The Stars Are Back: The St. Louis Cardinals, the Boston Red Sox, and Player Unrest in 1946 by Jerome M. Mileur (review)

The United States was unprepared for peace in 1945 when two atomic bombs brought about a rapid end to World War II. The immediate postwar world needed to untangle the changes the war had brought about, including millions of Americans flowing back from overseas to find wage and price controls in place back home, the continuing shortage of domestic goods, and a need to send some of the country’s agricultural abundance to Europe to aid America’s starving allies. The issues weighed on all parts of American society. Although President Truman had tougher issues to face than Commissioner Happy Chandler, professional baseball was not exempt.

Jerome M. Mileur, an emeritus history professor with a long connection with baseball, carefully explains the importance of these changes to the game and the nation. But he never lets the explanations sidetrack the progress of the 1946 season, although sometimes he should have. This was the first season played completely after war’s end, where the underdog Boston Red Sox ran away with the American League pennant, while the St. Louis Cardinals were extended into a postseason playoff to hold off the Brooklyn Dodgers before meeting the Sox in a memorable World Series. The teams each were led by a top young slugger, Ted Williams of the Sox and Stan Musial of the Cards, who wound up as their respective leagues’ Most Valuable Player.

Peace had seemingly brought back too many demobilized players for available roster spots. Since as returning servicemen they were entitled, per the gi Bill of Rights, to reclaim their jobs, rosters were expanded to thirty men each. At the same time, the money that statesiders had saved, due to the sheer lack of items to buy during the war, was happily spent on ballpark admissions, and big-league attendance set a new record of 18.6 million. Club owners were profiting; but realizing they had lost prime career years to the service, “more players than usual rejected the initial offers of owners. Many held out well into opening day” (13).

New York Giants outfielder Danny Gardella didn’t like his contract offer, although he signed—with the Mexican League, a well-established independent league now controlled by millionaire Jorge Pasquel and his family, who doubled the Giants’ salary Gardella had turned down. The Pasquels’ goal was to offer big increases, to raid major-league rosters. They signed away more than two dozen major leaguers and had contact with stars as brilliant as Musial. Some major-league owners fought back with lawsuits, and Pasquel responded in turn by calling US baseball, where players were bound to their teams for multiple years whether they liked it or not, a “slave market” (31).

On top of these threats to the status quo came a serious attempt to unionize major-league players, who were very receptive to the arguments of attorney Robert J. Murphy, the organizer. Although Murphy’s attempt was in itself unsuccessful, in order to kill it, the owners offered contractual improvements and a promise of player pensions that became standard elements of future baseball collective bargaining. The combined pressure of the Mexican League, the gi Bill, and unionization brought about quick concessions: “Nothing in the 1946 season came as a greater surprise or had more lasting consequences than the July meeting of owners with players to discuss revision of the standard player contract” (253).

Down on the field, the Cardinals, who had dominated the National League during the war with three pennants (and two World Series titles), had been hard hit by Mexican League defections. Starting pitchers Max Lanier and Fred Martin as well as second baseman Lou Klein, all defected. Klein’s departure, though, opened the door for eventual Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst; and several former starters returning from the service, particularly Howie Pollet, who won twenty-one games...