Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era

by Charles C. Alexander

Breaking the Slump is the engrossing story of baseball during the 1930s, when the National Pastime came of age as a business, an entertainment, and a passion, and when the teams of the American and National Leagues fielded perhaps the greatest rosters in the history of the game. Whether as rookies, stars in their prime, or legends on the wane, Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, Lou Gehrig, Hank Greenberg, Dizzy Dean, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio all left their mark on the game and on the American imagination in the decade before America's entry into the World War II. In one remarkable year, 1934, the entire starting lineup of the American League All-Stars consisted of future Hall of Famers. This surfeit of talent provided much needed entertainment to a nation struggling through economic hardship on an enormous scale. In the face of the Great Depression, noted baseball historian Charles C. Alexander shows, Organized Baseball underwent an array of changes that defined the structure and operation of the game well into the postwar decades. The 1930s witnessed the advent of night baseball, the flowering of an extensive and, in some cases, controversial minor-league system of "farm clubs," and the exploitation of the relatively new broadcast medium of radio. Power brokers such as Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis and owners Branch Rickey and "Colonel" Jacob Ruppert oversaw these and other developments even as they retained other traditional aspects of the game. As it had since the 1880s, the reserve clause continued to limit the salaries and mobility of ballplayers, subjecting them to the will of ownership to a degree unfathomable today. And Organized Baseball remained racially segregated throughout the 1930s, as the Negro leagues operated largely beyond the notice of white baseball fans. While tracing these and other organizational developments, Alexander keeps his focus on the daily experience of the ballplayers. What was it like for young men trying to make their way as professional ballplayers in an economy that offered few prospects for them otherwise? What kind of conditions did they have to deal with in terms of playing facilities, transportation, lodging, and relations with their employers? And what about the play itself? Alexander offers an expert appraisal of how the ballplayers and the quality of the game they played differed from today's. Americans have periodically been reminded of baseball's extraordinary capacity to enrich and enliven the national spirit during hard times. Breaking the Slump is a vivid portrait of the great game and its cultural significance during America's hardest times.

Genres: Baseball, Sports

352 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 2002

Reviews

[Miguel E. Tersy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Book

Charles Alexander did a wonderful job in how baseball survived during the Great Depression. The A's, once a World Series champion, had to sell their star ballplayers to survive which it never recovered while the Yankees dominated the 1930's. What I found most interesting was Bonus Wagner's view on the current pitching of that era. He said managers are relying too much on relief pitching. He predicted starters will be pitching fewer innings and other will be fewer complete games. If this continues he predicted the game will take longer to complete and the fans will be bored. That prediction sadly has come true. This is a wonderful book for sports history fans.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times, the narrative reads like a recreation broadcast pulled from the boxscore. Breaking the Slump would have gone for extra bases if “Organized Baseball” had been better framed within the cultural experience of America during the Depression, and less like a forced march through every season using the same thematic structure. After a couple of times, it was clear that the loser of the World Series received a smaller players’ share and the “Negro Leagues” were poor tabulators of team standings. We get it. Even when Alexander balks, strikes out or throws at our head, how can you not like a day at the “Old Ball Game?”

[Lyndon Langston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the book I found it very interesting because this book talks about the history of baseball and how it has risen in today's life and the difference of baseball from back in the day to today's every day baseball life.