A publication of the Society for American Baseball Research Business of Baseball Committee December 27, 2010 Fall 2010 Financial Archives of the AAGPBL Were the Boston Braves of the Teens and Twenties Really Controlled by Tammany By Michael J. Haupert Hall and the New York Giants? University of Wisconsin – La Crosse By Fr. Gerald Beirne In 1943, with America at war and men subject to the military draft, the rosters of professional baseball “Shocking! I am shocked that there is gambling in this teams were rapidly being depleted. Philip K. Wrigley, place!” One of the most quoted and parodied lines owner of the Chicago Cubs, feared the day might from one of Hollywood’s all-time greatest movies. come when there would not be enough men left to However the baseball world truly was “Shocked!” two populate the rosters of Major League Baseball teams. years running when the National League’s greatest To prepare for such an event he began to formulate a star and premier player, Rogers Hornsby, was traded plan to run a professional women’s league. to the New York Giants only three months after lead- ing the St. Louis Cardinals to their very first pennant As it turned out, that day never arrived, but the league in 1926 and subsequent World Series championship began play none-the-less. In 1943 the All-American and then traded again the very next season to the Bos- Girls Softball League debuted. It underwent several ton Braves. name changes, but survived for more than a decade, fielding teams in four to ten cities each year. The How could the premier player of the league be dis- league faded out of existence after the 1954 season missed from the first division Giants to the seventh and was largely forgotten until it was immortalized in place and going nowhere Braves for two young but the 1992 film A League of their Own. Since that time marginal players? Was it a gift? Or a dumping? Or a the league has been the subject of numerous books, McGraw mistake? Was this a ridding ourselves of a scholarly articles and an exhibit at the National Base- personality problem? ball Hall of Fame. The Hornsby deal and the Art Nehf trade lead to the The league survived for a decade through the ardent topic of this presentation – “Were the Boston Braves support of fans in primarily mid-sized Midwestern (Continued on page 7) cities. The only cities large enough to host an MLB franchise were Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minneapo- lis. Each was the site of an AAGPBL team for only INSIDE THIS ISSUE one season, and only Chicago hosted teams in both leagues simultaneously. Other cities that hosted Financial Archives of the 1 AAGPBL franchises at one time or another included AAGPBL Battle Creek, Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Kenosha, Muskegon, Peoria, Racine, Rockford, Were the Boston Braves of the 1 Springfield, and South Bend. Teens and Twenties Really Con- trolled by Tammany Hall and the To date the research on the AAGPBL has focused on New York Giants? the social and on-field history of the league (the semi- nal work in this area is by Merrie Fidler), including Salaries as a Meritocracy 2 (Continued on page 3) From the Editor 17 Fall 2010 Outside the Lines Salaries as a Meritocracy There can never be a correct answer to this question, By Mark Hejduk due to an overwhelming amount of factors, opinions and variables, so I submit my method simply as a In July of 2007, the Cleveland Indians signed piece of the puzzle. To compare, below is a small syn- “slumping” Travis Hafner to a four-year, $57 million opsis of how three researchers have addressed the sub- contract. Seems like a minor note, especially since the ject. Important note, each three methods is great, and 2007 Indians were a fantastic playoff team. However these summaries are only the tip of the iceberg as to this was the beginning of the end for the Indians’ run their insight. of excellence that began late 2004. The Indians, a small market club who could never top a $100 million Dave Cameron, FanGraphs payroll, committed approximately $15 million a year to a DH, entering his 30s, with a history of elbow Dave Cameron figured out that each team, at the very problems, who was hitting .261 at the time of the ex- least, would win 48 games per season and, at the very tension. least, would spent $12 million on its roster. Factoring out those specifics, Cameron figured that the teams Although Hafner has not been a complete disaster for combined are spending roughly $2.31 billion to ac- the Indians, one would think that money might have quire as many of the 1,000 marginal wins available been better spent on other players on that team, such per season. So, in 2008, the cost of each of these mar- as C.C. Sabathia, Cliff Lee or Victor Martinez. Hav- ginal wins was $2.31 million. ing been infuriated by this deal, my anger led me through a long series of studying every roster, dating Cameron then factored in markets for team-controlled back to 2000, to find where value lies in MLB rosters. players, including their win totals, to emphasize the The ideal strategy would be to construct the best team value for a rate of a win on the free agent market. possible for the least amount of money, taking advan- Then, analyzing the 2008 free agent market, where tage of the draft, amateur scouting and trading for $396 million was paid to 90 free agents, and calculat- youth (unless you are Brian Cashman and enjoy ing for a few other factors, such as aging, Cameron watching money go up in flames like the Joker in The determined that in 2008, the going rate for a win was Dark Knight). $4.5 million. Using that logic, I have used various, easily under- This method is ruled by tremendous logic and mathe- stood, statistical means to determine which players matics, however I cannot agree with its practicality for provided the most “value” to their rosters, where all players. For a three-win player in his first year of “value” is defined as contributions to their team arbitration eligibility, it would be foolish to demand a (measured by Wins Above Replacement) plus a contract near $15 million in 2011. It would also be player’s financial value at their own position. Using insane for Zach Greinke to think he earned $42.4 mil- this I was able to find three indicators: lion in 2009, when the highest paid pitcher that year was Johan Santana, earning close to $19 million. The players that provide the most “value” to their roster’s structure. Dave Cameron’s work is fantastic, and if Fan- The General Managers that have gotten the Graphs.com is not a daily stop for you, then you are most value for their money. doing yourself a disservice. However, Zach Greinke The amount players should be played, given will never make over $40 million a year. So, this can’t their position and production, if the league work by itself. were a complete meritocracy. J.C. Bradbury, The Baseball Economist Other Methods J.C. Bradbury’s “The Baseball Economist,” is a must read. Bradbury ties winning, measured by runs added Many others have also undertaken similar projects to above league average, to team’s revenue. This would better address how much players should be paid. (Continued on page 11) 2 Fall 2010 Outside the Lines AAGPBL (Continued from page 1) detailing business dealings between players and teams, contracts, newspaper clippings, photographs, summaries of the annual performance of individual and schedules are included. While there are a few players and their teams (see Madden). Biographies of items of interest to business historians in these collec- several of the players and managers have added a per- tions, the bulk of the material of interest is held in the sonal touch to the research. The two most comprehen- Joyce Collection. sive examples of the latter are encyclopedias by Heaphy and Anthony, and another by Madden. South Bend was one of the four original cities to field a team in the AAGPBL. The Blue Sox remained in Despite the quantity and quality of this previous work, South Bend for the entire run of the league’s twelve there is a void in our knowledge of the AAGPBL. year existence. Along with Rockford, they were the What is missing is a focus on the aspect of the league only two teams to remain in the league for its dura- that made it both unique and noteworthy: all of the tion. The bulk of the known archival material is lo- women were professional ballplayers. They were sala- cated here because the original source of it was Harold ried players, employed by teams that charged admis- T. Dailey, the former president of the South Bend sion and attempted to turn a profit. This aspect of the Blue Sox, who kept and organized the league records. league remains under-researched. It need not remain Though he was only team president for three years, that way however, since financial archives of the the materials in his binders cover the entire history of league are readily available for researchers to exam- the league, from 1943-54. While the material covers ine. the entire league, the emphasis is on the South Bend franchise. This is particularly true with regard to the For scholars interested in the business side of profes- financial information, which is available for all fran- sional baseball, the Joyce Sports Research Collection chises, but exists in much greater detail for South at the University of Notre Dame provides an abun- Bend.