who is not selected for play
in a higher classification must of necessity reappraise
his ability, for he knows that every owner in the higher
bracket is anxious to secure the services of the player
who is ready for advancement.^
VIII. THE SCOUT
Professional baseball has no more interesting sector
than the persistent search for playing talent. Millions
of citizens would pronounce their lives completely success^
ful if they could, just once, find a young player who
eventually reached the major leagues. In fact, every
player who has ever reached the major-league level is
^ Loc. cit.
349
claimed as a 1 1 find” by scores of people.
For many a citizen he reaches his Heaven when he is
asked to become a "bird-dog” by the professional scout.
The "bird-dog" appelation explains itself. He is the
pointer; he scours the bushes; he sets the covey for the
professional hunter. He may be the village banker, the
drugstore owner, the high school coach or the manager of
a sand-lot team who once "had a cup of coffee’ 1 with a
professional team. ^
In any event, the "bird-dog," as an assistant scout,
is the key to the success of the professional talent hunt
er. The scout assigns a certain limited territory to his
I f bird-dogf f and this person watches and reports on the
development of players in that territory. As the time
approaches for the young player to become available for
professional play, the ’ ’bird-dog1 1 undertakes to create
favorable atmosphere in the home of the player, so that
when parents are approached by the scout they will listen
to his story and will add their approval to the scout’s
proposals.
The scout is the key to the club's success. He
must be a combination of technically trained, experienced
15
Ibid., p. 69.
i?o
diplomat. He is in competition with other astute, re
sourceful men of similar experience as players, who pos
sess a hard-won knowledge of practical psychology. His
job is to convince the young player, his family, and
frequently the girl of his choice, that his fortune will
be served best by signing the contract offered by the
scout.
His objective is to secure the young player’s name
on a contract. Usually, he will confer with his office
and describe the player's prospects to his superiors. If
no bonus payment of more than nominal size is involved,
he will receive the green light and will promptly under
take to sign the player to the contract. If a large
bonus is required, if his competition is such that the
bonus payments mount into large figures, it is usually
the custom to invite the boy, his father, and frequently
the whole family, to the home city of the club where his
ability may be appraised by the top brass. On such trips,
all expenses are paid by the c l u b , -whether or not the
boy is signed to a contract.
The scouting job does not end here, for many scouts
have other diversified duties to perform.
16
Ibid., p. 70*
i5i
f l SGme scouts have to answer a thousand or so letters
a year,” says Paul Drichell of the New York Yankees* , f A
father writes in and says his kid would like to become a
Yankee* The kid is twelve years old* You could throw it
in the wastebasket, but you donft, you have to sit down
and write him back and tell him to send the kid around
in four years.”
When a kid makes any farm chain, he also becomes a
part of the file at the general offices. To these
offices every night each of the minor-league managers in
the chain wires a report of that day's game. That same |
night he writes out on a mimeographed form, for mailing,
a more detailed report of 3^0 to $00 words, and to this
he appends the box score.
"Then you scout your own players," continues Dri
chell. "Every ballplayer is looked at not once but several
times every year, and by two or three scouts."17
Until the appearance in St. Louis of Branch Rickey, i
a quarter-century ago, the activities of a major-league
scout were fairly simple, A scout would arrive in a minor-;
league town, call on his friend, the local manager, glance I
over the goods and make recommendations. His club would
17
W. C. Heinz, "I Scout for the Yankees,"
Collier's, 132:19, July 11, 1953.
152
authorize a purchase in certain limits, the scout would
dicker and buy.
To Mr, Rickey this, seemed an unwholesome and dis
criminatory system. Rich teams could pay more than poor
teams for players and so got the best. He set about
correcting this, and revolutionized the organization of
professional baseball by instituting farm clubs. The sys
tem worked so miraculously that it was imitated everywhere,
with the result that the scout no longer deals with his
peers, the solid adults who manage or own minor teams, but
mostly with juveniles.1®
IX. INVESTMENTS
The aspirants1 contraets are only one item in pro
fessional baseball1s production costs. The scouts them
selves are another. They earn from ft,000 to $10,000 or
more a year each, and there are about two hundred of them
employed full time by the majors. Their expenses are cal
culated at 80 to 100 per cent of the better salaries.
Major league clubs also employ part-time scouts on salary
for seasonal or regional work.
Morris Gilbert, l ! Baseball Baby-Sitters,” New York
Times Magazine, March 18', 19519 P* 3&.
153
Another item is promotion literature, produced by
publicity experts in the front office. The headquarters
of the major league teams turn out handsome brochures,
selling young America (and its parents) the idea that one
club and only one has the infant’s interests at heart.
Hence, the Brooklyn team’s booklet, "A Future With the
Dodgers.1 1 Also the skillful "Playing the Giants Game,"
the New York National League's counterpart. These are
the samples carried by baseball’s Fuller Brush men as
they ring the sand-lot doorbells year in and year out. ^-9
CHAPTER XEII
THE QUESTION OP THE MAJOR LEAGUES SUFFOCATING THE MINORS
I. ATTENDANCE FIGURES THROUGH THE YEARS
The gross attendance in 19i|9, in major and minor
leagues, reached the amazing figure of 62,000,000, about
20,000,000 of these in the major leagues and the remaining
Ij.2,000,000 in the minor leagues* The economic health of
organized baseball can almost be measured through the years
by the number of minor leagues in the field* They show
the public consumption.'*'
j
Starting in 1900, there were but thirteen minor
leagues. These increased steadily through the first decade
until they had reached forty-six in 1910. From 1911 to
1911] . , an average of forty minor leagues started each season.
Then, during World War I, there was a sharp decline*
Slumps in attendance and shortages of players reduced the
minors to nine by 1918, and most managers, even in the
majors, were forced to retrench and to sell their players. I
After the war, the majors experienced a quick re
vival and rose to hitherto unprecedented heights. But the |
minors did not share in this boom, for only about twenty-
^ Connie Mack, My 66 Years in the Big Leagues
(Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 193>0), p. 187* i
p
two to thirty-one of them existed throughout the 1920*s.
During the worst years of the depression, the num
ber of operating minors fell to fourteen* Then they began
to climb again until there were thirty-seven minors in
the field in 1937* After a temporary recession, a new
peak was reached, and in 191+0 there were forty-three minor
leagues.
It is important to note that from 1933 to 191^1 *
inclusive, not a single league is recorded as failing*
The attendance in 1939 was estimated to have been
18,500,000.
With the outbreak of World War II, the falling off
of attendance and the loss of players to the Army and the
Navy caused another recession* In 191+2, thirty-one minor
leagues started, but five of them failed. This number was
sharply reduced to ten in 191+3 and 19Mj-* Just before the
Japanese surrender, in 191+5* twelve entered the field.
Then the upward movement started, and for the next
four years there was a steady increase: 1+2 in 191+6; 52
in 19lj-7; 58 in 19^8; and 59 in 1949* The paid attendance
in the minor leagues for the season of 191+9 reached
1+1,872,782, an astounding figure, over two-thirds of the
156
grand total.^ Prom 1 9 l | . 9 to the present there has been
another recession due to the Korean War, and major-league
saturation of minor-league territory with broadcasts.
II. IS BASEBALL IN TROUBLE?
It is no longer much of a secret that professional
baseball, an industry that in its day has earned a bit of
money, is in serious trouble today. While the economy in
general has been booming, the attendance at major-league
games has dropped from above twenty million in 19^9 to
below fifteen million in 1952; and in 1953$ despite the
phenomenon of the Braves, who quintupled their attendance
since moving to Milwaukee, and despite that other special
case, the New York Yankees, who always do well, the major-
league attendance figures are running ever lower. Minor-
league attendance since 19^4-9 has fallen from I j . 2 million
to about 26 million.
Even more ominous, the whole minor-league structure
has been disintegrating. In 19^9 there were fifty-nine
^professional leagues taking in cities; today there are
only thirty-eight leagues in 292 cities. Nine states have
no professional baseball.
^ Ibid., p. 188.
157
One villain, of course, is television. How many
people will pay $1.25 or more for a ticket to a big-league
game, and buck traffic or subway crowds to get to the
park, when they can watch the game in their own living
rooms? More serious, how many will pay anything to watch
minor-league players in the flesh when they can see big-
leaguers on TV?^1 And, if TV cripples the minor leagues,
where will the big leagues find players? Who's got the
answer?
Until the 1950 season, every baseball club, regard
less of classification, had territorial rights to radio
and television coverage within a fifty-mile radius of its
local franchise. But the Department of Justice, prodded
by radio, unofficially declared its view that this standard
baseball procedure was in violation of the nation's anti
trust laws. Whereupon the Commissioner's office, seeking
to avoid legal involvements, voided territorial rights
and thereby cut loose the previously restricted major-
league broadcasts which roared into distant minor-league
territory. This development, alienating the affections
of minor-league fans, cut drastically into the income of
I j .
1 1 Is Baseball a Dying Business?1 1 Fortune , 2+8:70,
July, 1953*
minor-league clubs, few of which are bolstered by much
reserve capital.^
The minors feel that they are waging a one-sided
battle against a powerful combination that includes the
major leagues, radio, television, the Department of
Justice and, admittedly, their own fans* They realize
that they may be caught in the cogs of economic progress
and implacable legal theory. But they are resentful only
of the major-leagues, which, they insist, aggressively
and greedily profited by the same Department of Justice
opinion which crippled the minors.
The majors, through*their extensive farm systems,
own many minor-league clubs in whole or in part; and have
working agreements, which entail financial assistance, with
many more. Although the minor leagues1 National Associa
tion is theoretically an independent group, it is actually |
a major-league satellite because of the voting influence
exerted by major-league financial interests in most of the
important minor-league club s.^
Because of this situation, and the legal aspects of
the radio question, it was generally recognized that the
: ^ s
Francis Wallace, l f Are the Major-Leagues Strangling
Baseball?1 1 Collier’s, 127:18, March 10, 195>1.
6 -
Ibid., pp. 18-19-
159
only effective help the minors could receive had to come
from the majors. A joint meeting was held* The majors
were sympathetic, but reflected the general opinion that
the minors were "hollering before they were hurt.”
The game-time exemption, which, in effect, now
limits the minor-league clubs1 territorial rights to the
period beginning thirty minutes before home games and
lasting until thirty minutes after their conclusion, has
been under fire from both sides* Some of the more rebel
lious minor-leaguers hint that Happy Chandler, Commission
er at that time, let them down by conceding so much in
modifying the territorial rights arrangement to satisfy
the Department of Justice* This, they say, "took care of
the majors handsomely, but crippled the minors.*1^
The original strategy of the minor leagues was to
seek a softening of the Department of Justice attitude;
their original attack was intended to stop all broadcasts
into minor-league territory, with the majority of com
plaints centered on the Liberty Network and Mutual*s Game
of the Day, both nation-wide in appeal* But later, the
emphasis shifted to the major-league club networks* The
obvious inference was that the minors had, for the first
Ibid*, p* 65.
160
time, been enlightened as to the unfavorable legal aspects;
that they had been convinced that nothing could be done
about either Mutual or Liberty; that the only relief must
come from the reduction of major-league network activity;
that even this must be achieved without the least suspicion
of action in concert.
It was equally apparent that the majors wanted to
continue their networks, chiefly because the income of
approximately $3*000,000 helped to cancel losses on farm
operations— estimated at around $5*000,000 in 1950* that
the majors were being supported by the radio people and
the sponsors; that the fans also wanted the big-league
broadcasts in minor-league territory.^
III. CONCLUSION
There is a definite minor-league criticism which
goes like this:^ There are too many owners coming into
baseball now who are looking for a fast buck. They don't
know baseball themselves, so they hire people who are
supposed to know. These general managers are primarily
concerned with protecting their own jobs by showing a j
® Ibid., p. 66.
9
Ibid., p. 67.
161
profit; so they grab radio and television receipts to make
themselves look good, regardless of the long-range effect
on baseball or the immediate effect on the minors.
This opinion was surprisingly confirmed by a major-
league executive. "We lost around $5*000,000 on farm
operations last year; we are now trying to lop off half
that loss by curtailing these operations* Radio and tele
vision receipts would cancel out the other half. This
pleases the stockholders who don1t realize their capital
investment may be dying."
CHAPTER XIV
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
I. SUMMARY
The creativeness of modem baseball is mainly due
to Branch Rickey, who has been responsible for most of
the innovations of the past four decades* Rickey was
field manager of the St* Louis Cardinals when he devised
the farm system*
In twenty-seven years with the Cardinals, Rickey
made more than a million dollars in salary and commissions.!
But since the St. Louis attendance could not equal the
figures achieved in such metropolitan areas as Chicago and|
New York, Rickey developed the selling of players into a
fine art in order to create and justify his financial
"take.1 1
When World War II destroyed the basis for his
customarily high salary, he moved over to the Brooklyn
Dodgers. It was with this club that he broke the color
line by bringing up Jackie Robinson.
Among Rickey's many other innovations was a gigantic! .
major and minor league training camp at one locale* He
later initiated a baseball school at the present Vero
Beach setup in Florida for the Brooklyn Dodgers* Here,
163
all the ballplayers in the Brooklyn organization drill
under the watchful eyes of the Brooklyn brain trusts#
Almost all big league clubs now concede that a farm
organization is essential to their setup. They cannot dis
regard the league standings# The chain-produced Yankees
and Dodgers have led the pennant races in their respective
leagues for the past few years# Judge Kennesaw Mountain
Landis, former Commissioner of Baseball, was an opponent
of farm systems, though, and fought them bitterly#
The bonus boom has been a development of the past
ten years. Since World War II, big-league teams have
risked millions of dollars in bonus money to sign kid
ballplayers. In the past few years limits have been set
upon the amount a boy can receive as a bonus; but this has
tended to create a lot of shady (undercover) bonus trans
actions*
Perhaps a counterpart to Branch Rickey is George
Weiss, the man who established and has guided the enormous
ly efficient network of subsidiary, minor league teams that
discovers, then develops the steady stream of fresh talent
which has kept the Yankees, the greatest ball club in the
business, young and vibrant.
Weiss did not originate the farm system, but he did
16k
Invent an administrative gimmick which can be best de
scribed as the , f chain-reactionl f trade. When selling a
ballplayer, Weiss would innocently ask for a ballplayer
to placate his local fans. Sometimes this 1 1 thrown-inf f
ballplayer would pay high dividends.
When the New York Yankees were sold in 19k$ for
approximately three million dollars, news writers promptly
labeled the transaction a "steal.t t Most people thought
the Yankees were worth $6 or $7 million, but this was a
book figure without a reality, for a prospective operator
of the club. The balance sheets of most big-league ball
clubs are vaulted and possibly written in code, which is a
pity, because the average person would undoubtedly be
interested in some of the wrinkles.
Construction costs have risen so sharply that pri
vate financing in building a ball park is out of the ques
tion today. It must be built with municipal funds.
Milwaukee County Stadium cost about $178 per seat. Yankee
Stadium cost about $18 a seat back in 1923.
The basis for successful operation of a baseball
club rests upon possession of or at least complete control
of, the property upon which the club proposes to play its
games. The club which does not eontrol its property is at
the mercy of others.
165
To run a ball club, a baseball franchise is needed
to secure exclusive rights to operate in a league. A
contract between a player and club is needed also. The
“reserve clause1 1 in this contract has been putting the
game on the spot.
Professional baseball has imposed upon itself rules
known as Salary and Player Limit Rules which operate to
equalize the playing strength in any league. The Salary
Limit Rule determines the total amount that a club operator
may pay his club per month. By this rule, it becomes
impossible for a club owner to secure talent that can
demand, because of its quality, a higher rate of pay than
prevails in other clubs of the league. The Player Limit
Rule stipulates the number of players any club may have
upon its roster at any given time.
Each club in the smaller leagues is required to
deposit in the treasury of the Association a guarantee
deposit. This is to assure the players of any club that
the payroll will be met promptly and without failure.
Are the major leagues suffocating the minors? Some |
seem to think major league telecasts have been disintegrat
ing minor league baseball. How many people will pay fl.25 I
or more for a ticket to a big league game, and buck traffic |
to get to the park, when they can watch the game in their
166
own living rooms? More serious, how many will pay any
thing to watch minor-league players in the flesh when they
can see big leaguers on television? Where is the answer?
II. CONCLUSION
The farm system turns baseball into a complex busi
ness organization* When a promising high-school graduate
is signed, the major-league club will, in all probability,
place him in its Class D league farm, where the baseball
is about the same as that on a college diamond. As he
improves with experience, the youngster is moved up in the
farm system until he reaches Class AAA, the Pacific Coast
League (how Open Classification), the American Association,
or the International League. Then he is ready for the big
time.
Some major-league clubs, like the Yankees and
Dodgers, at times maintain more than twenty farm teams.
The Dodgers had over thirty such teams one year.
The cost of a farm system varies according to the
box-office power of the individual clubs. (A game between
Denver and Pueblo on September 7* 19^9> attracted 18,523
people, while the Dodgers and the Braves, playing the same
night in Brooklyn, drew only 12,063.) A Class B farm team
which goes into the red for $35*000 will not be regarded
167
as a bad investment by its major-league parent if it pro
duces, during the same season, one exceptional nineteen-
year-old pitcher, for the pitcher would cost $75*000 if
he were developed outside the farm system.
The introduction of the farm system has turned the
major-league baseball club into a complex business organ
ization. Instead of worrying about one team, the general
manager worries about the payrolls, operating expenses and .
morale of a dozen or more teams scattered all over the
country. The paper work, alone, is staggering. There is
always a problem about a catcher on the Class B team who
is getting too good for his environment. He should be
moved immediately to the Class A or AAA club. But such a !
move may knock the Class B team out of its pennant fight
and cause resentment. If the catcher stays with the Class ;
♦
B team, though, it is a waste of valuable time and money
from the parent elub!s view.
The farm system also makes a ball club a bigger
financial operation. In 19^1-9, the annual cost of running
an average-size major-league organization with an average- |
size park (seating 38*000 people) came to around
$1,750,000. About $350,000 of this was spent on the minor-
Joe McCarthy, f , The Baseball Story,f * Holiday,
7:130, May, 1950.
league clubs and the salaries and expenses of scouts who
keep them supplied with talent
Another $350,000 went into the upkeep of the major-
league park and playing field# The major-league team!s
salaries, transportation and equipment is the biggest item,;
around $725,000# Another $100,000 was spent on extra
employees while the team was playing at home— ushers,
ticket sellers and takers, special police and so on# The
cost of maintaining a business office, advertising, enter- ;
tainment and public relations, went well over $200,000#
Clubs with bigger plants, like the Yankees and the Indians,!
have higher expenses— and, of course, higher incomes#^
Evaluation of the farm system# At first, the farm
system idea was frowned upon by Judge Landis and by many
major league owners* In the beginning, they made refer
ence to "chain gang,” "slaves,” and gave expression to
other uncomplimentary appellations, but, as the years
passed, more and more of them adopted the idea# Today,
every major league organization has its own system* In
19519 the major league clubs owned, outright, one hundred
franchises in the minor leagues and had working agreements |
169
with 136 minor league clubs.
Control, either directly or indirectly, of minor
league clubs by major league organizations is, therefore,
approximately £0 per centA
Whether or not the steady trend toward direct or
indirect control by the major league clubs of professional |
baseball in the minor leagues is good or bad for the future
of the game remains to be determined by events. Judge
Landis, in the beginning, was an outspoken foe of the
system. Others have from time to time deplored the growth |
of the farm systems.
Certainly, as it worked out, major league ownership j
of minor league franchises and widespread working agree
ments have encouraged many leagues to start operations
that otherwise might not have been organized. Indeed, many
independent clubs have repeatedly asserted during recent
years that they would not attempt to operate without major |
league assistance, both in securing players for their teams)
and in receiving financial aid.
Those opposed to the major league incursion into
E
Robert L. Pinch, L. H. Addington, and Ben M.
Morgan, editors, The Story of Minor League Baseball
(Columbus, Ohio: The National Association of Professional I
Baseball Leagues, 19^3), p. 77* !
170
the minor leagues point out that they are unable to compete
for the free agent players with major league scouts. As
against this attitude there are, here and there, independ- |
ent owners who boldly assert that they can, and do, meet
the major league competition with success.
The objective of major league clubs is to be able,
through ownership and working agreements, to control their I
players from their period of apprenticeship to the day
when they are ready for the major league teams. The argu- j
ment is simple and direct: f f We sign the player, expend
large sums in his development, take the risk of his failure!
to m,ake the grade, and so, why shouldn!t we keep command
of his contract?1 *
Opponents of the farm system idea point out that
there is no longer a ' ’ market' 1 for the contracts of young
players; that whereas, formerly, contracts were sold for
large sums to major league clubs, they no longer buy but
bring up their own boys from the minor league systems
which they control.
The farm organizations reply by asserting that they ;
have been required to pay large bonuses to young, untried
players, meet operating deficits of their ownership clubs, I
pay large sums for working agreements, and that but for
their efforts, minor league baseball would not have
171
attained its present magnitude.
The payment of large bonuses to inexperienced boys
has, itself, aroused the opposition of many Americans.
They assert that the practice is not only stupid business
but that it is completely un-American. Parents have
taught their boys, traditionally, that compensation is the
reward for hard work. How comes professional baseball and
says, convincingly, that it is no longer necessary to
prove one*s ability; that all one needs now is a remote
promise that some day one will be able to justify the
faith so eloquently expressed in the large bonus.
In 1951* each of several boys received money enough
to enable ten minor leagues to survive. Total bonus pay
ments in one year amounted to more than four million
dollars. It is safe to predict that the present bonus
situation will not long characterize professional baseball.
B I BLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. BOOKS
Allen, Lee, 100 Years of Baseball* New York: Bartholomew I
House, Inc*, 1950• 3^4 PP*
Pinch, Robert L., L* H. Addington, and Ben M* Morgan,
editors, The Story of Minor League Baseball* Columbus,
Ohio: The National Association of Professional Base
ball Leagues, 1953* 744 PP*
Mack, Connie, My 66 Years in the Big Leagues* Philadelphia::
The John C. Winston Company, 1930* pp.
Mann, Arthur, Baseball Confidential. New York: David
McKay Company, Inc., 1951- 164 PP*
Spink, J* G. Taylor, Judge Landis and 2$ Years of Baseball. }
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1947* 306 pp. |
B. PERIODICAL ARTICLES
"Are Ballplayers ‘Slaves1?" United States News and World
Report, 31*21, August 3* 1951*
"Baseball,1 1 Senior Scholastic, 59*18, September 19, 1951*
"Big League Baseball," Fortune, 26:37-45+, August, 1937*
"Birth of a Ball Club," Life, 28:148-53, May 22, 1950.
Bisher, Furman, "They Call Him a Genius in Dixie," Saturday
Evening Post, 224*32-33+, June 28, 1952.
Chamberlain, John, "Brains, Baseball, and Branch Rickey,"
Harper1s Magazine, 1175*348-355, April, 1948*
Dexter, Charles, "Brooklyn’s Sturdy Branch," Collier’s,
116:17+, September 15, 1945*
Escher, John, "Baseball Madness in Brooklyn," The American
Mercury, 48*79-84, September, 1939*
174
Fitzgerald, Ed, “Branch Rickey— Dodger Deacon,” Sport,
32.56-67, November, 1947-
Prank, Stanley, “The National League Gomes Back," Saturday
Evening Post, 225227+, July 5, 1952.
, "Yankee Kingmaker," Saturday Evening Post, 221:
23+, July 24, 1948.
Gilbert, Morris, "Baseball Baby-Sitters,” New York Times
Magazine, March 18, 1951, PP* 36+.
Griffith, Clark, "Big Money Is Ruining Baseball,” Sport,
6:10-11+, February, 1949*
Griswold, J. B., "Rickey Starts in the Cellar Again,"
American Magazine, l5l:42”43+, May, 1951*
Gross, Milton, "Yankee Huckster," Baseball Yearbook, 1950,
pp. 45+.
Heinz, W. C., "I Scout for the Yankees," Colliers, 132:18-
22, July 11, 1953*
"Intensified Spring Training Methods," Newsweek, 39:H4~l6,
March 24, 1952.
"Is Baseball a Dying Business?” Fortune, 48:70, July, 1953*
King, Joe,x"You Gotta Have a Farm System,” Sport, 4:32-35+,
April, 1948.
"Life Visits Dodgertown," Life, 24:117-20, April 15, 1948.
Meany, Tom, "Baseball Needs Three Big Leagues to Survive,"
Colliers, 131:54-57, June 20, 1953*
_______, "George Weiss--the ’Real* Yankee Clipper," Sport,
3:16-17+, December, 1947*
, "So You1re a Big-League Rookie," Colliers, 131?
20-22, March 14, 1953*
, "The Dodgers Ain!t No Accident," Colliers, 125:
22-23+, June 24, 1950.
175
'A McCarthy, Joe, "The Baseball Story,” Holiday, 7:V7-59+j
May, 1950.
McNulty3 John, ”Tryout for the Giants,” The New Yorker,
28:76+, March 22, 1952.
Millstein, Gilbert, ”Ring Lardner Wouldn’t Know Them,”
The New York Times Magazine, March 30* 1952, pp. 18+.
Paxton, Harry T., ’ ’Have the Bonus Boys Paid Off for Base
ball?” Saturday Evening Post, 22l±:28-29+* June 21,
1952.
Price, Robert, ’ ’Profiles, I,” The New Yorker, 26:30-3U+»
June 3, 1950.
, ’ ’Profiles, II,” The New Yorker, 26:32-36+, May
27, 1950.
Reynolds, Quentin, ’ ’Ivory Hunter," Colliers, lOij.: 23-2I 4 . ,
July 15, 1939.
Taylor, Robert Lewis, "Larruping Larry MacPhail," Reader’s
Digest, 39:77-80, September, 19i+l.
"The Lip," Time, 1^9:56-60+, April II4 . , 19l|-7.
"Through the Knothole," Business Week, May 9. 1953* PP.
1^0+.
"The Old Mahatma," Time, 56:3^+* October 2, 1950.
"The Yankees," Fortune, 3 k: 131-1.36+ * July, 19^6.
Wallace, Francis, "Are the Major Leagues Strangling Base
ball?” Colliers, 127:18-19+, March 10, 1951.
C. NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
The Sporting News (weekly), St. Louis, Missouri.
August 3,"195^3.
Vero Beach Press Journal (weekly), Vero Beach, Florida,
March 18, 1955*
176
OTHER SOURCES
A. Interviews
Banta, Jack, manager of the Shawnee, Oklahoma, entry of the
Sooner-State League, Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida,
March 25, 1954*
Holt, Golden, manager of the Pueblo, Colorado, entry of the
Western League, Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida,
March 22, 1954*
Perry, Ray, manager of the Bakersfield, California, entry
of the California State League, Dodgertown, Vero Beach, .
Florida, April 3, 1954•
Walsh, Dick, assistant director of minor league opera
tions in the Brooklyn Organization, Dodgertown, Vero
Beach, Florida, April 2, 1954*
B. Lectures
O’Malley, Walter, President of the Brooklyn Dodgers,
Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida, March 24, 1953*
C. Work Sheets
Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida: March 15, 1954* March 16,
1954^ March 24, 1954* March 31, 1954*
D. Camp Rules and Regulations for Dodgertown
Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida, Spring of 1954*
APPENDI X
i
I
APPENDIX A
1951|- Gamp Rules and Regulations
for Brooklyn Dodgers Training Camp
Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida
179
TABLE II
195k CAMP RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR BROOKLYN DODGERS TRAINING
CAMP - "DODGERTOWN," VERO BEACH, FLORIDA
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY. TOm__COMPLIANCE ®SE_I^®TANT^ULES_AND_
REGULATIONS KJIEQUESTED^
DAILY SCHEDULE
ALL PERSONNEL WILL OBSERVE THE FOLLOWING SCHEDULE s
7s00 A.M. All personnel will be called.
7s30 A.M. Breakfast will be served in the Cafeteria until 8;i;5 A.M.
9 s00 A.M. Lectures in auditorium or annex lobby are scheduled from
day to day and as posted on Bulletin Board in main lobby.
(Attendance required unless scheduled elsewhere.) Field
work will start at 9; 1$ A.M.
11:30 A.M. Luncheon will be served in the cafeteria until 1:30 P.M.
5>s30 p. m. Dinner served in cafeteria until 7s00 P.M. Cafeteria doors
close at 7s00 P.M.
(IT IS MOST IMPORTANT THAT ALL PERSONNEL BE ON TIME FOR
MEALS.)
11:00 P.M. LIGHTS OUT All players will be in their rooms and room
lights extinguished. Consideration must be given to your
room-mates and others who do not wish to be disturbed.
Loud talking and noise-making will not be tolerated after
11:00 P.M. When you leave your room make sure lights are
TURNED OFF.
1. FOOD: Your cooperation is requested in the conservation of food.
Eat enough but do not WASTE FOOD. Remember you are in
training - Don’t over indulge. No food is to be taken
from DINING ROOM. The practice of taking food from the
dining roan, such as SANDWICHES, APPLES, BANANAS, etc. is
not only wasteful, but also tends to create infestation of
insects in the buildings. There will be NO SMOKING in tie
cafeteria or lecture rooms.
180
TABLE II (continued)
195k CAMP RULES AMD REGULATIONS FOR BROOKLYN DODGERS TRAINING
CAMP - "DODGERTOWN, " VERO BEACH* FLORIDA
2. DO NOT MOVE FROM ONE EDOM TO ANOTHER WITHOUT CONSULTING
REGISTRATION OFFICE* To do so ■will cause confusion* We
wish to cooperate with all players and let them room with
whomever they choose, but please make your arrangenents
through the Registration office#
3# Baseball shoes MUST be removed before entering the building or
dressing rooms•
U* All buildings on the base are u0FF LIMITS" except the barracks
which we occupy and the auditorium# Do not under any con- i
dition enter any other building#
5* There will be no gambling or drinking of intoxicants in any form
whatsoever.
6# There must be absolutely no HORSE PLAY of any kind in rooms and
particularly in shower rooms# Serious injury can easily
result therefrom.
7# BASEBALLS — Players must return all baseballs to proper custodian
before leaving playing field.
8# UNIFORMS — Every player must fill out card received from Regis
tration Office to obtain his uniform and linen# Player
signs this card which will be a receipt. Uniforms and
linen must be returned before leaving camp# If your uni
form must be altered, see George Grafton in Property Room, i
DO NOT CUT SLEEVES FROM YOUR UNIFORM.
9# INJURIES — Any player who has an injury or ailment whatsoever
must report it to his squad manager immediately* Particular:
attention must be paid to all blisters and other skin
abrasions in order to avoid dangerous infections.
10. No player is to leave playing field without first getting permis- I
sion from his squad manager.
11# EXPENSES — You will be given an expense card when you register ini
the camp. Each player should submit this card fully made \
out to the auditor in his office as soon as possible after I
reporting. Legitimate expenses will be refunded as soon as
possible.
181
TABLE II (continued)
195k CAMP RULES AND REGULATIONS FCR BROOKLYN DODGERS TRAINING
CAMP - "DODGERTOWN/1 VERO BEACH, FLORIDA
12* AUTOMOBILES — If you have an automobile in camp, ample parking
space has been provided in the rear* DO NOT PARK ON THE
LAWNS.
13* LINENS — Do not use towels to shine your shoes
TOWELS — Do not take towels or blankets to the beach or
BLANKETS — any other place away from canp*
FACILITIES
POST OFFICE - A Post Office has been set up in a small room off the
front porch and it will be open to distribute mail twice
daily* Hours of operation are posted in the Post Office.
Have your correspondence addressed to you as follows;
Joe Doe (your own name)
Brooklyn Dodgers Training Camp
Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida
LAUNDRY - A laundry room will be operated in connection with the
Post Office* Players may send their personal laundry at
the expense of the Brooklyn organization* Laundry bags are
available at the Post Office* Procure one of them and
place all your laundry therein* LIST ALL ITEMS CAREFULLY
keeping duplicate list and be sure the original list is in
your laundry bag* Then turn it in at the laundry station
in the Post Office* It will be returned in about three
(3) days*
DRY CLEANING - There will be a dry cleaning service but all cleaning
expense MUST BE BORNE BY THE INDIVIDUAL PLAYER and no dry
cleaning will be returned until payment has been made*
Your dry cleaning will be stored in -the Post Office*
CANTEEN - A canteen has been set up for your convenience adjacent to
the main lobby* They will carry for your convenience such
items as toilet articles, candy, cigarettes, magazines,
newspapers, pop, etc.
CHURCH - There are eleven (11) denominations of churches in downtown
Vero Beach* Club busses will carry those desiring to
182
TABLE II (continued)
19$k GAMP RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR BROOKLYN DODGERS TRAINING
GAMP - "DODGERTOWN," VERO BEACH, FLORIDA
attend Sunday Services back and forth each Sunday.
MOVIES - There will be free movies in the auditorium every Sunday,
Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday night*
TIME 7:30 P.M. .
BARBER SHOP - A barber will be available each day* His shop is in
Room No* U3.
DOCTOR - A licensed physician is quartered at the Camp Headquarters
for the protection and safety of the players. If you are
ill or injured see to it that you get to him for treatment
and advice at once*
SWIMMING POOL - A swimming pool has been provided for your use.
Observe the schedule and rules pertaining thereto as
posted on bulletin board. VERY IMPORTANT: STATE BOARD OF
HEALTH regulations require all bathers in public pools to j
shower before entering pool* We MUST observe this rule.
GROUNDS - We request your cooperation in keeping the grounds and
buildings neat and clean. You are welcome to eat all of
the fruit which you desire, but do not throw orange and
grapefruit peelings on the ground* Receptacles have been I
provided. Assist us in keeping the grounds clean.
CLUBHOUSE - Located rear of Annex
To avoid the unpleasant conditions of changing uniforms in |
your rooms we have provided a new clubhouse, and each
player will be assigned a locker. The new clubhouse will
be equipped with not only lockers, but also showers,
toilets, drying room, and trainers1 room. The property
• room is located in the clubhouse. All uniforms will be
issued from there by George Grafton (except to players on !
the Brooklyn Roster).
VALUABLES - The Dodger Organization cannot be responsible for the loss j
or disappearance of valuables. A safe is provided in the j
Paymaster's office where you may leave any large amounts
of cash. There is no need for players to carry much cash
on their person at this canp.
183
TABLE II (continued)
19$h CAMP RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR BROOKLYN DODGERS TRAINING
CAMP - "DODGERTOWN/1 VERO BEACH* FLORIDA
ROOMS -
MESSAGES -
SPECIAL
NOTICE
You are a guest of the Brooklyn Baseball Club here at
Vero Beach and you should conduct yourself accordingly.
Players will be held financially responsible for damage
done to the walls and property in their rooms. Let us
all assist in keeping the rooms, halls and lobbies neat.
There is a telephone call board in the lobby. Please
check it daily for any calls that may come in for you.
The Brooklyn Baseball Club has made available for the
pleasure and convenience of its players and authorized
personnel* the following facilities:
Dining Room
Swimming Pool
Auditorium for Movies
Shuffleboard Courts
Horseshoe Courts
Lobbies* furnished with comfortable chairs
and various forms of amusement.
Please be advised that under no circumstances will
outside guests be extended the courtesies of the above
privileges UNLESS they obtain a guest card from Edgar
Allen, Camp Supervisor. In the past* we have had to re
fuse these privileges to some of our good friends* so
please consult with the office before taking the liberty
of inviting any of your friends. Your cooperation will be
greatly appreciated.
SOURCE; Dodgertown, Vero Beach* Florida (Spring) 19$h»
APPENDIX B
Daily Worksheets from Dodgertown
Vero Beach, Florida, 195>i|-
185
TABLE III
DODGERTOWN WORKSHEET
WEDNESDAY, MA.RCH 21;, 19$k
MORNING SESSION
The final major league ball game at Vero Beach for 'this year -will be
played today between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Dodgers* Starting
time for the game will be 2:00 P.M. As in the past, all players will
be admitted free of charge to see the game but they must wear their
baseball caps as a means of identification.____________________
There will be an instructional period for all players this morning.
Players of all teams except Montreal and St. Paul will be divided into
three groups:
Group 1 - Pitchers
Group 2 - Infielders and Catchers - Squads A and B
___________Group 3 - Outfielders - Squads A and B
There will be a pitching instructional session this morning for the
following teams’ pitchers:
Team A - Fort Worth and Mobile
Team B - Great Falls and Baker sfdald
Team C - Miami and Asheville
Team D - Newport News - Pueblo
Team E - Elmira and Civilians
Instructor Topic
Earl Naylor Move to 1st Base
John Carey Pitcher Pivot
Bartley & Scherger Pitcher Covering 1st
Ray Hathaway Sequence of Pitching
A1 Vincent Pitching Fundamentals,
dis cussion
Instructors will move players to their next station when finished with
their 30 minute instruction period. Instructors will teach through,
1) explanation, 2) demonstration, and 3) participation._____________
Place
Leftfield line #1
Pitching Strings
Infield #1
Centerfield #1
Rightfield #1 - near track \
186
TABLE III (contimed)
DOBGERTCMN WORKSHEET
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2k, 19$k
MORNING SESSION
The team A pitchers1 schedule mil be as follows: - pitching strings
area* "~
9:00 - 9:30 A.M. - Pitcher pivot to 2nd base...... John Carey
9:30 -10:00 A.M. - Move to 1st base.............. Earl- Naylor
10:00 -10:30 A.M. - Pitcher covering 1st . Bartley &
Scherger
10:30 -11:00 A.M. - Sequence of pitching............ Ray Hathaway
11:00 -11:30 A.M. - Pitching fundamentals & discussion. A1 Vincent
This group mil lunch at 11:30 A.M.______________________________
The team B pitchers1 schedule will be as follows: - leftfield line #1
9:00 - 9:30 A.M. - Move to 1st base.. Earl Naylor
9:30 - 10:00 A.M. - Pitcher covering 1st. Bartley &
Scherger
10:00 - 10:30 A.M. - Sequence of pitching,. . • • . . . Ray Hathaway
10:30 - 11:00 A.M. - Pitching fundamentals discussion • A1 Vincent
11:00 - 11:30 A.M. - Pitcher pivot to 2nd base. .... John Carey
This group will lunch at 11:30 A.M.____________________
The team C pitchers1 schedule will be as follows: infield #1
9:00 - 9:30 A.M. - Pitcher covering 1st...........* Bartley &
Scherger
9:30 - 10:00 A.M. - Sequence of pitching.......... Ray Hathaway
10:00 - 10:30 A.M. - Pitching fundamentals discussion • A1 Vincent
10:30 - 11:00 A.M. - Pitcher pivot to 2nd base...... John Carey
11:00 - 11:30 A.M. - Move to 1st base............ . Earl Naylor
This group will lunch at 11:1+5 A.M._____________________
The team D pitchers1 schedule will be as follows: - Centerfield #1
9:00 - 9:30 A.M. - Sequence of Pitching.......... Ray Hathaway
9:30 - 10:00 A •M. - Pitching fundamental discussion. • A1 Vincent
10:00 - 10:30 A.M. - Pitcher pivot to 2nd base...... John Carey
10:30 - 11:00 A.M. - Move to 1st base ........ Earl Naylor
11:00 - 11:30 A.M. - Pitcher covering 1st......... Bartley &
This group will lunch at 11:US A.M.______________________Scherger
187
TABLE III (continued)
DODGERTOWN WORKSHEET
WEDNESDAY:, MARCH 2k, 19$k
MORNING SESSION
The team E pitchers* schedule will he as follows: - rightfield #1
near track
9:00 - 9:30 A.M. - Pitching fundamental discussion. • A1 Vincent
9:30 - 10:00 A.M. - Pitcher pivot to 2nd base....... John Carey
10:00 - 10:30 A.M. - Move to 1st base.............. Earl Naylor
10:30 - 11:00 A.M* - Pitcher covering 1st........... Bartley &
Scherger
11:00 - 11:30 A.M. - Sequence of pitching.......... Ray Hathaway
This group will lunch at 11:30 A.M.______________________________
The following infielders will join the squad that they are listed undsc
Mobile
Elmira
Ft. Worth
Pueblo
Newport News
Miami )
Civilians )
------ Squad A Asheville )-------Squad B
Bakersfield)
Great Falls)
Squad A infielders (including first basemen) and catchers will report
to Greg Mulleavy at 9:39 A.M. on field #3. Dede, Hauser and Wasiak
will assist Mulleavy. The schedule for Squad A will be as. follows:
9:15> A.M. to 11:30 A.M.
The Technique & Fundamentals of Infield Play.
— Yrop&r stance
B) Position of body and knees when fielding
C) Head and eyes on the ball
D) How to execute the D.P. (SS and 2B)
E) Throwing
F) Cutoffs and relays - with outfielders
Method of teaching will be explanation, demonstration and
participation.
This group will lunch at 11:30 A.M.
Squad B infieiders (including first basemen) and catchers will report
to Lou Rochelli at 9:3$ A.M. on field #1;. Alexson, Angelone and
Brenzel will assist. The schedule for Squad B will be as follows:
188
TABLE III (continued)
DODGER TOWN WORKSHEET
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2k, 195U
MORNING SESSION
9:15 A.M. to 11:30 A.M.
The Technique & Fundamentals of Infield Play.
_ Proper stance
B) Position of body and knees when fielding
C) Head and eyes on the ball
D) How to execute the double play (SS and 2b)
E) Throwing
F) Cutoffs and relays - with outfielders
Method of teaching will be explanation, demonstration and
participation.
This group will lunch at llsU5 A.M.
The following outfielders will join the squad that they are listed
under:
Ft. Worth
Mobile
Elmira
Pueblo
Newport News
Miami )
Asheville )
Squad A Bakersfield)------ Squad B
Great Falls)
Civilians )
All outfielders on Squad A will report to Holmes and Banta at 9:15 A.M.
at the left f ield line of Field #3.
The Outfield instruction will cover:
A) Proper stance
B) Fielding fly balls (don’t time the catch)
C) Fielding ground balls
D) Caning in - going back on fly balls
E) Shading sun with glove - Proper use of sun glasses
F) Throwing
G) Use of voice
Instruction period will be from 9:15 A.M. to 11:30 A.M. This period
should be divided into 1) Explanation, 2) Demonstration, and
3) Participation.
This group will lunch at 12:00 noon._____________________________
TABLE III (continued)
DODGERTOWN WORKSHEET
189
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21*, 19&-
MORNING SESSION
All outfielders on Squad B will report to Holt and Perry at the right
field line of Field #1* at 9:15 A.M.
The Outfield instruction will cover:
A) Proper stance
B) Fielding fly balls (don’t time the catch)
C) Fielding ground balls
D) Coming in - going back on fly balls
E) Shading sun with glove - Proper use of sunglasses,
F) Throwing
G) Use of voice
Instruction period will be from 9:15 A.M. to 11:30 A.M. This period
should be divided into 1) Explanation, 2) Demonstration, and 3) Parti
cipation.
This group will lunch at 11 :1*5 A.M.______________________________
The St. Paul players will report to Manager Bryant at Field #2 at
9:00 A.M. Schedule will be:
9:00 - 9:30 A.M. - throwing and pepper games
9:30 - 10:30 A.M. - batting practice
10:30 - 11:30 A.M. - batting cages 1-2-3-U-5
St. Paul will lunch at 11:30 A.M.
The Montreal players will report to Manager Macon in the outfield area
of batting cages at 9:00 A.M. Schedule will be:
9:00 - 9:30 A.M. - throwing and pepper games (batting cages hitting
area)
9:30 - 10:30 A.M. - Batting cages l-2-3-l*-5
10:30 - 11:30 A.M. - Batting practice Field #2
11:30 - 11:1*5 A ♦M. - infield and outfield practice.
Montreal will lunch at 11:1*5 A.M.
TABLE III (continued)
DODGERTOWN WORKSHEET
190
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21*, 1951*
MORNING SESSION
There will be special batting instructions for the following pla,yers
at 11:30 to 12:30:
Aberson - Oemeter - Neal - Fial
Andy High will be in charge - Bartley and Carey will assist. ____
It is requested that the following schedule be followed for sick call:
Morning Sick Call • •••••.«•• 8:30 A.M.
Evening Sick Call............... 6:30 P.M.
_____ Emergencies......................Anytime________________
TODAY'S QUOTE
"Virtue, like art, constantly deals with what is hard to do, and the
harder the task the better the success."
- - - Aristotle
SOURCE: Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida, March 2 1 * , 1951*.
APPENDIX G
Exhibit 1
Executed Player Contract
CLASS AAA
UNIFORM PLAYER CONTRACT
APPROVED BY TH E
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
OF
PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL LEAGUES
IMPORTANT NOTICES
The attention of both Club and Player is specifically directed to the
following excerpt from Rule 3 (a), of the Major-Minor League Rules:
‘‘No Club shall make a contract different from the uniform contract
and no club shall make a contract containing a non-reserve clause, except
permission be first secured from the . . . President of the National
Association. The making of any agreement between a Club and Player
not embodied in the contract shall subject both parties to discipline.”
A copy of this contract when executed must be delivered to player
either in person or by registered mail, return receipt *requested.
SALARY CERTIFICATE
T his Contract will not be approved by the President of the National
below is executed by both the Club Official concerned and the Player.
Association unless the Salary Certificate set forth
> CAStuicu vy U U U 1 uic viuu auu uw * w /ti. \ .
, the undersigned......
(J V Name of Club Official s \ A rs. Title
of club, a n d .......
Name of Club /J , Name^of Flayer
the player, each does hereby certify that all of the compensation player ................. is receiving,
or has been promised in the form of salary, transportation (except transportation expense for one person from the player’s
home or point of departure to the city to which he is directed to report), allowance or bonus of whatsoever nature from any club,
person, agent, organization or corporation during the life of this Agreem ent or thereafter or has been paid prior to the execu
tion of said contract, if incident to the signing thereof, by any club, person, agent, organization or corporation is set forth in the
contract to which this certificate is attached.
We, and each of us execute this certificate with full knowledge that if its contents be found false, the club and the under
signed'iplayer may each be fined an amount not in excess of Five H undred ^Dollars ($500.00) and the president an d /o r the
undersigned official may be suspended from participation in N ational Association affairs and/or the undersigned player sus
pended, for a period of not to exceed two (2) years from the date the decision is rendered finding said certificate to be false,
all as the President of the National Association may determine.
PLATER
- A Q i J U i r r r f _
RIZED OFFICIAL OF CLUB
Parties
Recital
Agreement
Employment
Salary
Loyalty
Service
Assignment
Termination
Regulations
Agreements
and Rules
Renewal
2p For the service aforesaid the Club will pay the Player an aggregate salary
herein called the Club
.herein called the Player.
The Club is a member of the National Association of Professional BasebalKLeagues. As such, and jointly with
the other members of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, it is a party to the National
Association Agreement, and to the M ajor-M inor League Agreement and Rules with the American League of
Professional Baseball Clubs and its constituent clubs and with the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs
and its constituent clubs, and is a party to the Constitution and By-Laws of the league of which the club is a member.
The purpose of these agreements,, rules, Constitutions and By-Laws is to insure to the public wholesome and high-
class professional baseball by defining the relations between club and player, between club and club, between
league and league and by vesting in a designated Commissioner, Executive Committee' and President of the
National Association, broad powers of control and discipline and decision in cases of disputes.
In view of the facts above recited the parties agree as follows: " ^
1. The Club hereby employs the Player to render skilled service as a baseball player in connection with all
games of the Club during the- year 19....... including the Club's training season, the Club’s exhibition games, the
Club’s playing season, and any official series in which the Club may participate and in any games or series of
games in the receipts of which the Player may be entitled to share; and the- Player covenants that he is capable
of and will perform with expertness, diligence and fidelity the1 service stated and such duties as may be required
of him in such employment. /)
salary of $.......
+ yj *
In semi-monthly installments after tKe commencement o'! the playing season covered by this contract, unless
the Player is “abroad” with the Club for the purpose of playing games, in which event the am ount then due shall
be paid on the first week day after the return “home” of the Club, the term s “home” and “abroad” meaning,
respectively, at and away from the city in which the Club has its baseball field.
If a m onthly salary is stipulated above, it shall begin with the commencement of the Club’s playing season
(or such subsequent date as the player’s service may commence) and end with the term ination of the Club’s
scheduled playing season, including split-season play-off series, and shall be payable in semi-monthly installments
as above provided.
If the player is in the service of the Club for part of the playing season only he shall receive such proportion
of the salary above mentioned, as the number of days of his actual employment in the Club’s playing season bears
to the number of days in said season.
3. (a) The Player during said season will faithfully serve the Club or any other Club to which, in conformity
with the agreements above, or hereinafter recited, this contract may be assigned, and pledges himself to the Ameri
can public to conform to high standards of personal conduct, fair play and good sportsmanship.
(b) The Player represents that he does not, directly or indirectly, own stock or have any financial interest
in the ownership or earnings of any club, except as herein expressly set forth, and covenants that he will not
hereafter, while connected with any club, acquire or hold any such stock or interest except in accordance with the
M ajor-M inor League Rules.
4. (a) The Player agrees that, for the purpose of avoiding injuries and to remain in physical condition to
perform the services he has contracted with the club to perform, while under contract or. reservation he will not
play baseball otherw ise than for the Club or for such other Clubs, as may become assignees of this contract in
conformity with said agreements; that he will not engage in professional boxing or wrestling; and that, except
with the w ritten consent of the Club or its assignee he will not engage in any game or exhibition of football,
basketball, hockey, or other athletic sport.
(b) The Player agrees that while under contract or reservation he will not play in any post-season baseball
game except in conformity with the National Association Agreement and M ajor-M inor League Rules and that
he will not play in any such baseball game after October 31st of any year until the following spring training
season, or with or against any ineligible player, or team.
(c) The Player agrees that his picture may be taken for still photographs, motion pictures or television at
such times as the Club may designate and agrees that all rights in such pictures shall belong to the Club and may
be used by the Club for publicity purposes in any m anner it desires.
5. (a) In case of assignment of this contract to another Club the Player shall prom ptly report to the
assignee club; accrued salary shall be payable when he so reports; and each successive assignee shall become
liable to the Player for his salary during his term of service with' such assignee, and the Club^ shall not be liable
therefor. If the' transaction of transfer of services is between two clubs of the same classification in the National
Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, the salary rate shall be as first specified in contract. If the assignee
is any other club, the salary rate shall be the same as that usually paid by said club to other players of like
ability. The foregoing shall apply not only in case of assignment of this contract to another club, but also when
the transfer is to a club which the club (party-hereto) owns or controls. A subsequent retransfer by such sub
sidiary to the club (party hereto), either the same season or thereafter, shall not entitle the Player to be paid any
salary lost by the Player as a result of such transfer or transfers.
(b) This contract may be terminated at any time- by the Club or by any assignee by giving official release
notice to the player.
6. The Player and the Club accept as part of this contract the regulations printed on the fourth page hereof
and also such reasonable modifications of them and such other regulations as the N ational.A ssociation or Club
may announce from time to time.
7. (a) The National Association Agreem ent and the M ajor-M inor League Agreem ent and Rules, and the
Constitution and By-Laws of the League of which the Club is a member, and all amendments thereto hereafter
adopted, are hereby made a part of this contract, and the Club and Player agree to accept, abide by and comply
with the same and all decisions of the President of the’ National Association, the Executive Committee and Com
missioner pursuant thereto.
(b) I t is further expressly agreed that, in consideration of the rights and interest of the public, the Club,
the League President, the President of the National Association, the Executive Committee or the Commissioner
may make public the record of any inquiry, investigation or hearing held or conducted, including in such record
all evidence or information given, received or obtained in connection therewith, and including further the findings
and decisions therein and the reasons therefor.
8. (a) Each year, on or before March 1st (or if Sunday, then the succeeding business day) next following
the playing season covered by this contract, by written notice to the-Player, the Club or any assignee thereof,
may renew this contract for the term of that year except that the salary rate shall be such as the parties may
then agree upon.
(b) In default of agreement by the parties, the salary rate shall be determined as provided in paragraph 9,
but pending such determination and final decision rendered, the Player will accept the salary rate fixed by the
Club or else will not play otherwise than for the Club or for an assignee- hereof.
(c) The reservation to the Club, expressly granted and agreed to by the Player, of the valuable and necessary
right to renew this contract and to fix the salary rate for the succeeding year, and the promise of the Player |
not to play during said year or otherwise than with the Club or an assignee hereof, have been taken into con- |
sideration in determining the aggregate or monthly salary specified herein and the undertaking by the Club to
pay said salary is the consideration for the Player’s services, the reservation, and renewal option granted and \
promise made.
Disputes
Special
Covenants
See
“Important
Notice”
above
*
*
9. In case of disputes between the Player and the Club or any assignee hereof arising under the provisions
of this contract the same shall be referred to the Executive Committee or the Commissioner as the case may be,
as an umpire, and the Committee’s decision shall be accepted by all parties as final, subject only to such right of
appeal, as is given to the Player only, under the term s of the National Association Agreem ent and M ajor-M inor
League Agreement and Rules.
10. The Club and Player covenant that this contract fully sets forth all oral or w ritten understandings and
agreements between them, and agree that no other alleged understandings or agreements, whether heretofore or
hereafter made shall be valid, recognizable, or of any effect whatsoever, unless expressly set forth in a new or
supplemental written contract executed by the Player and the Club (acting by its president—and that no other
Club officer or employee shall have any authority to represent or act for the Club in that respect), complying
with all agreem ents and rules to which this contract is subject, and approved by the President of th e National
Association.
11. This contract is subject to Federal or State legislation, regulations, executive or other official orders,
or other governmental action, now or hereafter in effect, respecting military, naval, air or other governmental
service, which may, directly or indirectly, affect the Player, the Club or the League; and subject also to all rules,
regulations, decisions or other action by the National Association, the League, the Commissioner, the President
of the National Association, the M ajor-M inor League Advisory Council, or the League President, including the
right of the Commissioner or the President of1 the National Association to suspend the operation of this contract
during any national emergency.
12. A copy of this contract and any constituent part thereof referred to in Section 7 (a) hereof, will be fur
nished the player upon his request made to either the Club or the President of the National Association at the
time of executing same or any time during the life of the contract.
13. This contract shall not be valid or effective unless and until approved by the President of the National
Association.
Signed this._.JL?
Club....
.day of ..................................... A. D., 19 • * y
Authorized Club Official
SEAL
Consent of Parent or Guardian
Consent is given to the minor player executing
this contract and any renewals thereof as may
be necessary under Section 5 and 8 of the above
contract, without any further renewals of this
consent.
Player must sign CORRECT NAME, giving his
INITIALS and STREET and HOME CITY ADDRESS
Player Sign Here
Social Security
Notice:
Parent-Guardian.
Player’s Home Address—Street and N <
City a d State
If player is to or has received a bonus as consideration for signing this agreement, or any additional compen
sation for services, of any nature or kind whatsoever, from the signing Club or from any other source whatsoever,
which is not set forth on page two of this contract, it m ust be inserted below, giving name of payor, am ount and
character of payment, when paid or to be paid, etc.
Approved
and
Recorded
_____________________________ 19
President of the National Association
_________ 19
League President
REGULATIONS
1. The Club’s playing season for each year covered by this contract and all renewals hereof shall be as fixed by the League of
Professional Baseball Clubs of which the contracting Club is a member.
2. The Player m ust keep himself in first class physical condition and m ust a t all times conform his personal conduct to stand
ards of good citizenship and good sportsmanship.
3. The Player, when requested by the Club, m ust subm it to a complete physical examination a t the expense of the Club and, if
necessary, to treatm ent by a regular physician or dentist in good standing a t the Player’ s expense. For refusal of the player
to submit to a complete medical or dental examination, the club may consider such refusal as a violation of this regulation . '
and may take such action as it deems advisable under regulation 7 of this contract. Disability directly resulting from injuries
sustained while rendering service under this contract shall not impair the right of the Player to receive his frill salary for a
period not exceeding two weeks from the date of his injury (except th a t said period of two weeks shall not be taken into con- >
sideration for purposes of determining whether or not additional monies may be due Player under any bonus arrangement). A f t
the termination of said period Player m ust be released or continued on the salary roll, except th a t Player m ay be released during^
said two weeks period if paid in full therefor. Any other misconduct may be ground for suspending or term inating this contract '
a t the discretion of the Club.
4. A Player who sustains an injury while playing baseball for his club m ust serve written notice upon his club of such injury,
giving time, place, cause and nature of the injury within ten days of the sustaining of such injury.
5. The Club will furnish the Player with uniform, exclusive of shoes. Upon the termination of the championship playing season
or release of the Player, the Player agrees to surrender the uniform or uniforms to the Club.
/
6. The Club will provide and furnish the Player during spring training with proper board and lodging, and while “abroad” or
traveling with the Club in other cities during spring training or the playing season, with proper board, lodging, and pay all
proper and necessary traveling expenses, including Pullman accommodations when necessary and meals en route.
7. For violation by the Player of any rule or regulation, the Club may impose a reasonable fine and deduct the am ount thereof
from the Player’ s salary, or may suspend the Player without salary or both, a t the discretion of the Club, b u t if suspension
exceeds ten days the Player m ay appeal to the President of the National Association.
8. In order to enable the Player to fit himself for his duties under this contract, the Club may require the Player to report for
practice a t such places as the Club m ay designate, and to participate in such exhibition contests as may be arranged by the
Club for a period of................................................ days prior to the playing season without any other compensation than th a t herein
elsewhere provided, the Club, however, to pay the traveling expenses and meals en route of the Player from his home city to the
training place of the Club whether he be ordered to go to the training camp direct or by way of the home city of the Club. In the
event of the failure of the Player to report for practice or to participate in the exhibition games, as provided for, a penalty by
way of fine m ay be imposed by the Club, the same to be deducted from the compensation stipulated herein.
9. Any Club, member of this Association, assigning a Player’s contract to another Club in the National Association during the
playing season shall be responsible for the Player’s salary, under his contract, up to and including the day notice of such assign
m ent is served upon him, an d in addition for the number of days’ travel required by the Player, if he promptly reports to the
club to which his contract is assigned. The number of days’ travel allowed shall be determined by the number of days which
would be required by the use of the transportation furnished by the Club, and the Player’s salary with the assignee Club shall
begin the day the Player reports to the assignee Club.
10. Any Manager, Player or Umpire, asserting any claim against any person or organization in professional baseball m ust file an
itemized statem ent of same with the league president of the league of which the creditor is a member within 120 days of the
m aturity of the claim. If league president fails to render decision, or if adverse to either party, the party against whom decision
is rendered may appeal to the President of the National Association within 30 days. If assertion of claims be by any league or
club against any league or club claims m ust be filed within 120 days with the President of the National Association. (See Article
12, National Association Agreement, for further information.)
F o rm 101 — 12-49

Asset Metadata

Creator Karan, Albert (author)

Core Title An investigation of the development and growth of baseball farm systems: With special reference to its inventor, Branch Rickey

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Degree Master of Business Administration

Degree Program Business Administration

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Business Administration, Sports Management,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Advisor Carus, Clayton D. (committee chair), Dockson, Robert R. (committee member), Mead, Richard R. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c20-133577

Unique identifier UC11263784

Identifier EP43409.pdf (filename),usctheses-c20-133577 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier EP43409.pdf

Dmrecord 133577

Document Type Thesis

Rights Karan, Albert

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA