who integrated major league baseball: jackie robinson or adam smith? creative ideas for your basic...
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Who Integrated Major League Baseball: Jackie Robinson or Adam Smith?
Creative Ideas for Your Basic Economics CourseFebruary 7, 2013
Mark C. SchugProfessor Emeritus
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Overview
• What is the economic way of thinking?
• Who integrated Major League Baseball: Jackie Robinson or Adam Smith?
• Was MLB alone?• A few sidebars along the
way: Satchel Page, Bill Veeck, and more.
• What conclusions can we draw?
What Is the Economic Way of Thinking ?
?
What Is the Economic Way of Thinking?
• Economic thinking stresses the idea that all people - - past and present - - make choices.
• Economic thinking can offer particularly good insights into choices made in the past – helping teaching in economics and history.
• At the time of choosing, however, they don’t know what the consequences of their choices will be.
They Didn’t Know How It Would All Turn Out
• In writing history or biography, you must remember that nothing was on track. Things could have gone any way at any point. As soon as you say “was” it seems to fix an event in the past. But nobody ever lived in the past, only the present.
• The difference is that it was their present. They were just as alive and full of ambition, fear, hope and all the emotions of life. And, just like us, they didn’t know how it would all turn out.
TALKING HISTORY WITH: David McCullough; Immersed in Facts, The Better to Imagine Harry Truman's Life By ESTHER B. FEIN Published: August 12, 1992 New York Times
They Didn’t Know How It Would All Turn Out
• The challenge is to get the reader [student] beyond the thinking that things had to be the way they turned out and to see the range of possibilities of how it could have been otherwise.
Key Ideas of Economic Reasoning
1. People choose.2. People’s choices involve
costs.3. People respond to incentives
in predictable ways.4. People create economic
systems that influence individual choices and incentives.
5. People gain when they trade voluntarily.
6. People’s choices sometimes create unintended consequences.
• These principles provide a sharp focus on key ideas and a means of integrating knowledge from history and economics.
• Let’s see how…
Who Integrated Major League Baseball: Jackie Robinson or Adam
Smith?
?
Adam Smith and Baseball
• Adam Smith lived from 1723-1790.
• He did not play baseball and may not have been a fan of cricket.
• Smith is, however, regarded at the founder of modern economics .
• He published The Wealth of Nations in 1776, 143 years before Jackie Robinson was born.
• How could that help?
Jackie Robinson and Baseball
• Branch Rickey, President of the Brooklyn Dodgers, signed Jackie Robinson in 1947 to be the first African American player in the major leagues.
• It took courage to make the offer and to sign the contract.
• Racial segregation in 1947 was widespread .
Racial Discrimination
• Jim Crow laws were enacted by several state and local governments as a way to segregate African Americans from whites.
Racial Discrimination
• In the South, nearly every aspect of life was separate including public schools, buses, railroad passenger cars, restrooms, swimming pools, pool halls, and restaurants.
Racial Discrimination
• The U.S. armed forces were segregated.
• In the 1920s, an African American man could not enlist in the U.S. Navy.
Supreme Court 1954
• In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared state-sponsored school segregation to be unconstitutional.
But, Little Changed Right Away
• It would take years and additional court decisions before schools and other institutions would take actions regarding desegregation.
Why Some and Not Others?
• Yet, some markets abandoned racial segregation well before more court decisions and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
• Why might some markets – like major league baseball – move more quickly toward racial integration than others?
Jackie Robinson or Adam Smith?• Did Adam Smith’s invisible
hand contribute to the desegregation of major league baseball?
• What is the metaphor of the invisible hand meant to convey?
• Free markets - - allowing people to act in their own self-interest - - promotes positive social outcomes even those these are not intentional.
People Choose
• MLB club owners - - Branch Rickey in particular - - decided to sign African American players
• Jackie Robinson agreed.• Both regarded the choice as
the best combination of benefits and costs they could attain.
People’s Choices Involve Costs• Questions of cost loomed
large.• Before 1947, club owners
worried that white fans would stay away if they signed African American players.
• They worried that white players would refuse to play with African American players - - boycotts, fights, strikes, or worse.
• They worried that revenues would decline.
People’s Choices Involve Costs
• Robinson endured bean balls, racial epithets, spitting, and spikings.
• In 1946, Pee Wee Reese, from Kentucky, refused to sign a petition by players to boycott playing with a black player.
• Reese told the boycott leaders: “I’m not signing that. No way!”
People’s Choices Involve Costs
• During the first 1947 road trip to Cincinnati, the crowd heckled Robinson during pre-game practice.
• Pee Wee Reese, short stop and team captain, placed his arm around Robinson.
• His action silenced the crowd.
People’s Choices Involve Costs
• Reese down played his display of courage.
• The NY Times quoted Reese as saying:
• “I just wanted to play baseball. I’d just come back from serving in the South Pacific with the Navy in World War II. I had a wife and daughter to support. I needed the money. I just wanted to get on with it.”
People Respond to Incentives
• What are incentives to owners of MLB clubs?
• Earning profits• Winning and all that goes
with it
People Respond to Incentives
• What are incentives to MLB players?
• Earning better salaries• Winning and all that goes
with it
Welcome to Our Baseball Draft
Welcome to Our Baseball Draft
Mark Schug
Right Field Bats .12040 time: 8.0FAN APPEAL??
Welcome to Our Baseball Draft
Mark Schug
Right Field Bats .12040 time: 8.0FAN APPEAL??
Volunteer 1
Center Field Bats .18040 time: 7.8FAN APPEAL??
Welcome to Our Baseball Draft
Mark Schug
Right Field Bats .12040 time: 8.0FAN APPEAL??
Volunteer 1
Center Field Bats .18040 time: 7.8FAN APPEAL??
Volunteer 2
Short StopBats .35540 time: 5.5FAN APPEAL??
Which Player Would You Draft?
• The most productive player!• So, some club owners
wanted to hire the best players regardless of race but…
• They had an agreement to only sign white players.
People Create Economic Systems: The Rules of the Game
• Baseball club owners are exempted from federal anti-trust laws.
• This was the result of a 1922 Supreme Court ruling in the case of the Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs.
People Create Economic Systems: The Rules of the Game
• This ruling was followed by other court challenges in 1949, 1953, and 1972.
• In 1993, Senator Connie Mack of Florida and Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio introduced the Professional Baseball Anti-Trust Reform Act but it failed to pass.
• It stated: “Unlike any other business in American , MLB is a legally-sanctioned unregulated monopoly…the Supreme Court tossed the ball to Congress” but it never choose to act.
Sidebar
• Senator Connie Mack was the grandson of the legendary Philadelphia Athletics manager Cornelius McGillicuddy, Sr. better known as Connie Mack.
• Connie Mack managed the Philadelphia Athletics from 1901 to 1950.
• Mack still holds the records for the number of games won, lost, and managed.
People Create Economic Systems: The Rules of the Game
• Despite the fact that major league baseball clubs operated a legal cartel, the rules of the game encouraged competition.
• Competition erodes the ability of a cartel to enforce the agreements among its members.
Who Is Who?
Competition from the Semi-Pros
• From New York to California, semipro ball was very popular in the days before television.
• The pressure to win was great.
• Some of these teams experimented with signing African American players.
• In 1935, the Bismarck ND team fielded a team that was half white and half African American.
• Who was dominant pitcher of the Bismarcks in 1935?
Competition from the Semi-Pros
• From New York to California, semipro ball was very popular in the days before television.
• The pressure to win was great.• Some of these teams
experimented with signing African American players.
• In 1935, the Bismarck ND team fielded a team that was half white and half African American.
• Who was dominant pitcher of the Bismarcks in 1935?
Satchel Paige
Paige Wrote..
• "There was a white man out there named Neil Churchill who liked baseball.
• He was an auto distributor and he wanted a ball team for Bismarck.
• He was full of ambition for baseball for his town.
• In [1935] Churchill got a team together and that's my team of all-stars.
• Never was such a team…Hit and field and, boy, did we have the pitchers.
• We were a mixed team, colored and white.”
The End of the 1935 Season…
• Paige joined the Kansas City Monarchs after the 1935 season and the team was disbanded.
• Bismarck was playing the team from Dickey ND.
• Paige had not pitched and the fans demanded that he go to the mound for the last inning.
• Paige sent all of his fielders to the bench.
• He struck out the first two batters.
• The third batter reached base on a pop-up.
• Paige stuck out the next batter to end the game much to the cheers of the fans.
Competition from the Negro Leagues
• Dozens of African American professional and semi-professional baseball teams played from 1887 to 1950.
• The most successful was the Negro National League founded in 1920 by Rube Foster, who was eventually elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Competition from the Negro Leagues
• During the 1930s and 1940s a new Negro National League was established; it was regarded as having the most talented players.
• In 1946 the West Coast Professional Baseball League was formed in California but only lasted one season.
Competition from Barnstormers
• Then there were the barnstorming African American teams like the Omaha Tigers and the Miami Giants.
• Barnstorming teams traveled circuits in the south or Midwest, for example.
Competition: Paige and Dean
• The most famous barnstormers were the Satchel Paige All Stars (all African American players) and the Dizzy Dean All Stars (all white players).
• They toured the nation every October from 1934 to 1945 and were watched by thousands of fans.
Dizzy Dean
Satchel Paige
Competition to Win In NYC
• Competition in big baseball markets like New York City was more intense then it was in smaller baseball markets.
• After World War II, New York City had three professional baseball teams - - the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Yankees and the New York Giants.
Competition to Win in NYC
• Fans love to follow winning teams.
• Mass transit allowed fans to shift loyalties easily from on club to another.
• Having a winning team was one way to attract fans.
• Having spectacular players was another.
People Gain from Voluntary Trade
• In 1946, the Brooklyn Dodgers finished two games behind the Cardinals.
• They hoped to do better.• In 1946, Rickey signed
Robinson who played that year with the Montreal Royals.
• Both sides -- Robinson and Rickey -- expected to gain.
• 1947 was the rookie year for Jackie Robinson with the Dodgers.
People Gain from Voluntary Trade
• Overnight, Robinson became the largest attraction in baseball.
• Huge crowds turned out to see him play.
• In 1947, the Dodgers won the National League pennant.
• They won it again in 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955, and 1956.
• The Dodgers won the World Series in 1955.
People Gain from Voluntary Trade
• Rickey was aware of his overnight success.
• He quickly signed more African American players such as Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe.
People Gain from Voluntary Trade
• Bill Veeck claims that in 1942 he acquired backing to purchase the financially strapped Philadelphia Phillies.
• His plan was to hire African American stars from the Negro league.
• Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis vetoed the sale and arranged the for National League to take over the club.
Side Bar
• Veeck is also remembered for his stunts.
• In August 19, 1951, when he owned the St. Louis Browns, he sent Eddie Gaedel to the plate.
• Eddie was walked on four pitches and then replaced by a pinch runner.
• The Browns won the game. 5-3.
People Gain from Voluntary Trade
• Bill Veeck, later the owner of the Cleveland Indians, signed outfielder Larry Doby who started playing weeks after Robinson in July of 1947.
• Veeck also signed the oldest rookie ever signed – Satchel Paige in 1948.
• Paige was 42 years old.
People’s Choices Sometimes Create Unintended Consequences
• Owners were right to worry about unintended consequences.
• Would white fans would stay away?
• Would players engage in boycotts, fights, strikes?
• Would revenues would decline?
• Fortunately, most often these worries proved to be unfounded.
People’s Choices Sometimes Create Unintended Consequences
• Rickey may have only intended to field a winning team, win the pennant, and earn a profit.
• However, the signing of Robinson desegregated major league baseball.
• An unintended consequence of the invisible hand?
Other Consequences
• Before 1947, were owners right to worry about fans staying away when they signed African American players?
• James Gwartney and Charles Haworth found that on average, each additional African American player on a team was associated with between 55,000 and 60,000 additional annual home-team admissions during the 1950s.
Other Consequences
• Gwartney and Haworth also found that the number of African American players was a significant factor in determining the number of games won.
• For the period from 1950-1955, they found that the inclusion of an African American player on a major league team, on average, resulted in an additional 3.75 wins per year.
Was Major League Baseball Alone?
?
Southern Street Car Owners
• There were other examples of white-owned businesses in the South which tried to hire African American employees or serve African American customers.
Street Car Owners Wanted to Earn Profits
• Southern street car owners early in the 20th century refused to discriminate against African Americans because discrimination reduced their profits.
Hauling Around Empty Space
• One manager complained that segregation laws increased costs because the laws required the company to: “haul around a good deal of empty space that is assigned to colored people and not available to both races.”
• Who do you suppose had to enforce the segregated seating arrangements?
• In Augusta, Savannah, Atlanta, Mobile, and Jacksonville, streetcar companies refused to enforce segregation laws for as long as 15 years after their passage.
They Were Right to Worry
• African Americans boycotted streetcar lines that obeyed the law that discriminated against them.
• Some African Americans formed competing horse-drawn carriage companies.
• These actions took away business from the existing carriers thus punishing them for discriminating.
But They Gave Up
• But one by one, the companies succumbed as pressure from the government to enforce the segregation laws grew and began to outweigh the costs imposed by the penalty on profits.
What Conclusions Might We Draw?
?
Conclusions
• Adam Smith’s invisible hand was a big help to Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey is ending racial discrimination in major league baseball.
• Markets punish profit-seeking businesses that discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion.
• The level of discrimination in markets depends on the preferences of employers, workers, consumers, schools and government.
• Racial discrimination often requires the force of law to sustain it for the long term.
• Elected officials don’t bear the financial costs of racist policies but profit seeking businesses do.
Questions
Want more stories for teaching economics in American history?
Economic Episodes in American History: Wohl Publishing
Other Stories
• Why Did the British Colonies Succeed Economically—Without Finding Gold and Silver?
• Why Did the American Colonists Fight When They Were Safe, Prosperous, and Free?
• How Did the U.S. Constitution Provide a Road Map to Economic Prosperity?
• Why Fight a War When the North’s Economy Was So Much Stronger?
• The Homestead Act of 1862: Was Free Land Really Free? • Did the Comanche and Other American Indians Really Favor
Communal Ownership?
Other Stories
• Were the Robber Barons Robbers or Barons? • Why Did the 19th-Century Monopolies Disappear?• Why Did a Mild Recession in 1929 Become the Great
Depression of the 1930s? • Was the New Deal Good for the U.S. Economy?• Why Did the Economy Grow after World War II?• Is the Information Revolution as Big as the Industrial
Revolution?• Is free trade out of date?
Questions?
