Teenager on First, Geezer at Bat, 4F on Deck: Major League Baseball in 1945 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Teenager on First, Geezer at Bat, 4F on Deck: Major League Baseball in 1945 Steve Bullock James D. Szalontai. Teenager on First, Geezer at Bat, 4F on Deck: Major League Baseball in 1945. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. 334 pp. Paper, $35.00. In this aptly titled work, James Szalontai provides a well-researched and comprehensive account of the 1945 Major League Baseball (MLB) season, the last campaign substantively affected by player absences due to World War II. Although other works, such as Bill Gilbert’s They Also Served: Baseball and the American Home Front, 1941–1945 and William Mead’s Baseball Goes to War, have documented significant components of MLB operations during the second world war, Szalontai’s book is the first scholarly effort of note to focus exclusively on professional baseball during the final year of the war. During the course of the war, the majority of major-league players departed for service in the American armed forces; by 1945, over ninety per cent of players on pre-war rosters had swapped their big-league flannels for military uniforms. In this environment, professional baseball struggled mightily to survive and labored to generate a quality product on the field. As the war progressed, the number of able-bodied and talented men available for diamond competition [End Page 179] dwindled as increasing numbers of those who had previously obtained draft deferments for a multitude of reasons either began to see their numbers called or willingly enlisted in the military. Whereas names like Williams and DiMaggio still graced big-league parks during the first full year of the war, by 1945 those legends and virtually all other active players with major-league experience had departed for military service for the duration of hostilities. Due to the unprecedented outflow of talent from professional rosters, by 1945 major-league baseball “was played at a level that resembled the bush leagues” (1). In this comprehensive analysis of the 1945 campaign, Szalontai attempts to chronicle the elements of a season that was filled with inept play, compelling stories, and high drama. To provide some context to his subject, the author opens the book with a capable recounting of the effects of World War I and the early stages of the second world war on MLB. As Szalontai accurately notes, the public reaction to the continued operation of professional baseball was starkly different following Pearl Harbor than it had been a generation earlier. President Roosevelt’s “green light” letter in 1942 effectively provided MLB the formal sanction it had lacked in 1918 when professional baseball’s very existence was threatened because of the imposition of federal war-time restrictions. Largely because of Roosevelt’s political endorsement, MLB continued to operate through the conclusion of the war despite a shortage of manpower, a lack of resources, and perpetual logistical challenges. Szalontai outlines key events leading up to the opening of the 1945 season, including a brief recap of the 1944 World Series, which featured an all-St. Louis affair between the Cardinals and the perennial American League doormats, the Browns. The author then highlights the varied expectations of teams across both leagues at the opening of the 1945 season and describes how war-related player absences had left rosters decimated and unrecognizable to most fans. Subsequently, Szalontai begins a team-by-team analysis of both leagues, which comprises the major body of his work. The author devotes a substantial amount of time to describing, in detail, the composition of each team’s roster and specific circumstances surrounding individual clubs during the 1945 season. Szalontai specifically highlights the location of each club’s spring training camp, their managerial status, and the mix of players that were on their way in and out for 1945. Although much of this material is informative, very little is truly captivating or novel. Instead most readers will probably deem the continued team-by-team accounts a bit repetitive and often difficult to wade through, primarily because the most appealing stories of this era are well known (e.g., Pete Gray and Joe Nuxhall) and virtually no new information is included. However, for readers who like compartmentalized information or prefer to focus on...