Sports

Prior to 1900, Americans participated in a variety of sporting activities, but few sports drew a large number of spectators. As men and women of all classes had more leisure time, spectator sports increased in popularity. The most popular sports of the time were baseball, boxing, and football. All three sports, along with basketball and hockey, began to evolve into their current form of professional organization. At the same time, there were tensions between team owners and their employees. Professional athletes sought to exert greater control over their by forming player associations and unions. Their efforts, however, were largely unsuccessful. By 1930, owners had more power and control than they had in 1900.

The sport of football emerged in the decades following the end of the Civil War. Played initially on college campuses, the modern game developed slowly as teams altered the rules of rugby and soccer into a hybrid game that featured more scoring and physical contact. The early game of football was extremely violent. In 1909, for example, there were 33 recorded football fatalities, prompting many college presidents to question their support of the game. Despite its hazards, football had become synonymous with collegiate athletics, masculinity, and school pride by the 1920s, as it retained and even expanded its popularity.

Between 1900 and 1920, when the first professional football league emerged, there were many rule changes. None revolutionized the game more than the introduction of the forward pass. Passing greatly increased the game’s popularity, and attendance skyrocketed over the next several decades. Many of the best early professional teams were located in the Midwest, with Ohio’s Canton Bulldogs and Massillon Tigers among the elite. Professional football players, however, rarely received wages sufficient enough to allow them to rely on the game as their only source of income. The result was that most professional squads devoted little time to practice, and they experienced frequent personnel changes, which prevented them from developing the cohesiveness of collegiate squads. Until the emergence of the American Professional Football Association in 1920 (renamed the National Football League in 1922), the collegiate game remained far more popular and competitive. With the league’s formation, interest in professional football grew steadily; attendance at NFL games increased, and by 1934 it totaled 492,000.

The popularity of professional boxing also grew tremendously between 1900 and 1930 as some of the sport’s most memorable figures captured the nation’s attention. Jack Johnson was one of the most talented boxers of the time. He won the heavyweight title in 1908 when he defeated Canadian Tommy Burns, in Sydney, Australia. As the nation’s first African-American heavyweight champion, Johnson was treated as a hero in the black community. Many white boxing fans, promoters, and reporters, however, were desperate for a “Great White Hope,” the white boxer who would “put Johnson back in his place.” In 1910 former heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries came out of retirement for a July 4 fight for a record prize of $100,000. Johnson, at the peak of his career, put on a brilliant boxing display and knocked Jeffries out in the 15th round. News of Johnson’s victory was greeted with enthusiastic celebrations in African-American communities. Johnson eventually lost the heavyweight title to Jess Willard in a controversial bout in Havana, Cuba, in 1915.

Boxing finally found its great white champion in William Harrison “Jack” Dempsey, who won the heavyweight title in 1919. Although others have had a longer

Jim Thorpe kicks the football during a game in October 1912. (Cumberland County Historical Society)

Reign as heavyweight champion, Dempsey’s impact on the sport is hard to exaggerate. His boxing exploits were captured on film and shown to audiences across the country, giving Dempsey the kind of exposure no other fighter had ever enjoyed. Part of his popularity undoubtedly stemmed from the fact that by 1919, when he won the heavyweight title, many boxing fans were still searching for a great white champion. Jess Willard’s victory over Jack Johnson in 1915 remained controversial. When the untainted, handsome, rugged, and gregarious Dempsey arrived on the scene, he was, for many white boxing fans, the right kind of champion. He held the heavyweight boxing title until 1926 when challenger Gene Tunney defeated him. The following year in a rematch, Tunney was again defeating the challenger on points when Dempsey knocked him to the canvas. After a “long count,” during which Tunney had enough time to recover, he rejoined the match. He went on to win the controversial bout on points.

The spectator sport that grew most dramatically between 1900 and 1930 was professional baseball. Baseball

Had been played in the United States since before the Civil War. Professional leagues dated back to the formation of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players in 1871. At that time, the sport was often in a state of chaos. Teams formed and then moved or disbanded. Players jumped from team to team in search of higher pay, often playing for numerous teams within a single year. The sport also lacked a uniform set of rules, which prevented players, managers, and gamblers from determining the outcome of games. By the 1890s, the sport had developed a sense of cohesiveness as owners of teams in the newly formed National League began to drive out competitors and secure the services of the game’s best players.

A challenge to the dominance of the National League came in 1899 when the Western League renamed itself the American League. League president Ban Johnson recruited several prominent National League owners and managers who were dissatisfied with its management. The American League began to lure high-profile players away from the National League. In 1902, the two leagues worked out an agreement that allowed both leagues to coexist and flourish. It created a National Baseball Commission consisting of the two league presidents and a neutral third party. The agreement also established rules regarding the transfer of players from one team to another and the movement of players from the minor leagues to the major leagues. Several dominant teams emerged in the period, including the New York Giants, the Chicago Cubs, the Detroit Tigers, the Boston Red Sox, and the Philadelphia Athletics. In 1903, pennant winners from each league competed in the first World Series, which the American League champion, Boston, won. The game grew tremendously in popularity, surpassing all other professional sports.

Baseball, however, continued to be plagued by scandal and corruption. Gambling and the fixing of games had been a problem in baseball and other sports, and the payoffs could be lucrative. The lure of money for fixing games was made more tempting when the 1902 agreement prevented American and National League teams from raiding players. The result was that owners had complete control over the rights of the players. The no-raiding rule prevented them from jumping to a team willing to pay more for their services. While baseball players were paid handsomely compared to the wages of many fans, they complained that owners received revenues far in excess of what they paid in salaries.

The problem of gambling came to a head in 1919 with the “Black Sox” scandal, which almost ruined the sport. That year, eight players on the American League champion Chicago White Sox accepted money from gamblers to intentionally lose the World Series to the underdog Cincinnati Reds. Each of the eight players reportedly agreed to accept $10,000 to play poorly. When the plot was uncovered, evidence of similar scams came to light; and the public began to question the integrity of the game. Realizing that the future of the game was on the line, owners moved quickly to regain public confidence. An agreement was reached in 1920 to create an independent baseball commissioner. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis agreed to become the sport’s first commissioner. He insisted on almost dictatorial control over the game, and in 1921 he banned all eight White Sox players (whom he had acquitted for lack of evidence) from the game for life. The decision helped reestablish public confidence in the sport, but it was the emergence of the legendary Babe Ruth that put the sport back on solid footing.

Between 1920 and his retirement in 1934, Ruth dominated the sport like no player has before or since. He had been one of the game’s best pitchers and hitters for the Boston Red Sox since he entered the league in 1914. In 1920, the Red Sox’s financially strapped owner sold Ruth’s contract to the New York Yankees for $125,000. His arrival in the New York market brought his game to a new level and catapulted him into national celebrity. Ruth excelled at every aspect of the game, but it was his tremendous home run power and off-the-field exploits that made him the country’s most popular sports hero. Prior to 1920 home runs in baseball were extremely rare, with league-leaders rarely approaching double figures. In 1920, Ruth belted an amazing 54 home runs and topped that with 60 in 1927.

Other professional and amateur spectator sports either emerged or grew in popularity between 1900 and 1930. These included basketball, hockey, and golf. Invented by James Naismith in the 1880s, basketball mirrored the path of development taken by football. The amateur game emerged as a staple of college athletics and increased in popularity. The first college games were played in the 1890s, and a college rules committee was created in 1905. By 1920, most colleges and universities had established teams. At the professional level, basketball grew slowly. The National Basketball League was created in 1898. Prior to World War I, the best professional team was the original Celtics. Support for the professional game, however, remained minimal; and few teams developed a loyal fan base until the formation of the National Basketball Association in 1949.

Professional and collegiate ice hockey also grew in popularity between 1900 and 1930. Developed in the 1860s, the game first took root in Canadian colleges and universities but quickly spread to the professional level in both Canada and the United States. The Stanley Cup was first awarded to the best Canadian team beginning in 1894. The trophy began to be awarded to the best professional team with the formation of the National Hockey League (NHL) in 1917. The NHL reformed in 1925 with professional teams in Toronto, Detroit, Montreal, Chicago, Boston, and

New York. Between 1900 and 1930, the sport had a sizable following in Canada, the upper Midwest, and on the East Coast, but it had not yet developed a large national audience.

Racial and gender discrimination were common features of American society between 1900 and 1930, and professional and collegiate sports were no exception. Universities, team owners, and promoters had almost complete control over who was allowed to participate. Most spectator sports excluded the participation of women and African Americans. At the turn of the century, some players of color, if their skin was light enough, were allowed to compete professionally. Native American Jim Thorpe, for example, was allowed to play collegiate and professional football. As segregation intensified, most sports rigidly enforced the color bar. Excluded from white male professional sports, women, African Americans, and other people of color formed their own teams and leagues. African-American baseball teams toured the country as far back as the 1880s. These barnstorming teams formed the Negro National League in 1920 and the Negro Eastern League in 1921. The Negro Leagues boasted some of the game’s greatest players, including Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, and the legendary Satchel Paige. Though not widely supported, women competed on basketball teams as early as 1895, but the women’s game did not develop a wide audience. Most women athletes remained confined to amateur sports teams in college, at work, or in the community.

Spectator sports had a profound impact on the development of modern American culture. They emphasized physical prowess, competitiveness, and passive consumerism over all other attributes. The public and the media hailed athletes as heroes. Even in the period between 1900 and 1930, professional athletes earned incomes well in excess of those enjoyed by ordinary Americans. In 1927, Babe Ruth demanded and received a salary of $100,000. Fans of spectator sports also were encouraged to be passive consumers. Prior to 1900, most local communities had semiprofessional and amateur baseball and football squads. As spectator sports increased in popularity, adult participation in these sports dwindled. Attendance at virtually every professional sport increased dramatically between 1900 and 1930. Similar rates of growth occurred in collegiate spectator sports. Finally, because of the increase in the number of spectators, sports became a medium through which owners and advertisers could, by identifying a team or an individual player with a product, sell consumer goods. Product endorsement, while it would become much more prevalent in the decades following the end of World War II, began to emerge in the 1920s and helped transform professional sports into a multimillion dollar industry that exerts its influence on virtually every aspect of American life.

Further reading: Carl M. Becker, Home and Away: The Rise and Fall of Professional Football on the Banks of the Ohio, 1919-1934 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998); Neil D. Issacs, Checking Back: A History of the National Hockey League (New York: Norton and Company, 1977); John Sayle Watterson, College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).

—Robert Gordon