On Sunday, April 24, 1904, the Brooklyn Superbas (Dodgers) defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 8-6 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. The win left the Superbas with a record of 5-4; the loss left the Phillies at 2-6-1. The game might have been a forgettable early-season faceoff between two mediocre teams (Brooklyn finished the season in sixth place, Philadelphia in eighth), had it not been for some curious statistical anomalies in the box score. The box score lines for three players in the starting lineups that day, including the home team’s starting pitcher, have zeros across the board for the game.
Ed Poole took the mound for Brooklyn in the top of the first, faced-off against Philadelphia’s lead-off hitter, their catcher, Frank Roth. And yet, Poole’s box score line reflects zero innings pitched, zero hits given up, zero batters walked and zero strikeouts. Roth’s stat-line reflects zero plate appearances, no runs, no hits, no walks, no runs batted in and no strikeouts. The line for Brooklyn’s starting catcher, Fred Jacklitsch, is all zeros.
The reason for the statistical anomaly? Police intervention. After two pitches, both of them strikes, police walked onto the field, arrested Poole, Jacklitsch and Roth, led them off the field and took them to the Forty-sixth Precinct station house, where they were booked for the crime of playing professional baseball on a Sunday. It was not the first (and would not be the last) arrests at games involving major league baseball teams in New York that season, and more arrests followed in 1905 and 1906. But this game was the only time the arrestees’ names showed up in the box scores.
Background
Sunday baseball had long been illegal in New York City and many other (if not most) jurisdictions throughout the United States. It was one of the so-called “Blue Laws,” restricting various types of acts on Sundays. But by 1904, changes in public attitudes and years of legal challenges had changed the landscape. Major League teams in Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinnati, for example, had already been playing Sunday baseball games for at least a decade.
But it was still illegal in the state of New York to disturb the Sabbath by playing baseball or charge admission to a Sunday baseball game. Professional baseball would not be legal in the State of New York until 1919. But for three seasons, from 1904 through 1906, the three major league teams in New York City challenged the law, scheduling several exhibitions and league games on Sundays during each of those years, experimenting with thinly-veiled, alternative means of collecting gate receipts that might skirt the technical prohibition against selling tickets.
In each of those three seasons, the Sunday baseball experiments lasted into about June, before crackdowns put the kibosh on Sunday baseball. The final blow came on June 17, 1906, when police arrested thirty-seven amateurs, semi-professionals and professionals, in a sweep across all boroughs. The arrests included Brooklyn’s owner, both managers, and a Brooklyn pitcher and Cincinnati batter at the start of a game between the Trolley Dodgers and the Reds. Following the crackdown, no major league New York team would play a home game in the city on another Sunday until 1917, when the Yankees, Giants and Dodgers each played a single Sunday game at home. The three teams played a full slate of Sunday home games after professional Sunday baseball was legalized before the 1919 season.
1903
Change was in the air as the new year dawned in 1903, with the “Burke Bill,” which would have legalized at least the playing of amateur baseball, wending its way through the New York legislature. The initial outlook was good.
The Sunday baseball bill is ahead in the race at Albany. Senator Davis is the trainer and hopes to land it at the home plate in good season ahead of the canal bill.
The Buffalo Times, January 8, 1903, page 4.
Some religious leaders, including the Catholic Mutual Benefit Association (C. M. B. A.), even supported the bill.
The committee endorsed the Burke bill, pending in the Legislature, which, if passed, will legalize the Sunday ball playing.
Buffalo Enquirer, February 9, 1903, page 8.
The politics of the bill created strange bedfellows, with clergymen and saloon-keepers allied against the bill, with fear that baseball might equally keep people out of church and out of the the saloon.
SUNDAY BASEBALL.
The warm debate in committee at Albany of the Burke bill to permit the playing of amateur baseball on Sunday brought out very forcible arguments for and against the measure.
The main objections were that the licensing of Sunday baseball would increase the number of on that day, now 5,000,000; that it would tend to break down the American Sabbath; that it was opposed by the best public sentiment.
The arguments in favor of the measure were that if boys are not allowed to indulge in the harmless pastime of baseball on Sunday they will frequent saloons and other objectionable resorts.
“On this question,” said Assemblyman Bacon, “the clergymen are allied with the saloon-keepers in their opposition.”
There is something n Mr. Bacon’s point of view, and the fact that the Young Men’s Catholic Union, of Buffalo, with a membership of 20,000, favors the passage of the bill will not be without its weight.
A game of amateur baseball on Sunday means the entire afternoon given up to an exciting sport, where idleness might lead to the passing of some part of the afternoon in far less commendable diversion. Perhaps if noise were not so great a feature of the game popular opinion might come to tolerate Sunday baseball as it tolerates Sunday golf.
The New York Evening World, February 13, 1903, page 14.
The bill died in committee in mid-April, at about the same time the baseball season came to life.i
But the war for or against Sunday baseball was not over. In New York City, a formal complaint by the Sabbath Day Observance Society triggered arrests, leading to a test case to interpret the Sunday baseball laws.ii
A local pastor, the Reverend Warren H. Wilson, of the Arlington Avenue Presbyterian Church, supported the playing of baseball on Sundays, but opposed baseball as a business or in public parks on the Sabbath. The police said they would not arrest anyone unless admission were charged, in which case they would only arrest the ticket sellers.iii
Illustration from, “Pat Weldon, Reformer,” Edwin J. Webster, Pearson’s Magazine, Volume 11, Number 6, June 1904, page 551.iv
The specific laws at issue in the baseball cases were generally the New York Penal Code Sections 259, 260, 265 and 267. Sections 259 and 260 defined the crime of “Sabbath breaking,” generally, while sections 265 and 267 delineated specific acts that might constitute the crime as it relates to baseball. Section 265 enumerated several specific sports, but not baseball, which fell under the broader category of “public sport” or “noise” that might disturb the “peace of the day.” Section 267 made “selling or offering for sale” any property on Sunday, which related to the sale of tickets or scorecards.
Section 259. The Sabbath.
The first day of the week being by general consent set apart for rest and religious uses, the law prohibits the doing on that day of certain acts hereinafter specified, which are serious interruptions of the repose and religious liberty of the community.
Section 260. Sabbath breaking.
A violation of the foregoing prohibition is Sabbath breaking.
Section 265. Public sports.
All shooting, hunting, fishing, playing, horse racing, gaming or other public sport, exercises or shows, upon the first day of the week, and all noise disturbing the peace of the day, are prohibited.
Section 267. Public traffic.
All manner of public selling or offering for sale of any property upon Sunday is prohibited.
The issues raised or litigated in defense of criminal charges at various times include: whether the baseball game at issue created “serious interruptions of the repose and religious liberty” of a community, under section 259; whether the game, as played, was “public” or created “noise disturbing the peace of the day,” under section 265; or whether the thing being sold or offered for sale, generally an admission ticket, scorecard or program, was “property” under section 267. However, most newspaper reports of the cases were not always careful to spell out precisely the issue being litigated, or specific text of the code at issue. It is also not clear whether, or to what extent the magistrates or trial courts hearing the cases in the first instance carefully defined the issues in the case.
The results of the cases in the courts were mixed - courts upheld the right to play the game on Sunday, but not the collection of gate receipts. Nevertheless, newspaper editors frequently mischaracterized every little win as “complete victory” for the cause of Sunday baseball. Fans were generally disappointed during the following weeks.
When the East New York poet hears of the decision given by Judge Furlong in the Gates avenue court this morning he will probably tune up his lyre and warble a peon of victory, for the baseball players who were charged with the heinous crime of selling score cards as means of obtaining a seat on a grand stand at a baseball game had the case against them dismissed. . . .
It has been customary with various baseball teams in all parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan to sell score cards as tickets for a seat on their grandstands, and in this way they are able to pay for good attractions, uniforms and baseball paraphernalia. There is very little revenue derived after all expenses have been paid, although the Rev. warren Wilson seemed to be possessed of the idea that the various managers were growing wealthy on the proceeds of the games, which he termed a source of revenue.
The Standard Union, June 19, 1903, page 9.
Magistrate Furlong, in the Gates Avenue Police Court this morning, delivered a brief decision which dismissed the charges of Sabbath-breaking against John Sloman, who was arrested on June 7 because he was selling score cards in the grandstand of an East New York baseball field. . . . Magistrate Furlong delivered himself of his decision in the case as follows:
”The defendant is charged with Sabbath-breaking. Entertaining as I do most profound respect for a decent observance of the Sabbath Day, I am unable to find that there is any sufficient evidence which, in my opinion, would warrant the belief that the defendant, Sloman, is guilty of violation of section 265 of the Penal Code. There is express testimony by the prosecution in this case that there was absolutely no interruption of the repose and religious liberty of the community. To hold otherwise under such circumstances would be to relapse into the narrow groove of Puritanical belief, wholly inconsistent with the enlightened spirit of the present age.”
The Brooklyn Citizen, June 19, 1903, page 3.
But despite the apparent victory, the win was not as broad as the headlines claimed. The presiding judge may have let these defendants go, but his reasoning was limited to the facts of the particular case. “Sabbath breaking” was still a crime - a misdemeanor punishable by not less than $5.00 and no more than $10.00, or by imprisonment not to exceed five days, or both. And what might constitute a “public sport” and what might constitute “serious interruptions of the repose and religious liberty of the community” were still up for debate. Players and organizers were still subject to arrest and charges at the whim of pro-Sabbath activists or neighbors who might lodge complaints, or local police and prosecutors looking to score political points.
Despite the general ban on collecting gate receipts, many amateur teams devised schemes that replaced ticket sales with other forms of revenue, most commonly by selling scorecards. Although a scorecard is not necessarily a “ticket,” if people were required to buy one to enter the grandstand, there was essentially no difference. But while the scorecard gimmick was an obvious ruse, local authorities initially looked the other way or gave organizers the benefit of the doubt. And in any case, most people didn’t file complaints, so the games simply went on without resistance.
With amateurs free to play the game on Sundays, and frequently profiting from their games by selling scorecards in exchange for admission, it was only a matter of time before the professionals looked for a slice of the Sunday baseball pie.
“Sunday Ball Games Draw Big Crowds,” New York Tribune, July 5, 1903, illustrated supplement, page 8.
1904
Change was in the air again, as 1903 turned into 1904. In January of 1904, New York’s newest major league team, the American League Hillmen, Highlanders, Hilltoppers or, occasionally already, the “Yankees,”v announced their intent to play Sunday baseball that season. But they would not play at their home stadium in Washington Heights. They secured the use of an old American Association filed, Ridgewood Park, in the Brooklyn-adjacent Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens, squarely in the backyard of a longer-tenured major league team, the Brooklyn Superbas, Bridegrooms, Trolley Dodgers or Dodgers.vi The announcement threatened to renew tensions between the two major leagues who had only been playing nice with each other for one season. It also set the stage for a renewed battle for Sunday baseball.
Announcement that the New York Americans will play Sunday ball at Ridgewood Park next season has stirred up more trouble in the National League. . . . [major league commissioner] Garry Herrmann’s feast last week to his baseball colleagues, commemorative of the [two-league] peace agreement, had not properly digested in their boilers before a vigorous protest reached them against the American League playing Sunday ball on the preserves of the Brooklyn club. When President Ebbets heard that the New York American League club had secured Ridgewood Park and would increase the seating capacity to 25,000 for Sunday games, he got busy and wired Chairman Herrmann, of the National Commission, asking if the peace compact wasn’t strong enough to hold the Americans to their own territory in Manhattan. . . .
Sunday ball is a good card in New York and the American League club in that city should reap a rich financial harvest out of the 14 games to be scheduled at Ridgewood Park next season.
Buffalo Times, January 10, 1904, page 20.
When the baseball season started in earnest in New York City, the amateurs started up right where they left off the previous season - Sunday baseball was breaking out all over.
Sunday Baseball Games.
In addition to two games of baseball today at Ridgewood, Sunday baseball will be opened at the St. George Cricket Grounds, Hoboken, and at Van Ness, on the Catholic Protectory grounds. The game on the Protectory diamond will be between the Cuban Giants and the Emeralds. Hoboken and Poughkeepsie will meet on the St. George cricket field. The first game at Ridgewood will be between Ridgewood and Central Islip, the respective batteries being O’Hearn and Duffy and Williams and Gillen. The Brooklyn Field Club and the Empires will meet in the second game.
New York Times, April 3, 1904, page 19.
That first weekend apparently went off without a hitch, with teams looking to schedule more Sunday games the following week. Judge Furlong, who had handed down favorable decisions in the Sunday baseball cases the previous season, was even invited to throw out the first ball.
The Brighton Athletic Club will open the season next Sunday at Brighton Park. Cleveland and Pitkin avenues. The team will meet the crack Empires, which the Brooklyn Field Club played last Sunday at Ridgewood, and was unable to beat. Judge Furlong will toss out the first ball.
Brooklyn Times Union, April 7, 1904, page 8.
On the following Sunday, the New York Americans (Yankees) made good on their promise to play Sunday baseball, beating up on a local amateur team called the Ridgewoods, 14-2, at Ridgewood Park.
Americans Outclassed Ridgewood.
NEW YORK, April 11. - The New York American league baseball team defeated the Ridgewoods at Ridgewood park. The attendance was estimated at about 10,000. The weather was raw and a bit too cold for the American players, but they easily outclassed the local team, winning by a score of 14 to 2.
Plain Speaker (Hazelton, Pennsylvania), April 11, 1904, page 2.
Not to be outdone, Brooklyn’s owner, Charles Ebbets, decided to play regular season league games on Sundays.
President Ebbets of the Brooklyn Baseball Club, made the following statement last night:
“Other clubs are playing Sunday ball right under our noses, and there is no reason why we should not do so. At any rate, we have resolved to make the attempt. Of course National League teams cannot play exhibition games between themselves, and we have partly decided to play championship games.vii
Brooklyn Standard Union, April 12, 1904, page 8 (Note: in the parlance of the day, the expression, “championship games,” here refers to regular season league games that count toward winning the season’s championship pennant race).
But although people generally seemed to enjoy Sunday baseball, not everyone was happy with professionals playing on that day - especially the amateur teams, who saw their share of the Sunday baseball “scorecard” market dwindle, and feared a general backlash against all Sunday baseball if the professionals were to start making money on the Sabbath.
New York, April 14. - A protest against Sunday ball playing in New York on the part of the big league teams has come from a source least expected - the amateur and semi-professional clubs, many of whom are writing The Globe in answer to the statement of President Ebbets of Brooklyn that he intends changing the schedule so as to arrange National League games in this vicinity for the first day of the week. . . .
Ebbets evidently got worked up over the success of last Sunday’s game at Ridgewood Park, where more than 12,000 spectators saw the Yankees drub Ridgewood at 25 cents per score card.
Legal experts point out that the law in New York State against charging admission to Sunday ball is such that President Ebbets could never even get away from the post if he combated it. His only other recourse would be to evade the law by putting a price on the score cards, the ruse now in vogue at Ridgewood Park, Murray Hill, and half a hundred places where fans gather for Sunday’s entertainment.
But what would be the result? Instead of regarding the violation with kindly eye, some malcontent, upon hearing 20,000 persons splitting the welkin and drowning the echo of church bells about Washington Park, would immediately open a crusade, placing a kibosh not only on big league teams but all others.
This is what the amateurs fear. . . .
Pittsburgh Press, April 14, 1904, page 114.
The Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees both played games on Sunday, April 17th. Brooklyn played a league game, while New York played another exhibition.
Chicago Tribune, April 18, 1904, page 8.
The New York Americans played an exhibition at Ridgewood Park, Queens, the same day, this time against the Brooklyn Field Club. There were no disturbances or arrests during the game, but two men had been arrested earlier, “for selling tickets of admission to the field stands,” during the early game on the same field, between the Cuban X-Giants and the Ridgewoods.x
The arrests may have spooked the Yankees’ management. Before the next Sunday rolled around, they announced that they would no longer play Sunday games.xi They would, however, play one more Sunday home game that season, a 3-1 league win over the Detroit Tigers on July 17th. But that game was played in Newark, New Jersey, where Sunday baseball was legal. The game was a make-up game for a rain-out of a game originally scheduled for May 19th.
Charles Ebbets and the Brooklyn Dodgers, on the other hand, continued the fight. And before their next Sunday game, it even seemed as though the path would be legally clear. The the New York City Police Commissioner announced that week that he would not stop Sunday baseball, at least not in Brooklyn, even under threat of indictment for refusing to enforce the law.
NEW YORK, April 23 - Although he was emphatically told today that he can be indicted unless he enforces the law against Sunday baseball, Police Commissioner McAdoo still sticks to his decision announced yesterday, and there will be games tomorrow both at Ridgewood, in Queens, and Washington park, in Brooklyn. The commissioner let it be inferred that he would welcome indictment and would not fear the consequences.
While allowing ball across the East river, he says he will not permit it in New York. When asked the reason for this discrimination the commissioner replied that the ball grounds in Brooklyn are in sparsely settled districts, where residents would not be annoyed by the crowd. . . .
Mr. McAdoo’s position on Friday was, apparently, that as no complaints against the games played in Brooklyn last Sunday had been received, there was no need for the police to interfere. He did not have this excuse today, as emphatic protest was made to him through his secretary by the Kings county Sabbath observance association and the New York state Sunday observance association, of which Rev. Dr. David J. Burrell is president. . . .
When the commissioner was told of these statements, he said that his position remained unchanged and that his actions would not be influenced by them.
Boston Globe, April 24, 1904, page 2.
He was true to his word - the games went on, but not without police action which resulted in several statistical anomalies in the box score. Brooklyn seemed surprised - but Philadelphia sensed something was amiss, inserting a lead-off batter whose name was not on the original lineup.
Despite his announcement on Friday last that he would permit Sunday baseball playing in Brooklyn, though not in Manhattan, Police Commissioner McAdoo changed his mind yesterday, and by ordering the arrest of three players and three programme sellers at the game between the Brooklyn and Philadelphia teams, at Washington Park, proposes to put the matter up to the courts to say whether playing shall proceed on the Sabbath. After the arrests the game proceeded without interruption.
The men who sold the programmes for 75, 50, and 25 cents, which entitled the holder to admission to the grand stand, open stand, or “bleachers,” were the first to be arrested. With the man at the 50 cent turnstile the cash and programmes were taken by the officer to the station house. Subsequently the cash was returned, but not the programmes.
The big crowd within the park, numbering more than 13,000 persons, was not aware that anything had occurred on the outside, but when policemen slowly walked from the grand stand to the home plate immediately after the first man had gone to bat, shouts and other manifestations of excitement were heard all over the field.
It was while Frank Roth, one of the catchers of the Philadelphia Club, but whose name did not appear on the programme, was at the bat, with “Ed” Poole pitching and “Fred” Jacklitsch catching, that Capt. J. P. White, Sergt. Costello, and Policemen Roddy and Broderick, the Captain and the patrolman in plain clothes, stepped up to Roth and told him that he was under arrest. They did the same thing to Poole and Jacklitsch. The three players walked to the clubhouse unattended, while Capt. White and his subordinates went to the bench of the Philadelphia players and took a bat and ball to place in evidence. . . .
The programme sellers were charged with violating Section 267 of the Penal Code, which prohibits the sale or offering for sale such things on the Sabbath, and the players were charged with violating Section 265 of the same code, which prohibits, racing, gaming, or other sports on the first day of the week. . . .
Captain White further said that he had not received a single protest against playing Sunday games at Washington Park from any of the residents in the neighborhood or anywhere else.
Commissioner McAdoo, however, had received protests against his ruling of last Friday from the Kings County Sunday Observance Association, the Sough Brooklyn Ministers’ Association, the Law Enforcement Society of Brooklyn, and other like organizations, and public statements denouncing his attitude were made by the pastors of several churches in the borough.
President Ebbets of the Brooklyn Club said the proceeding of the Police Commissioner was a surprise to him. Secretary Shettsline of the Philadelphia Club, when asked why Roth was sent to face the pitcher instead of Duffy, who was scheduled to bat first, said that when he saw so many policemen in the grounds he became suspicious, and fearing an arrest explained the situation to Roth, who was willing to have the test made on him instead of Duffy.
New York Times, April 25, 1904, page 14.
The game itself was a something of a statistical anomaly, even before it started. History records the game as a make-up game for a rainout of the game that hadn’t even taken place yet, the game originally scheduled for April 28th.
And despite being jeered for making the arrests to start the game, the Commissioner was later considered a hero; not not for the arrests, but for letting the teams play the game. The game was a good one, with the home team coming from six runs down half-way through the fourth inning, to win by a score of 8-6. The fact that it happened on a Sunday was icing on the cake.
Commissioner McAdoo is to-day a very popular man with Brooklyn baseball fans. If there ever was a beautiful game of baseball, from the standpoint of the admirers of the home club, it was the one played at Washington Park yesterday afternoon. On paper a 1-0 game looks pretty, but the struggle between the Brooklyns and the Philadelphias yesterday was the kind the fans rave over, and because Mr. McAdoo let the game go on he is the fans’ idol. . . .
Whoever it was that permitted the playing of yesterday’s game is entitled to the everlasting gratitude of lovers of baseball. To the charge of making undue noise on the Sabbath the fans can plead extenuating circumstances.
Can you imagine a game where the score stands 6-0 against the home team, and that same home team goes in and, by the grandest exhibition of batting, including solid drives for triples, doubles and singles in rapid succession, wins out? Can you imagine what that crowd would do? Why, of course you can. You know that the crowd would go wild with delight and howl and shout with glee. Well that is just what happened yesterday afternoon at Washington Park, and while the quietude of the Sabbath may have been rudely shattered for the time being, the circumstances were extraordinary and the outburst is at least a bit pardonable.
The Brooklyn Citizen, April 25, 1904, page 4.
Despite the win, it was a big disappointment for Brooklyn’s starting pitcher, Eddie Poole. Poole had made two good starts that season, both losses, but through no fault of his own.
There was a smile a mile wide on Eddie’s face as he walked into the box in the opening inning, for he looked forward to an easy victory. He got two strikes on Roth, the first batter, when Police Captain White and another officer, together with William Howell, the secretary to the Police Commissioner McAdoo, walked on the field.
When Poole learned that he was one of the parties placed under arrest, there was a look on his face which would indicate that he had just lost the last friend that he had in this world.
“Talk about your hard luck, well I guess this is the limit,” said Poole to Jacklitsch and Roth as the three accompanied Captain White to the Forty-sixth precinct station house. “When a fellow loses two games through the worst kind of flukes, it is bad enough, but when the law steps in and stops you from winning a game, then it is time to wonder just where you’re at.”
Brooklyn Citizen, April 25, 1904, page 4.
The three players who were arrested all appear in the box score,xii with zeroes across the board. In all later league games in which players were arrested, the players do not appear in the box scores. It seems as though in some cases, the arrests were expected, and the teams put people in the game they knew would be arrested, and started the box score fresh after the arrests were made.
Roth, Jacklitsch and Poole were arraigned in the Myrtle Avenue police court on Monday, April 25, represented by baseball Hall-of-Famer, John M. Ward, “at one time a famous short stop and now a successful lawyer.” The case was adjourned until Wednesday.xiii
At the hearing on Wednesday, President Ebbets announced that there would no no Sunday game the following week, pending the outcome of the case.
The Brooklyn baseball club will not play any more Sunday games in Brooklyn until the court has decided whether or not such games are legal. We began these games n response to the great demand of the baseball public of Brooklyn, and under the belief that we were entirely within our legal rights.
Boston Globe, April 28, 1904, page 3.
The case was adjourned until Tuesday. On Tuesday, May 2, Justice Gaynor of the Supreme Court of Brooklyn (in New York state, the “Supreme Court” is a lower trial court, not the highest appellate court, as they are commonly called in most jurisdictions), the judge dismissed the case against all of the defendants as a matter of law, apparently with not taking of evidence. “The question,” the judge said, “is whether playing a game of baseball on Sunday is in and of itself a crime or whether it is a crime only when it interrupts the repose and religious liberty of the community.”
But the problem with the case may have been a technical one of pleading and proof, on the part of the police and District Attorney. Justice Gaynor explained the decision in a later case in which he refused to dismiss the charges against Poole for playing in another Sunday game later that summer. In this first case, according to Gaynor, “the complaint was simply that the defendants played a game of baseball on Sunday. There was no allegation that the game was a public one, or that it disturbed the peace of the day by noise. The complaint presented nothing but the case of ordinary private games of baseball . . . which have long been allowed unmolested in his city. . . , and which are not prohibited by the statute . . . .”xiv
The complaint in the later case, on the other hand, was “of a public game of baseball: i. e., of a game held out to the public, i. e., of a game to which the public were invited, and to which an admission fee was charged.” Such a game, Gaynor held, was prohibited by statute. The judge refused to grant the defendants’ motion to discharge, setting the case for trial on the merits at a later date. This later game appears to have stemmed from Brooklyn’s home Sunday baseball game played on May 29, 1904, after which Poole and Frank Dillon were arrested.
The New York Giants also played Sunday baseball in 1904, but not at the Polo Grounds. They were Brooklyn’s opponents on Sunday May 29th, in a game that resulted in arrests after the fact.
Brooklyn Times Union, May 30, 1904, page 5.
The Giants won the game 7-3 without any police interference. Poole, the losing pitcher, walked away from the game a free man this time. But his bad luck would return. One week later, a judge issued a warrant for his arrest, and for the arrest of Brooklyn’s first baseman, Frank “Pop” Dillon.
“That on Sunday, the twenty-ninth day of May, 1904, at an enclosed baseball field in the Borough of Brooklyn, County of Kings and State of New York, said Frank Dillon and Edward Poole did play and perform, exhibit and take part in, and did aid and abet in the exhibition and play of a public sport and game known as baseball between the Brooklyn Baseball Club and a contending club known by the name of the New York Baseball Club, to which the public was admitted, and that fifteen thousand persons at said enclosed field witness the said game. That the said game continued nine innings, and during the whole game the two defendants continued in said game as players.”
“James P. White.
“Sworn to before me this sixth day of June, 1904. W. J. Gaynor, J. S. C.”
Brooklyn Citizen, June 6, 1904, page 3.
Dillon and Poole were cleared of all charges on September 12th, when the court ruled the prosecution had failed to prove their case.
Brooklyn Times Union, September 12, 1904, page 2.
With one legal victory and charges still pending against Dillon and Poole, Brooklyn played three more Sunday games that season without incident; June 5 versus Pittsburgh, June 12 against the St. Louis Cardinals, and June 19 again versus the New York Giants. Brooklyn’s June 19th game against the Giants had no police action, and very little other action, at least by the home team. A reporter marked the game with the sarcastic claim that no Sunday baseball had been played that day, at least not by Brooklyn, in the 11-0 loss.
If Justice Gaynor can prove it was a baseball game, he can accomplish something that the supposed experts could not do.
Brooklyn Citizen, June 20, 1904, page 5.
But the good times would not last. The coup de grace for professional Sunday baseball in New York City, at least for the remainder of the 1904 season, came in a game on Sunday June 26, versus Boston. That game featured one more strange event that would have been one more Sunday baseball-related statistical anomaly if it had been memorialized in the box score.
On Sunday, June 26th, Brooklyn’s catcher, Jacklitsch, and pitcher, Oscar Jones, were arrested after walking the lead-off batter on a count of five balls and two strikes, in a game against the Boston Beaneaters at Washington Park. One might assume the umpire would have been arrested for not sending the batter to first after the regulation four balls - but that’s not what happened.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 27, 1904, page 6.
The anomalous five-ball walk occurred because of a misunderstanding. The teams (and umpire, apparently) expected the arrests to happen after a few tosses back and forth between the pitcher and catcher. The police captain on the scene, however, waited for someone to reach first base. Accounts differ as to whether the delay was because the police arrived late, or because they made that decision without informing the teams.
For some reason or other the police were late getting to the grounds, which brought about a laughable incident. It was understood that one or two of the players would be arrested, so Reidy had two pitchers and two catchers warm up. Jones and Jacklitsch were trotted forth as the battery for the Hanlonites [(Brooklyn)], although it was understood that their part in the game would consist of a ride around to the police station.
Jones pitched four balls and two strikes to Geier, the first Boston batsman, but there was no sign of the police. Jones pitched another ball, which made five balls and two strikes, and then Geier was instructed to go to first. At this point Captain White, reinforced by Sergeants Ruddy and Maloney, walked on the field and place Jones and Jacklitsch under arrest.
Brooklyn Citizen, June 27, 1904, page 5.
It was evident that Mr. Johnstone [(the umpire)] had been tipped off regarding the expected visit of the police. The programme apparently was that Oscar Jones and Fred Jacklitsch were to toss a couple of balls back and forth, whereupon Captain White and his two wardmen, who had been provided with choice box seats in close proximity to the home plate, were to swoop down on the diamond, figuratively speaking, gather in the unfortunate battery and then the game was to proceed officially with Garvin and Ritter in the points.
The first break occurred immediately after the bell rang, when Johnstone announced Garvin and Ritter as the battery, although Jones and Jacklitsch were already in the positions. He corrected himself in response to the clamor from the crowd, but his blush was as fiery as his hair at the mistake, which gave the whole snap away.
It was apparent a moment later that the police had not let the base ball people into the secret as to when the psychological moment would arrive. Johnstone believed that the arrests would be made with the pitching of the first ball. [Police] Captain White, however, had decided to wait until a man reached first base. As a result a new feature of the latter day game was introduced, in that Geier, the first Boston batter up, was not sent to the base until five balls had been called.
At the third ball Johnstone gazed insinuatingly at the box occupied by Captain White, but the latter gave no sign. At the fourth Johnstone looked decidedly worried, but he persisted in keeping Geier at the bat despite the protest of that worthy and the coacher. It was apparent then that the preliminaries to the arrests did not count in the game.
Finally, at the fifth ball Geier was sent to first and then the minions of the law moved. They did not swoop, but walked ponderously across the field. . . .
Captain Dillon was apparently the man the police wanted, but the first baseman intimated that he had been arrested before and that Jones was just aching for the experience.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 27, 1904, page 7.
Boston’s lead-off batter, Phil Geier, wanted in on the fun, asking, “Why don’t you arrest me, too. I’d rather go along with you than stay here and work.” The police declined the offer; leaving him behind to finish the game. This time, however, the game was restarted after the arrests, so unlike the game on April 24, the box score does not list the arrested players, and does not record Geier’s lead-off, five-ball walk.
One other statistical anomaly from that game, however, still remains on the books. A player named Jack White suited up for the Boston Beaneaters that day, playing the entire game in left field, going 0 for five, scoring one run, and making two put-outs with one assist. Those stats are not so unusual, but they are unusual when compared to his states in games the day before and after Boston’s Sunday game in Brooklyn. On Saturday, June 25, White had two hits in five at-bats in 8-5 win, and on Monday, June 27, he went 0 for five in a 6-2 loss. Those two games were not, however, played for Boston. In both of those games, he played for Toronto, of the Eastern League, in games against Eastern League opponents, Jersey City and Providence, respectively.
Jack White was pressed into service because Boston’s captain, Fred Tenney (1b), refused to play baseball on Sunday. Short of players, Boston planned ahead, securing White’s services for one day. White sandwiched the gig in between games in Jersey City and Providence. Boston’s manager, Buck Buckenberger, put White in left field and moved their regular leftfielder, “Doc” Carney, to first base for the day. Jack White’s game for Boston on Sunday, June 26, 1904, stands as White’s one-and-only major league appearance.
It was also Brooklyn’s last Sunday home game of 1904.
1905
New York City’s Sunday baseball experiment resumed again the following spring. The New York Highlanders (Yankees) and Giants scheduled exhibition games for Sunday April 9th. The Yankees were to play the Ridgewoods at Ridgewood Park, but “Captain Aloncie, of the 77th Precinct, occupied the field with a squad of policemen, and positively refused to allow the game to be played. Neither team appeared in uniform, and the crowd went home disappointed.”xv
The Giants played the Emeralds on the grounds of the Catholic Protectory, at Van Nest in the Bronx. The game was allowed to begin, and play continued uninterrupted until the third inning. “John O’Neill, a substitute pitcher for the Giants, was at the bat, while William Cunningham, pitcher, and Charles Williams, catcher, made up the Emerald battery. These three players and Manager E. McLaughlin of the Emerald team were arrested, charged with violating the Sunday laws.” Several hundred fans who had paid 50 cents per scorecard followed the police and their prisoners to the station. The prisoners were promptly bailed out, and “then they went back and played out the game.”xvi
The scene may have looked something like this illustration from a 1904 short story about political opportunism and hypocrisy in the enforcement of Sunday baseball laws.
Illustration from, “Pat Weldon, Reformer,” Edwin J. Webster, Pearson’s Magazine, Volume 11, Number 6, June 1904, page 551.xvii
Neither the Yankees nor the Giants would play a league home game that season. Brooklyn, on the other hand, was up for the fight.
The Evening World, April 22, 1905, page 6.
The Brooklyn Superbas played five home games on Sunday during the 1905 season, April 23 versus Boston, April 30 against the Giants, May 7 with the Phillies, May 14 against Pittsburgh and May 21 versus the Chicago Colts (Cubs). Ebbets used the scorecard ruse again, offering “free” admission without having to purchase a “ticket,” while requiring purchase of a scorecard to gain admission.
There was a large police presence at the first Sunday game against Boston on the 23rd, but the game went off without a hitch. The acting police Captain at the game said he “had no orders to stop the game or arrest anybody. His instructions were simply to get the names of the players, programme sellers, and some persons as witnesses and turn the information over the District Attorney.”xviii
The game may have taken place without incident, but the players were not necessarily off the hook. News leaked out two days later that the police had filed their official report on the game with the District Attorney, and that he “would be ready to proceed in a magistrate’s court in a day or so.”xix
Making good on the threat, the police arrested Brooklyn’s pitcher and catcher from the previous Sunday’s game before a game to be played on Thursday. They were quickly bailed out and both would play in the game that day.
Just previous to the game Eason and Ritter, who composed the battery in last Sunday’s game, were arrested and taken around to the Bergen street station. They were promptly bailed out. Notwithstanding the arrests a game will be played next Sunday.
Brooklyn Citizen, April 28, 1905, page 5.
The Dodgers played the Giants without incident the following Sunday. Well, almost without incident. The only police action was against a crowd of young boys who knocked down a fence to get into the game without participating in the scorecard ruse.
The Sunday Crowds.
Sunday baseball seems to be a fixture over in Brooklyn. The trolley dodgers pulled off another game over there last Sunday and there was not the slightest hint of interference from the police. That Sunday baseball is popular with a goodly portion of our citizens was attested in the fact that Washington Park has never before held such a crowd of “friends.” The small boy was also largely in evidence, and the Sunday-schools of many Brooklyn churches must have suffered badly in consequence, not that the kid saved Sunday-school money to get into the game, for they did nothing of the sort. The average Brooklyn boy does not believe in paying for this sort of pleasure. He knows of a way that appeals more strongly to him. At the Sunday game there was a crowd of at least half a hundred of them that formed a “flying wedge” against the eastern fence and it went down in a heap, admitting not less than five hundred youngsters before the police could reach the breach and stop the inflow of self-made “deadheads.”
Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York), May 3, 1905, page 6.
While Sunday baseball case made its way through the courts, Brooklyn continued playing Sunday baseball with no further arrests. They took down the Phillies 4-2 on Sunday May 7, land let the Pirates steal one from them by the score of 5-1 on May 14.
The Brooklyn Superbas/Bridegrooms/Trolley Dodgers lost to the Chicago Colts (Cubs), 11-2, on May 21st. Although a positive outcome in the pending Sunday baseball case, later that week, made it seem as though Sunday baseball might be here to stay, it would prove to be their last home Sunday game of the year.
Malcolm W. Eason, pitcher, and Louis Ritter, catcher, of the Brooklyn baseball club, who were arrested three weeks ago at Brooklyn for playing baseball on Sunday during a contest open to the public, have been discharged by Magistrate Dooley. Magistrate Dooley said in discharging the men: “I am following the decision of the court of special sessions, which ruled a year ago that the men were not violating the law in a similar case. I feel bound to accept the superior court’s judgment.” Magistrate Dooley’s decision in he matter means that Sunday ball may be played in Brooklyn in the future without any interference from the police authorities.
Sedalia Democrat (Sedalia, Missouri), May 21, 1905, page 8.
Within days of the decision, Brooklyn’s Corporate Counsel, Delaney, submitted an extensive written opinion on the legality of professional Sunday baseball and the scorecard ruse to the Police Commissioner, who announced plans to enforce the law consistent with the opinion - it was illegal, and law enforcement officers would stop it, regardless of one’s personal opinion of the the law.
[In the opinion of Brooklyn Corporate Counsel Delaney] “It may be regarded as settled that a public game on Sunday for which admission is charged, and which is advertised, is a violation of the Penal Code. If baseball is so played as to be a misdemeanor, it is not only the right but the duty of any police officer to arrest the persons guilty of this misdemeanor without waiting for a warrant.”
“I will issue orders to the police force to make arrests for every violation of the law where baseball is played on Sunday as an advertised game, and to which an admission fee is charged, directly or indirectly,” Mr. McAdoo said yesterday. “Without regard to what my own personal feelings may be on this subject, either from a moral, religious or legal standpoint, I will act upon the advice given me by the Corporation Counsel and will order the police to suppress Sunday baseball playing under the conditions mentioned. This means that professional games are clearly barred.”
New York Tribune, May 24, 1905, page 10.
The threat would work. Brooklyn would not play another Sunday baseball game that season.
1906
The Brooklyn Dodgers were back on the Sunday baseball bandwagon to start the 1906 season, this time with a new scheme - “free” admission with contribution boxes.
Sunday baseball in Brooklyn by National League teams will undoubtedly be a fixture this summer. The first game will be played at Washington park to-morrow. Boston and Brooklyn will be the contenders. There will be no police interference, as no admission fee will be charged. Neither will the old subterfuge of selling programmes be resorted to. There will be, however, contribution boxes, conveniently located, in which anyone who feels so disposed may drop a quarter, half or seventy-five cents. In no case will any person who is unwilling to so contribute be denied admission to the park.
Brooklyn Citizen, April 14, 1906, page 1.
The scheme seemed to have cracked the Sunday baseball code - at least initially.
The use of contribution boxes apparently has solved the problem of how to play baseball on Sunday at Washington Park, Brooklyn, without violating the law. The Brooklyn Club instituted the scheme in the championship game between the Boston and Brooklyn teams yesterday, and, according to Deputy Police Commissioner Arthur J. O’Keefe, who was present, he observed nothing in the way that visitors gained entrance to the grounds that could be construed as an evasion of the statute.
Long tin boxes used for the reception of tickets at games were placed conspicuously at the various entrances, and it was clearly understood that a person entering the grounds was not compelled to give the usual price demanded for various locations, but could drop in the boxes the amount he wanted to. Of the estimated crowd of 3,500 persons present yesterday not one was turned away or not having a sufficient contribution.
New York Times, April 16, 1906, page 18.
Brooklyn would play three more Sunday games at home without incident before it all blew up in their faces. Ebbets, perhaps emboldened by his initial success, announced changes to the remaining season’s schedule, penciling in a number of Sunday games. The early Sunday games are all listed in the official record as “schedule changes.” It might have worked if they had continued letting in fans regardless of how much they donated. But they had apparently started to deny admission to people who didn’t want to donate, or who donated too little.
Authorities announced their intent to crack down on the practice before a game against Chicago scheduled for Sunday June 10th.
Baseball games scheduled for Sunday in all the boroughs are to be stopped by the police, that is, where contributions or money is passed in any form. This was announced to-day at the local police headquarters by Deputy Commissioner Arthur J. O’Keeffe.
Mr. O’Keeffe attended a game last Sunday at Washington Park, and there he found a number of men protesting against being charged admission to the grounds. He notified the management at the time that unless the protestants were admitted the game could not go on.
There was a contribution box at the entrance, in which the people were required to deposit anywhere from 25 to 75 cents. This the deputy considered a direct violation of the law, and led, so it is said, to his having a talk with Police Commissioner Bingham regarding the matter. . . .
President Pulliam of the National League recently changed the playing schedule of the Brooklyn team so that several games could be played here on Sundays instead of on week days. The Chicago team, according to that schedule, was to play here this Sunday.
Brooklyn Citizen, June 8, 1906, page 1.
Deputy Commissioner O’Keefe said that, “if they live up to their own rule they will not be interfered with by the police,” but taking money wasn’t the only problem. The Police Commissioner, Bingham, received complaints from clergy and civilians that “young men on the way home from the ball games generally took possession of the elevated and surface cars, and made it mighty uncomfortable for passengers.” Moreover, Deputy Commissioner, O’Keeffe, believed that it is far from “agreeable to people on their way to church to see men playing baseball.”xx
Chicago refused to play that Sunday, not wanting to deal with the fallout from any potential police or legal action. But the snit hit the fans hard the following Sunday in a game with Cincinnati on Sunday, June 17. Police walked onto the field after two pitches to arrest Brooklyn’s pitcher, Eason, and Cincinnati’s batter, Charles Fraser, along with Charles Ebbets and the managers of both teams. The game was restarted, and the box score shows nothing amiss, except for a notation indicating that the game was a make-up game for a rainout that hadn’t happened yet. Heavy rain did fall in New York City the following day, so perhaps they were just trying to get the game in before the rains came.
The Brooklyn-Cincinnati game was not the only game raided that day. At least “thirty-seven players and managers of baseball were arrested” on Sunday June 17, 1906, for violating the Sabbath laws. The Dodgers actually got off easily that day, having been allowed to finish the game. Other games were stopped summarily. Two amateur teams in South Brooklyn beat the system by putting sacrificial Patsies in the game to be arrested early, after which the real players emerged to play an entire nine inning game.xxi
A judge dismissed all of the charges against those arrested at the Brooklyn-Cincinnati game.
Sunday baseball playing at Washington Park will go on in the future without interruption from the police, according to a decision by Magistrate Naumer in the Myrtle avenue court today.
The charge of playing baseball on Sunday was made against President Charles Ebbets, “Ned” Hanlon, “Patsy” Donovan, “Mal” Eason and “Chick” Fraser, who were arrested last Sunday afternoon at the Brooklyn-Cincinnati game, by Capt. Sylvester D. Baldwin and three of his plain clothes men.
“There was no serious disturbance at the game,” said magistrate naumer. “It was played in an enclosure and could not be seen from the streets. Therefore, taking into consideration Sections 259 and 265 of the Penal Code and the fact that the peace was not disturbed, I dismiss the defendants.”
Standard Union, June 19, 1906, page 1.
Despite prevailing on the merits, however, there would be no more major league baseball played on Sundays in New York City until 1917.
1917
In 1917, the Yankees, Giants and Dodgers all took advantage of patriotic feeling accompanying the United States’ entry into World War I, playing one home Sunday baseball game each as a fundraising benefit.
Yankees.
Thirty thousand baseball enthusiasts performed part of their patriotic duty at the Polo Grounds yesterday afternoon while the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Browns played the first major league championship game ever contested in Manhattan on the Sabbath. That the Yankees lost a bitterly fought game by a score of 2 to 1 really mattered little.
The game was played for the benefit of the Engineers’ Reserve Corps, and 21,000 spectators paid their way into the grounds. After all expenses were deducted approximately $10,000 were donated to a fund for the support of the dependents of the boys in the corps who will soon take their place on the firing line in France.
New York Tribune, June 18, 1917, page 11.
Dodgers.
Summonses which charge a violation of the Sunday law were issued by Magistrate Geismar in the Flatbush police court today, as a result of the baseball game which was played at Ebbets Field yesterday afternoon in connection with the charity concert for the benefit of the Red Cross, the Militia of Mercy and other Brooklyn charities.
The baseball game was billed as a “free exhibition game,” on the back of the tickets of admission for the sacred concert. Ticket holders were directed to keep their seats after the concert. The tickets stated that they were admissions to the concert, but that the “free” baseball game would follow.”
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 2, 1917, page 2.
Giants.
The great baseball game at the Polo Grounds yesterday between the Giants and Reds for the benefit of the “Fighting Sixty-ninth Regiment” was remarkable for its enthusiasm and attendance. The worlds of sport, finance, commerce, religion and law were represented by men notable in these and other fields, as show by the photograph.
New York Sun, August 20, 1917, page 5.
Each of the games was played without interruption, but arrests were made following the Dodgers’ and Giants’ games. At least one additional planned benefit, in Brooklyn, was canceled, and perhaps others that might have been planned at the Polo Grounds were never scheduled.
Not everyone approved. Earl Obershain of the St. Louis Sporting News wrote an opinion piece critical of the arrests, which may have reflected the general mood of the fanbase.
[T]he Sunday ball fanatics in New York likely overplayed their hand in stopping the benefit games that were to have been played for the comfort fund of the army and navy. It will be remembered that the program for Sunday games in New York City and Brooklyn, which were expected to net at least $100,000 for the soldiers and sailors, was blocked by the arrest of the Brooklyn club officials following a game played on a Sunday at Ebbets field.
Old women in pants and petticoats cackled with glee when the authorities haled the baseball men into court and stopped the Sunday games. They gave praise to the gods of their sour imaginations that the sacred Sabbath had been preserved from desecration. But now they find they have a more serious fight on their hands before the succeed in making the world as blue as their noses, for their action has aroused a public too long indulgent in its rationalism, and a concerted movement has begun to secure repeal of the sixteenth century laws that prevent the playing of baseball on the ‘Lord’s day.’
Daily Times (Davenport, Iowa), August 9, 1917, page 9.
A New York magistrate also disagreed with the arrests, dismissing the charges against the Giants’ manager, John McGraw, and Cincinnati’s manager, Christy Mathewson.
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| Star Gazette (Elmira, New York), August 23, 1917, page 2. |
On April 19, 1919, four days before opening day, New York’s Governor, Al Smith, signed a bill making Sunday baseball legal throughout New York, at least as a matter of state law. Local jurisdictions retained the power to ban the game at their option. New York City took no action to ban the games, and all three major league teams in the city played a full slate of Sunday baseball games in 1919. The Governor signed a Sunday movie bill on the same day.
Ithaca Journal (Ithaca, New York), April 19, 1919, page 1.
New York’s adoption of Sunday baseball left only three major league cities without Sunday baseball, Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
 |
New York Herald, April 20, 1919, section 2, page 7. |
Other cities, states, jurisdictions, hamlets and burghs would continue fighting their own Sunday baseball battles here and there and various places and times. But in New York City, the question had finally been decided. But nature abhors a vacuum. The “Blue Law” prohibiting Sunday baseball Sunday baseball was overturned just in time to make way for another, even more intrusive “Blue Law” - nationwide prohibition under the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which went into effect in 1920.
i Buffalo Commercial, April 23, 1903, page 1.
ii New York Times, March 30, 1903, page 3; @BaseballandtheLaw on Twitter, March 29, 2023 (https://twitter.com/BaseballandLaw/status/1641037916196536321 ).
iii Brooklyn Times Union, May 25, 1903, page 5.
iv The story was about an opportunistic politician who curried favor with a minister to whip up anti-Sunday baseball fervor in order to exact political revenge on a rival, not out of a deeply held religious conviction.
v For more on why the New York Americans were called Highlanders, Hillmen, Yankees and other names, see my earlier post, “Pinstripes and Plaid - why the New York Americans became Highlanders and Yankees,” https://esnpc.blogspot.com/2021/03/pinstripes-and-plaid-why-new-york.html .
vi For more on why the Brooklyn Nationals were called Superbas, Bridegrooms, Trolley Dodgers or Dodgers, see my earlier post, “The Grim Reality of the ‘Trolley Dodgers,’” https://esnpc.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-grim-reality-of-trolley-dodgers.html .
vii The expression, “championship games,” as used here refers to what today is generally referred to as a “regular season game,” “championship” referring to the fact that the outcome of the game counted in team’s record in the race for the league season championship.
viii Buffalo Commercial, April 18, 1904, page 7.
ix https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BRO/BRO190404170.shtml
x New York Tribune, April 18, 1904, page 9.
xi Detroit Free Press, April 24, 1904, page 12 (“Neither of the Manhattan clubs, it has already been decided, will be allowed to play the game on the Sabbath day, though Brooklyn, whose grounds are more remotely located, may continue the games that were begun last Sunday.”).
xii https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BRO/BRO190404240.shtml
xiii Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette, April 26, 1904, page 13.
xiv People v. Poole et al., New York Annotated Cases, Volume 15, page 150 (44 Misc. 118, 89 N. Y. Supp. 773).
xv New York Tribune, April 10, 1905, page 4.
xvi New York Tribune, April 10, 1905, page 4.
xvii The story was about an opportunistic politician who curried favor with a minister to whip up anti-Sunday baseball fervor in order to exact political revenge on a rival, not out of a deeply held religious conviction.
xviii New York Times, April 24, 1905, page 7.
xix Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 25, 1905, page 3.
xx Brooklyn Citizen, June 8, 1906, page 1.
xxi Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 18, 1906, page 2.
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