For one controversial season, baseball's best fled the majors to play for Bethlehem Steel

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An undated photo of a Bethlehem Steel League game in 1918.

Photo courtesy National Museum of Industrial History

By Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com

September 1918. World War I rages in Europe. At home, able-bodied American men are drafted to shore up the Allied front. Meanwhile, up-and-coming baseball star Babe Ruth, having just led the Boston Red Sox to a World Series championship, finds himself a new occupation at Bethlehem Steel.

Ruth isn’t alone. At least 40 Major League players take jobs at the company’s mills and shipbuilding plants — they can’t be drafted to fight if they work in a war-related industry.

This was the year Bethlehem Steel built a powerhouse baseball league of its own. And the Lehigh Valley’s hometown team nearly won it all.

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A Bethlehem Steel team from 1918.

Sara K. Satullo | lehighvalleylive.com file photo

By 1918, the Lehigh Valley had already fielded a number of professional baseball teams. Allentown itself had had at least eight short-lived squads by that time, according to the National Museum of Industrial History in Bethlehem, which had a baseball exhibit in 2017.

Industrial leagues had also begun to pop up. The Ingersoll-Rand team — which would build the Hillcrest Club in Phillipsburg for company games after World War I — in 1904 hosted the New York Giants for an exhibition game in Easton; the Giants won 15-0.

Bethlehem Steel started a few social organizations to entertain its workforce, including a professional soccer team that won 11 national trophies between 1914 and 1930. "I want some good wholesome games that will furnish amusement and entertainment for the Bethlehem Steel Company's employees," company chairman Charles Schwab reportedly said.

The baseball league began in 1917. It comprised teams from six of the company’s East Coast plants: Bethlehem, Lebanon and Steelton in Pennsylvania; Wilmington, Delaware; Sparrows Point, Maryland; and Fore River, Massachusetts.

The following year, it began drawing big-league talent.

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Photo courtesy National Museum of Industrial History

A few players joined early. Future Hall-of-Famer Eddie Plank, then 42, retired from the St. Louis Browns the previous summer and signed with the Steelton team because it was close to his Gettysburg home, according to the Society for Baseball Research.

In May 1918, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson was classified for top eligibility in the draft. Controversially, he instead chose to leave the Chicago White Sox and work for Bethlehem Steel in Wilmington. ("There is no room on my club for players who wish to evade the draft by entering the employ of shipbuilders," White Sox owner Charles Comiskey said of his star player, per the Chicago Tribune.)

That July, baseball was formally declared a non-essential occupation. Minor leagues shut down. Baseball shortened its season to end on Labor Day.

More than 40 players followed Jackson to the steel mills.

Professional baseball took notice and condemned the practice. “The American League does not approve of players trying to evade military service,” league president Ban Johnson reportedly told the press. A Baseball Magazine article titled “A Rising Menace to the National Game” criticized the players’ “slacker contracts” and called for government intervention.

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Photo courtesy National Museum of Industrial History

All play and no work

Indeed, it did appear many players were signed purely to play in the industrial leagues.

"Why, the whole gang of them was draft dodgers," Ralph W. Clemens, a former worker and umpire at the Lebanon steel mill, told the Chicago Tribune in 1987. "They were supposed to be working for the war, but they didn't do any work. All they did was play baseball. Babe Ruth used to show up at the plant for an hour before practice. He'd be wearing fancy trousers, silk shirts and patent-leather shoes. He'd just walk around talking to people about baseball. There wasn't anything essential about what he was doing."

Babe Ruth’s job? “I think it was blueprint messenger,” Clemens said.

The same Tribune story cites a Philadelphia shipyard strike in September 1918. “One of the grievances,” the report says, “was the special treatment accorded former members of the Phillies and Athletics, most of whom had been placed in supervisory positions. The workers complained that ballplayer-foremen called the hold of a ship the ‘cellar’ and the deck ‘the upstairs.’”

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Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

Season highlights

Still, Bethlehem Steel’s teams had solid lineups.

“It is harder to hit in this league than in the American League,” Shoeless Joe said in a Bethlehem Steel newsletter, per the Tribune.

Among the season’s highlights, according to the Society for Baseball Research, was in July when Red Sox pitcher Dutch Leonard, now pitching for Fore River, notched 18 strikeouts against Bethlehem.

Later that month, Plank, pitching for Steelton, gave up only three hits in a 1-0 win against Fore River. The only run in that game was given up on a walk by Leonard, who yielded only four hits.

The Steel League's regular season ended on Labor Day with Bethlehem and Steelton tied atop the standings at 11-8.

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A 2017 exhibit of the National Museum of Industrial History in Bethlehem focused on the business of baseball.

Sara K. Satullo | lehighvalleylive.com file photo

Playoff series

A three-game playoff was set up to break the tie, and the Society for Baseball Research documented the results.

Game 1 was played in Steelton, where their pitcher George Pearce gave up only five hits in a 2-1 victory.

Five thousand spectators gathered in Bethlehem for Game 2. Bethlehem's Jeff Tesreau pitched seven scoreless innings and struck out 10, but the score was tied 2-2 after nine innings.

Future Hall of Fame manager Joe McCarthy scored a two-run triple for Steelton in the top of the 10th. Bethlehem scored one run in the bottom of the inning, but lost 5-3.

The prize for the champions from Steelton? Gold watches from Bethlehem Steel.

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Babe Ruth, then with the Yankees, poses with Allentown Mayor Mayor Malcolm Gross in 1924. The photo was part of the National Museum of Industrial History's baseball exhibit in 2017.

Sara K. Satullo | lehighvalleylive.com file photo

Game over

The season was over, but the teams continued to play.

Babe Ruth was rostered with Lebanon in September, after Boston’s World Series win. He played in a few exhibition games. He reportedly stayed on Bethlehem Steel’s payroll until the following February.

But despite reported plans for Bethlehem Steel to roster more pros in 1919, it was not to be. The war ended Nov. 11, 1918. With the threat of the draft over, many ballplayers went back to their teams or sought other employment, though some stayed with the industrial leagues.

But for one season, Bethlehem Steel was as big as the major leagues.

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Bethlehem's lineup

The Bethlehem team had at least a dozen current or future major-league players on its 1918 roster. Season batting averages are listed where available.

Manager: Charles "Pop" Kelchner

Major-leaguers:

  • Fred Anderson (active in 1918 with the New York Giants)
  • Paddy Baumann, .378
  • Stan Baumgartner, .200
  • Earl Blackburn, .300
  • Sam Fishburn (major league rookie in 1919), .295
  • Ed Fitzpatrick, .163
  • Walter Holke (active in 1918 with the New York Giants), .131
  • Al Schacht (future "Clown Prince of Baseball," major league rookie in 1919), .125
  • Cy Seymour (45 years old)
  • Dolly Stark, .000 in 2 at bats
  • Jeff Tesreau (active in 1918 with the New York Giants), .230
  • George Twombly, .212

Source: Society for Baseball Research

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Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveNovakLVL and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.

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