2021: The Year in Review, Part A
History is a myth agreed upon. Napoleon Bonaparte
January 1, 2022
For the Baseball fan, the year of 2021 was probably far more interesting than usual. After the Co-vid pandemic wiped out most of the 2020 season, Major League Baseball played the 2021 season under the threat that this contagion would wipe out another year too. Fortunately, the 2021 Baseball season was finished without any interruptions. The year was filled with interesting stories and unforgettable moments, everything from Shohei Ohtani turning into the modern day Babe Ruth to Trea Turner’s strangely graceful pop-up slide across home plate. The year in Major League Baseball ended with the Atlanta Braves winning the World Series in 6 games over the Houston Astros. After finishing a grueling season against all odds, the final coda to the 2021 season was even harsher. The Major League Baseball Owners locked the Major League Players out on December 1st of 2021, threatening the beginning of the 2022 season. It certainly felt like Deja Vu; or perhaps just a bad feeling of “the more things change, the more things stay the same.” But none of these things are the first thing that comes to mind when I think about the 2021 season. I believe that the year 2021 marked a major milestone in the Baseball Time Line. I maintain that 2021 was the first year of Baseball’s “Third Age.” The future of Baseball has arrived. Or perhaps I just read too many books about History.
The Time Line of Baseball History
Historians love to cut up time into Ages and Eras, Epochs and Generations. Then they divide these units like quadratic equations. The long Time Line of Baseball History is treated no differently by those who chronicle it. Even the casual Baseball fan has probably heard of the Dead Ball Era or the Lively Ball Era or the Golden Age of Baseball. Before the internet site Baseball Reference became the go-to-place for Baseball statistics, many fans got their stats from published encyclopedias. One of these old encyclopedias (Neft’s: The Sports Encyclopedia Baseball) even arranged its statistics by Eras. These arbitrary periods of time often make no sense. The “Dead Ball Era” is usually listed as lasting from 1901 to 1919. But this is simply not correct. The defining line of the Dead Ball Era should be the adoption of the cork-centered baseball. This “lively” baseball” was adopted late in the 1909 season and first fully used in 1910. The true Dead Ball Era was from 1871 until 1909. From 1910 to 1919, baseball players were damaging, defacing, deforming, vandalizing or dirtying up the new lively baseball until it acted like a non-cork-centered “Dead” ball. It is odd that no baseball historian has ever nicknamed this transitional time period the “Dirty Ball Era.”
The First Age of Baseball
In any event, during the entire history of Professional Baseball from 1871 to the present, there are only really two distinct “Ages” in the Baseball Time Line. Of course, these “Ages” can be endlessly sub-divided into many smaller Eras. But the true “First Age” of Baseball lasted from the initial professional season of 1871 until 1945 (before 1871 would be the equivalent of the prehistory or “Dark Ages” of professional baseball). This First Age could also be called the “Age of Segregation.” This Age’s chief characteristic was the establishment of two completely different systems of Professional Baseball. One system was called “Organized Baseball.” This structure was comprised of the White Major Leagues and its affiliated minor leagues. Alongside Organized Baseball grew a completely different and separate system which offered baseball players of African American heritage opportunities to pursue their careers. This other structure is now usually referred to as the “Negro Leagues.” In its broadest sense, the “Negro Leagues” included not only the teams and leagues of the actual Negro Leagues but also the entire structure, from the summer fields of Latin America to the wind swept plains of Canada, under its umbrella.
In this First Age, the sport of Baseball was truly the “National Pastime” of the United States of America. Virtually every village or town had its own baseball team. Every small city had multiple teams. Larger cities were awash in both professional and amateur teams and leagues. There were many professional traveling teams. If you grew up in the United States from 1871 until 1945, it is very unlikely that you did not participate in the game of baseball in some way. Baseball had no real competition from other sports for its talent; and, because Baseball was so widespread, this talent could come from anywhere. Both the best white player and black pitcher of this Age (Babe Ruth and Satchel Paige) came from reform schools. Although the White Major Leagues represented the pinnacle of Baseball in the United States, the Minor Leagues were mostly independent teams and leagues. A good professional ballplayer could play in this system until his late 40s or even early 50s and then manage or coach until he was ready to retire. During this First Age, Baseball grew outside the United States in places as far apart as Canada and Japan. But mostly it grew in Cuba and other Latin America countries, reaching all the way down to Venezuela in South America.
The Second Age of Baseball
In 1946, the “Second Age” of Baseball began when the White Major League’s Brooklyn Dodgers club signed Jackie Robinson of the Negro League’s Kansas City Monarchs to a Minor League contract. This Age could also be called the “Age of Integration.” As the walls of segregation came tumbling down, it was at the complete expense of the parallel Baseball system operating behind the “Color Line.” By the 1960s, the Negro Leagues had completely crumbled and disappeared. All of the Latin American teams and leagues that had been part of the Negro League system became affiliated and subservient to Organized Baseball. Simultaneously, the Major Leagues extinguished the final traces of Minor League independence. All Minor League teams became part of a Major League “farm system.” By moving teams around and adding new franchises, the Major Leagues covered the entire country. At the end of the 20th century, the Major Leagues even began signing the greatest players from the Japanese Major Leagues. By the dawn of the 21st century, the Major Leagues reigned supreme at the pinnacle of the Baseball pyramid. All of the remaining talent in the Baseball world flowed towards the lucrative paychecks from the Major Leagues.
However, during this “Second Age” of Baseball, the sport lost its status as the “National Pastime” of the United States of America. At the very least, Football surpassed Baseball as the most popular sport in the country (and, it could be argued, probably Basketball too). The blanket of baseball teams that covered the country down to the smallest hamlet evaporated. Baseball talent began to be funneled up from organized youth leagues or colleges. Players who fell off a career path to the Major Leagues were unable to continue their careers for very long. Other professional sports were able to drain away some of the best talent. Vincent “Bo” Jackson, possibly the most physically gifted player of the 1980s, played Baseball as a “hobby” during Football’s off-season. At the beginning of this Second Age, the very greatest players (Henry Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays) were all the sons of fathers whose love of baseball had never been consummated with a Major League career. Later, the best players (Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds) were the sons of former Major League players. As the Age wore on, players from Latin America Countries that loved Baseball poured into the Major Leagues in ever greater numbers. Baseball became just another competitive sport played by the talented few for the entertainment of the many.
The Third Age of Baseball?
I believe that the “Second Age of Baseball” ended in the pandemic wrecked season of 2020. Of course, the symmetry of the First Age of Baseball lasting exactly 75 years from 1871 to 1945 and then the Second Age lasting exactly 75 years from 1946 to 2020 seems too proportionately pat to be true. But what better year to call the end of the Second Age than 2020? The Baseball year of 2021 saw the final and absolute subjugation of the Minor League system by the Major Leagues. And, for the first time, the very best player in the Major Leagues (Shohei Ohtani) was not even raised in the United States. A new Age has dawned. The first question should probably be: what should we call this Age? One candidate would simply be the “International Age” of Baseball in honor of the great Ohtani. Yet another candidate would be the “Corporate Age” of Baseball in honor of the “Money Ball” tactics of modern front offices. Baseball, which spent most of its history governed like a old school southern plantation, is now managed like a modern business. The baseball season of 2021 ended in a lock out of the Major League Players. The Baseball Owners are prepared to fight and possibly wreck the game so that their new found business skills can continue to be leveraged to increase their profits at the expense of the players.
One notable feature of this new Baseball Age is the degree that the sport has become a game of birthright. The game is definitely no longer the National Pastime, played by all. You could also call this part of the Baseball Time Line the “Legacy Age.” Ken Griffey Junior could be the poster child for this name. Long ago, baseball players would come from just about anywhere. There is no evidence that the father of either Babe Ruth or Satchel Paige ever played the game. Now many of the best players (Vlad Junior, Tatis Junior, etc) have fathers who played in the Major Leagues. The future of Baseball may be ruled by the sons of former Major Leaguers. Of course, right now many of the best players are still the sons of frustrated former baseball fathers who didn’t make it (Mike Trout, whose father played in the Minor Leagues, and even the great Shohei Ohtani, whose father played in the Japanese Industrial Leagues, would be examples). In this “Third Age” of Baseball, the game will probably begin to more and more resemble the Hollywood Film Industry. Hopefully, the game of Baseball will never have to have a player change his last name (like Nick “Cage” Coppola) to short circuit charges of nepotism rather than talent.*
*Update [3/13/2022]: Oddly enough, something like this has already happened. Only the last names were not changed to protect the guilty. Marc Sullivan, the son of the Boston Red Sox co-owner Haywood Sullivan, played for the BoSox in 1982 and 1984-1987, getting into 137 Major League games. The sum total of the reasons why Sullivan was given a Major League job are contained by this sentence: He was the son of the Boston Red Sox co-owner Haywood Sullivan.
Conclusion
What does all this mean? The human mind loves to organize information. So, in a sense, these historical markers in the “Time Line” of Baseball are just man-made constructs that separate what is really just gradual changes with various exclamation marks. But there is also always the chance that organization will result in insight.
NEXT:
- Another Hall of Fame Post: the BBWA Ballot for 2022
- The Year in Review, Part B: The Giants and Old Age
- The Year in Review, Part C: The Braves and the Legacy of the Negro Leagues