Some baseball seasons stand out more than others. It’s hard to beat the significance of 1946.
In an excellent new book, The Victory Season, Robert Weintraub (author of House that Ruth Built) looks at the country struggling to regain some normalcy after the end of World War II. For baseball, it marked the return of its stars, many of whom came back as changed men after seeing action in combat.
The 1946 season had no shortage of storylines with Ted Williams and Stan Musial ultimately leading their teams to the World Series. Meanwhile, a young kid named Jackie Robinson played that season for Brooklyn’s top farm team in Montreal, setting the stage for what would take place in 1947.
Here is my Q/A with Weintraub:
How did you come up with the idea for this book?
Combining WWII and baseball seemed like a natural–two great tastes that go great together, at least in terms of books. More intriguing than MLB during the war was what became of the players when they left for the service, and even more so, what happened when they came back.
What was the impact of the War on players returning to the game?
It differed from person to person, of course, but in the main they certainly got some perspective (a dreaded cliche but in this case it’s true). Bob Feller said he felt little pressure pitching in Yankee Stadium after being fighting across the Pacific on a battleship for several years. Warren Spahn was a pitcher who was his own worst enemy before the war, but after “sleeping in tank treads” he realized baseball meant little in the greater scheme of things, relaxed mightily, and went on to a Hall of Fame career. On the other hand, there were players like Joe DiMaggio who mainly spent the war tabulating how much money they were losing out on.
The Mexican League made a serious bid to lure players, including Musial. How serious was the threat to MLB?
The Mexican League in and of itself was not much of a threat, because playing conditions were so poor. But the threat of an outsider exposing the game’s inherent indentured servitude was a major scare to the owners. A secret report issued in 1946 essentially admitted that the Reserve Clause, the part of the standard player contract that bound player to team, would never hold up in court if seriously challenged, as the Mexicans threatened to do. In large part the Mexican threat prodded ownership to make some concessions to the players, though they managed to keep the Reserve Clause in place and their grip on the levers of power firm for another couple of generations.
Obviously, there was no shortage of storylines. What stood out for you?
Certainly the incredible story of the European Theater of Operations “World Series,” a baseball tournament played by American servicemen in the conquered spiritual home of Nazism, the Hitler Youth Stadium in Nuremburg, Germany. Even more amazing than the spectacle of 50,000 American soldiers watching baseball being played right where Hitler used to scream out his hate was the fact that the winning team, a unit based in France, actually featured Negro League players. It was an out of town preview of Jackie Robinson’s coming debut, and a successful one at that.
How much was the country aware of what was going on with Robinson in Montreal?
He was heavily covered at first, then sort of forgotten about as the country turned its attention to the big leagues, then covered heavily once again as the Montreal Royals won the minor league championship and everyone wondered if Jackie would get called up to Brooklyn to put them over the top in the pennant race. Obviously once he cracked the majors the following season he was thrust into the nation’s consciousness more thoroughly.
What struck you about Williams and Musial? They were strikingly different personalities.
No question–Ted was essentially an artist, and thus tempestuous and short with anything that kept him from his canvas. Stan was personable, chatty with strangers, and a beloved teammate. The interesting thing I found was that at the time, Musial was considered the greater all-around player–perhaps not the hitter Williams was, but better in every other phase of the game. But after they retired, Williams gained currency from his war service (Korea as well as WWII) and his bluff, Marlboro Man appeal. As greatness on the field was increasingly tied, in the public and literary mind, at least, to an irascible if not downright angry personality, Williams’ flaws were recast as necessities to his brilliance.
Musial was great, but since he wasn’t nearly as tortured, it was easy to overlook him. Plus, the deification of the military and veterans helped Ted mightily. Williams was an ace pilot–Musial drove a water taxi at Pearl Harbor during the war. As I put it in the book, Williams was Chuck Yeager; Musial merely Chuck Taylor.
Looking back, how important was that season in the history of baseball?
Very important–you had the first playoff series to decide a pennant, Country Slaughter’s “Mad Dash” to cap one of the game’s most dramatic World series ever, plus Robinson’s debut, the Mexican threat, the first glimmering of labor strife, and pretty much everything that would come to define baseball–and sports in general–getting its post-war beginnings. An alternative title to the book was “Baseball Year Zero”–because everything that had come before, pre-war, was pretty much left aside as modernity hit the game.
Anything else?
I would only add that a very interesting part of the story is the difficulty the US had in adjusting to the immediate post-war environment. The influx of millions of servicemen and women made life in America very difficult in 1946. Labor strife abounded, there were massive shortages in housing, transport, and basic goods, a large black market thrived, and the threat of both a renewed depression and another war, this time with the Soviets, loomed over most people’s daily lives. Baseball proved to be a great outlet for millions of people who craved a return to normalcy but were denied it that summer.