How baseball endured through World War II

America changed greatly after our day of infamy, Dec. 7, 1941. Lost in the fog of World War II, history sometimes forgets that Pearl Harbor also triggered one of the most significant letters in presidential history: the Green Light Letter.

The continuation of baseball during the war was encouraged by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a game-changing letter dated Jan. 15, 1942, when FDR proclaimed, “I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going.” It was a watershed moment for the game and the country.

Historians dubbed FDR’s permission as the “Green Light Letter,” and it remains on display at the National Archives. With the country reeling from the reality of war, some feared that the continuation of Major League Baseball would be controversial.

But others, including one of Chicago’s major newspapers, the Chicago Sun, appeared to add support in an article two days later quoting FDR’s remark, “The millions straining every nerve to win this war will need relaxation.” (The Sun merged in 1948 with the Daily Times, creating the Chicago Sun-Times.)

Roosevelt sent his letter to Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis at 333 N. Michigan Ave., where the one-time federal judge ran Major League Baseball as its first independent commissioner.

Landis, a staunch Republican and no fan of the liberal Democrat FDR, had written the president for guidance about continuing baseball after Pearl Harbor. FDR replied that baseball was a productive diversion necessary for national morale and gave his famous green light. Although one could reasonably assume that Landis’ motives were largely economic since a wartime stoppage could have collapsed the major leagues, FDR’s action helped save America’s game while boosting the country.

Baseball has been likened to church, life and America itself. Poet Walt Whitman called it “the American game.” As World War II progressed, many big-league stars served in the armed forces, including Bob Feller, Yogi Berra, Duke Snider, Stan Musial, Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Ted Williams and over 500 others.

Negro League players served, too, like Larry Doby and Jackie Robinson, although Robinson was actually court-martialed for refusing to ride in the back of a segregated military bus.

Service teams sprang up

Remarkably, there were so many baseball players in the armed forces that service teams sprang up everywhere. One enterprising naval officer, Capt. Robert Emmet, base commander of the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Lake County, made a point of “recruiting” baseball stars to his facility. Lt. Mickey Cochrane, the Detroit Tigers star catcher, was appointed to manage the sports programs at Great Lakes, then the world’s largest military training station.

By cherry-picking and manipulating assignments to the Great Lakes facility, Emmet and Cochrane assembled over 800 baseball teams, then created a military super-team called the Bluejackets. During the war years, it featured a total of 43 different major leaguers and notched an impressive 188-32 record.

Baseball teams even appeared overseas during the war, including at German and Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. After Babe Ruth’s barnstorming tours in the 1930s, baseball was no stranger to the Japanese, but it was the German POW camps that featured more prisoners and more organized games. The Red Cross distributed baseball equipment to lift prisoner morale and combat boredom. The Germans liked the improved morale and discipline, and sometimes even allowed “road games” between POWs of different camps.

Back at home, the Green Light Letter worked its magic, and more players filled vacancies as Major League teams carried on. Unfortunately, the Negro League stars like Satchel Paige were not selected for the depleted all-white majors, but that would soon change by 1947 with Jackie Robinson’s debut.

Meanwhile, both baseball and American morale thrived. Big-league attendance fell from 8.1 million to 7.4 million, but by 1945, it surged to record levels at over 10 million a year. The game’s popularity expanded even more as radio proliferated and America endured. The 1945 Cubs went 98-56 and reached the World Series.

After Landis died during the war on Nov. 25, 1944, the Dodgers’ Branch Rickey promptly signed Jackie Robinson to a 1945 minor league contract, paving the way for his Major League debut April 15, 1947. Baseball has not been the same since. Neither has America.

Eldon Ham is a member of the faculty at IIT/Chicago-Kent College of Law, teaching sports, law and justice, and is the author of five books on sports history in America.

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