The History of Baseball 1930-1940

In 1930 the Great Depression threatened the game baseball as a moneymaking business. After the great stock market crash thousands of Americans found themselves unemployed. At this time 1 out of every 4 were unemployed wandering from town to town setting up shantytowns by railroads and even in central park.

Baseball suffered, as many could not afford to pay even the $0.50 admission into the games. For the few that could manage a ticket the admission was all they could pay for and if they did have a nickel for a ballpark hot dog it would be their only meal of the day. The owners of baseball clubs watched as ticket sales dropped tremendously.

In an effort to gather crowds Major League baseball offered a variety of unheard of promotions hoping to get the attention of the public. Teams started playing night games, holding beauty contests, giving away groceries, and having mortgage nights. These stunts brought in a few thousand to watch the games and kept a few franchises open.

Some of these promotions were able to help out black players who were part of the Negro League. Owners staged games pitting black teams against white players in an effort to draw both black and white crowds to the stands. This gave black players a chance to show off what they could do to the crowd. Out of 438 games the black players won 309 games. The black players were determined to hold their own and prove that black players were just as good as white players.

In this decade black players still felt the sting of racism. Blacks were the only minority who were not allowed to play in major league baseball. The members of the Negro League had a loyal following and one of the greatest highlights of game time was watching the players warm up. Often they would not even bother using a real ball they would throw an imaginary ball pretending to catch it and tag each other out. These warm ups would be referred to as shadow ball.