Grover Cleveland Alexander’s World War One draft registration card

A few weeks back on Opening Day I mentioned that baseball once began much later than it does today. The Cubs and Cardinals began their 1918 seasons playing each other on April 16. Those on the field in St.Louis that day included Grover Cleveland Alexander, starting for the Cubs, and Rogers Hornsby, playing shortstop for the Cardinals. Alexander was an established star by this point and was slated to earn $8000 for the season; Hornsby, an up-and-comer in his third season with the Cardinals, would earn precisely half that after losing a bitter contract dispute to the Cardinals’ Branch Rickey. Throughout late 1917 and early 1918 baseball players were getting their draft notices from their local boards. In January 1918 Hornsby had appealed for a deferment to board officials back home in Fort Worth, Texas. Hornsby argued that his baseball salary was his family’s sole source of income. He received a Class 3 deferment and was thus free to play ball.

Owners understood that there was a manpower shortage and agreed to a 21 (not 25) player roster for the 1918 season. They also held an abbreviated spring training. Though Grover Cleveland Alexander turned thirty-one in February 1918 he was still eligible for the draft. In December 1917 the Philadelphia Phillies traded Alexander and batterymate Bill Killefer to the Cubs. The trade was partly about money but another, more cynical, reason may have been because Phillies management realized that both players were likely to be drafted into the A.E.F. sometime in 1918. The trade was a huge deal and made headlines across the country.

Alexander held out for a signing bonus but finally reported to the Cubs in mid-March. Meanwhile his draft board went about its work. The head clerk in Howard Country, Nebraska announced on April 12 that as of yet Alexander had not been called. There was great confusion, with some newspapers saying Alexander had been drafted and others saying he had not. Less than forty-eight hours later things had become clearer. Grover Cleveland Alexander had indeed been drafted into the Army and was to report to Camp Funston by the end of the month. Alexander asked to be allowed to join the Navy but his draft board would not have it.

Cubs and Cardinals 1918 Opening Day box score, via Baseball Almanac. Grover Cleveland Alexander had been drafted just days before the game and would join the Army by the end of April.

The pitcher’s call-up finally came just as the Cubs were breaking training in mid-April. On April 16 Alexander and the Cubs were in St. Louis to begin their season against the Cardinals. That very day Killefer received notice from his own draft board in Michigan that he had been declared 1A: eligible for draft and service. The board had originally designated Killefer 4A but the government appealed that status and won. So there they were facing the Rogers Hornsby and the Cardinals at Robison Field. Alexander pitched well but not effectively enough to win. The Cardinals took the contest 4-2. He went 1-for 3 at the plate. Hornsby went 1-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI. Sure enough, Alexander would soon leave the Cubs to train at Camp Funston. He pitched two more games, winning both and ending his season, before it truly began, with three complete games and a 1.73 ERA.

The United States was not yet involved in the Great War when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 1916. Still, by this time Canadian and other colonial troops were already playing the game overseas in their own military leagues. Note Babe Ruth sitting fourth from the left.

They are playing the All Star game tonight in San Diego. During the Great War the best individual players of the American League did not yet play their counterparts from the Senior Circuit in the game that traditionally marks the half way point of a season. That is probably because the World Series itself had begun only in 1903 and the game was still institutionalizing itself. Still, even though the United States had not entered the war by 1916, baseball was catching on overseas; it was the war’s second summer and Canadians had brought the game with them when they packed their old kit bags and headed off to fight the Hun. There were even military leagues comprised of Canadians and other men from the colonies playing one another.

Wounded Canadians pose in Mrs. Astor’s hospital, c. 1915

Men in uniform brought baseball to many corners of the globe over the course the twentieth century. The U.S. occupations of Latin and South America are what led to the rise of the Dominican, Puerto Rican and other Hispanic stars we see today. Baseball’s popularity expanded in Japan after 1945, though I hasten to add that the baseball was already going strong with the Japanese even in the 1920s and 1930s. William Howard Taft noted in the 1910s, after his presidency, that Filipinos were picking up the game during his years as Governor-General of the Philippines. Americans entered the Great War in 1917 and when they did of course brought their bats, balls, and gloves with them. Even stars like Ty Cobb ended up in uniform.

It is curious why the game did not stick permanently with Europeans after the war. Perhaps it was because the countries were too devastated and the populations of young men too damaged to take up the pastime. Or maybe cricket, soccer, cycling and the like were just too entrenched. Or maybe it was a combination of all these things. Again, I don’t know. We can only wonder might have happened to international baseball had the game not had more a fleeting moment in the sun during the First World War.

(images/Library of Congress)