1939: Baseball

For more than a half-century past, the American-born sport of baseball has rightly worn the sub-title, 'The National Game,' engaging a degree of attention more nearly universal throughout the United States than any other sport. To baseball's devotees, countrywide, the year 1939 meant mainly a greater realization of this universality together with a clearer consciousness of the sport's native origin and historic background.

Baseball Centennial.

Financed by Organized Baseball — the 2 major professional leagues and the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, enrolling about 50 organizations whose distribution blankets the nation from coast to coast with a fringe overlapping into Canada — the celebration of baseball's Centennial Year enjoyed participation as universal as the geographical scope of the game itself. Though the professional leagues initiated the program, from the start the observance of the centenary reached to university campuses, prep school and high school athletic fields and to a multitude of diamonds devoted to amateur play in all parts of the land, from public parks in metropolitan centers to rural township playgrounds.

The Centennial program centralized at the village of Cooperstown, N. Y., located in the upstate lake country, many miles from the nearest professional ball park, more than 200 miles from the nearest big league territory. There, on June 12, the hundredth anniversary was commemorated by the dedication of the National Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame.

Kenesaw M. Landis, former Federal Judge and now Commissioner of Organized Baseball, together with the presidents of the major leagues, representative of the top ranks of twentieth century baseball players, and about 10,000 baseball pilgrims from the ranks of fandom, that day visited the pastoral hamlet which was the national game's birthplace in 1839.

James A. Farley, Postmaster-General of the United States, headed the array of distinguished fans in attendance. At the village post-office, just across the street from the Baseball Museum, the Postmaster-General in person began the circulation of a special baseball stamp, engraved to depict the scene of 100 years ago, showing Cooperstown boys on the village green playing the first game of baseball of which there is any record.

For the dedication of the Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame at high noon, thousands massed in the street and saw on the platform the eleven living members of the Hall of Fame galaxy of twenty-five. Baseball's All-Time Immortals, elected to their permanent niches because of their preeminent places in baseball history and each name a by-word in the heart of every baseball fan from 9 years old to 90.

Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Cy Young, Connie Mack, Grover Alexander, Napoleon Lajoic, Tris Speaker, Eddie Collins, George Sisler and Walter Johnson were there, to be congratulated by Judge Landis and to speak to the nation's fans over a coast-to-coast radio hookup. Inside, on the walls of the Hall of Fame, the baseball pilgrims saw, mounted for perpetual honor, plaques representing these eleven men, and citing their records, together with similar plaques honoring the fourteen other bygone baseball heroes. Many spent hours browsing through the museum with its wealth of souvenirs, mementos and trophies from every era of the National Game's past.

In the afternoon, on the same field where in 1839 Abner Doubleday drew up the first rules of baseball for the village urchins, two teams of today's major leaguers played a modern-style ball game, while by contrast two teams in nineteenth century garb gave an exhibition of how baseball looked in its primitive form. Today's teams were captained by two of the Hall of Fame Immortals, Honus Wagner and Eddie Collins.

The Centennial made its imprint upon virtually every professional baseball field in the country in the course of the summer, where special observances were held in which pageantry brought history home to fans in visual form. All year, from January to December, motion picture reels produced by the two major leagues told the story of baseball's history to hundreds of thousands of fans throughout the country. The red, white and blue Centennial seal became a well-known emblem to baseball folk as worn on the uniforms of players, displayed on ball park flagpoles, automobile tags, stationery, calendars, schedules, scorecards, etc.

Big League Games.

Fittingly enough, the baseball season of the centennial year reflected increased interest and participation in the sport on all fronts. The major league turnstiles, index of popular interest, showed a collective increase over recent previous seasons. After a 2-year gap in which the world series was broadcast solely as a news feature, this year a sponsor estimated public interest in the baseball year's climax high enough to warrant expenditure of $100,000 for radio advertising rights.

The New York Yankees won the American League pennant and the world series, defeating the National League champions, the Cincinnati Reds, in four straight games.

The 1939 title was the Yankees' fourth straight world championship in four years, their second straight accomplished in four successive games, and extended their world series winning streak to 9 straight games — these 3 exploits standing as new all-time records.

Lou Gehrig.

On May 2, 1939, Lou Gehrig, great first-baseman and home-run hitter of the Yankees, took himself out of the regular lineup because of a serious illness, just as his team went on the field in Detroit. This action brought to an end Gehrig's string of successive league games played, an all-time record of 2,130, which eclipsed all past endurance records so completely that it seems likely to stand in the baseball record-books for many years to come, a marker carrying on the Centennial Year's memory far into the century of baseball history just dawning.

Gehrig's malady was diagnosed at Mayo Clinic as a form of infantile paralysis and his permanent withdrawal from baseball was the occasion of a testimonial by his colleagues and friends, held on the field during the game at Yankee Stadium on July 4. Gehrig was continued on active list on full salary, but on Oct. 11 was appointed to the New York City Parole Commission for a ten-year term.

Summary of the Year in Baseball.

In the annual awards made by the Baseball Writers Association, Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees was voted the most valuable player and leading batsman of the American League during the 1939 season. DiMaggio ended the season with a batting average of .318. He hit 30 home runs and batted in a total of 128 runs. In the National League, William Henry Walters, Jr., pitcher of the Cincinnati Red Sox was voted the most valuable player. The leading batsman was John Mize of the St. Louis Cardinals, who hit 28 home runs during the season and batted in a total of 104 runs. His batting average was .349.

In the seventh major league All-Star Game, the annual midseason classic, held on July 11, 1939, at the Yankee Stadium in New York, the team composed of selected players from the American League defeated the team of National League players 3-1, before a crowd of 62,892 spectators. This represented the American Team's fifth victory out of seven games played.