Big Bambino… Sultan of Swat… Steelworker?
Yes, Babe Ruth, the man who would hit 714 home runs in Major League Baseball, worked as a steelworker early in his career. Why did he go on to work for Bethlehem Steel in Lebanon, Pennsylvania? The career change was a result of a U.S. government directive during World War I called the Work or Fight Order: eligible men had to register for the draft or find essential work, such as in a steel mill. But there was a loophole for major leaguers like Ruth. Bethlehem Steel had its own baseball league and was only too happy to hire professional athletes, ostensibly for war-related jobs but really to improve the competitiveness of its league. This story emerges from obscurity in a book published earlier this year: Work, fight or play ballby Pennsylvania-based journalist William Ecenbarger.
“We didn’t know how long the war would last,” says Ecenbarger. “There were fears that we would be drafted. The obvious way out was to work with one of the shipyards or steel mills.”
Among the players who did so were not only Ruth, but also such greats as Shoeless Joe Jackson and Rogers Hornsby. The list included about 45 active major leaguers, as well as about 30 retired players.
Related: Babe Ruth’s 1932 World Series jersey sells for record $24.1 million
Bethlehem Steel had the money and the motivation. Business was booming because of orders to build ships that would transport troops to Europe during the war. Owner Charles Schwab (no, not the financial services guru) created the Bethlehem Steel League in 1917 to entertain his growing workforce. Its six teams were originally made up of steelworkers, but the order to work or fight sparked an exodus from big business when it was issued in May 1918.
Most of the players went to the Bethlehem Steel League, and some joined the rival Delaware River Shipbuilding League, which was also linked to Schwab.
“It’s hard to generalize what the players’ motivations were,” Ecenbarger says. “I think some players genuinely wanted to participate in the war effort.”
Shoeless Joe falls into that category. Though the Chicago White Sox star would become infamous the following year in the Black Sox scandal, Ecenbarger credits Jackson with going to work as a painter and raising money for the war effort on his days off. But he adds, “I think the overwhelming majority wanted to avoid the draft, to avoid going to France.”
Ruth and his Boston Red Sox teammates had received an exemption from the draft because they had played in the 1918 World Series. So had their rivals, the Chicago Cubs. After the series ended with a Red Sox victory, Ruth joined the Bethlehem Steel mill in Lebanon, where he rented an apartment and bought a new Scripps-Booth roadster.
It did not hurt that Bethlehem Steel paid baseball players higher wages than regular employees.
“I’m sure there was a lot of resentment among the regular workers,” Ecenbarger says. “It’s hard to document. There’s not a lot written about this league.”
The author lives not far from Lebanon. Thirty-five years ago, he was walking his dog through an abandoned turn-of-the-century amusement park. There was a sign nearby: “Babe Ruth Field.” He contacted the Lebanon County Historical Society: “He never played here, did he?” “Oh, yes, he did.” The society had what it claimed to be Babe’s old jersey, adorned only with the words “Beth Steel” (there were no uniform numbers back then). The memory remained in Ecenbarger’s mind. Several years ago, his wife suggested he write a book about the Steel League.
Ecenbarger consulted the library for biographies of major players, including Ruth, Hornsby and Jackson, but details about the Steel League were scant. A visit to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum also yielded little information. Newspapers from 1917 and 1918 proved more useful. With baseball the supreme national pastime, still unrivaled by football, basketball and hockey, and with print journalism the primary source of information, exhaustive game summaries proved invaluable.
The book explores the complex role of baseball in American society after the country entered the war. According to the author, Americans were pressured to “do their part” and those who resisted doing so were labeled “lazy.” Players participated in mock military exercises in baseball stadiums, using bats instead of rifles.
Major League Baseball players joined the war effort. Ecenbarger estimates the number was 250, and notes that they included Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson and Grover Cleveland Alexander, later Hall of Famers.
“Cobb was considered the best player in the game,” Ecenbarger says. “He had three young children and a deferment, but he signed up anyway for a unit that was one of the most dangerous in the military,” the Army’s Chemical Warfare Division, which “offered defense against poison gas attacks… It was dangerous for Christy Mathewson, who served with Cobb and was gassed in France. It ended his career. Grover Cleveland Alexander, the Cubs’ star pitcher, missed the World Series because he was in France.”
Shoeless Joe Jackson had three brothers serving in France. He was married and had two other brothers and a widowed mother who depended on him for support. In the spring of 1918, Jackson’s South Carolina draft board revoked his exemption.
“Other major league players said if they could draft Joe Jackson, they could draft anybody,” Ecenbarger said.
Jackson set a precedent by leaving the White Sox for a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel, the Delaware-based Harlan & Hollingsworth Shipbuilding Company. He joined his new employer’s Wilmington team.
“Shoeless Joe Jackson once said it was harder to hit in the Bethlehem Steel League than in the American League,” Ecenbarger says. “The quality of players was very high… the teams in central Pennsylvania and Wilmington tended to attract more of the Philadelphia Athletics and Philadelphia Phillies.”
Throughout that summer, Ruth held down his position with the Red Sox. At the time, he was known as a standout pitcher, not a power hitter. The war and the Steel League changed things. As his teammates left for one team or another, the short-handed Red Sox put Ruth in the outfield. At the plate, he dazzled with his home run power, a rarity for the era.
In the World Series, Ruth pitched a shutout in the first game. Befitting the national patriotic sentiment, the national anthem was played during the seventh inning. Ruth saw his record streak of scoreless innings in the World Series end in Game 4, but he and the Red Sox went on to win the championship. He then prepared for his new “career” as a steelworker—specifically, a blueprint messenger.
Ruth didn’t deliver any blueprints while on the Bethlehem Steel roster. He ended up playing just one exhibition game for Lebanon. In the eighth inning, he came up to bat with no one out and runners on second and third. He was intentionally walked, which dismayed the crowd, and the pitcher left the inning.
Ecenbarger interviewed two locals with memories of Ruth for a Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday magazine article in the late 1980s.
“They both told me that Babe Ruth didn’t work in the steel mill,” Ecenbarger says. “He would come to the mill dressed in expensive clothes and talk to people about baseball for an hour, and then leave.”
Other baseball players made plans to follow Ruth to the Steel League, while the majors decided to cancel the 1919 season.
“The Red Sox and Cubs players… after the World Series, (they) started moving over to the Bethlehem Steel League,” Ecenbarger says. “Everyone thought the war would continue.”
Instead, the conflict ended in November. The 1919 season resumed and the Steel League folded that year while the majors reached a new attendance record.
“Some people wondered what they would do with the players who went over to the Bethlehem Steel League,” Ecenbarger says. “Some suggested they should be banned from playing baseball forever. The owners realized they really needed their star players back. They all came back.”
Jackson was eventually banned from playing baseball for life, not because of the Steel League, but because of his involvement in the Black Sox scandal.
“He didn’t realize that some of the things he was doing weren’t going to be popular,” Ecenbarger says. “He was easily fooled.” But, the author adds, “from everything I’ve read about him in the shipyards and in the steelworks, he worked and worked hard… He really tried to be involved in the war effort; he ‘did his bit,’ as they say.”
