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History! Sports in the early 1900?
- Thread starter Hannah
- Start date
In the 1900's football was popular at only a few Ivy League colleges, and basketball had yet to catch on. The upper class preferred expensive, show time sports like tennis, golf, horse racing, sailing, and polo. Baseball, however, was already America's most talked about sport and was fast on its way to becoming a national obsession. Amateur baseball teams had existed for decades. By the 1900's, every small town had a fiercely competitive league. Professional teams, meanwhile, had been around since 1880's began to really get popular. In 1902, professional teams had an over all fan ratio of 3.5 million people. And by 1911, that number had nearly doubled to 6.5 million. The American league was established in 1900, to rival the National League to organize teams. The rival leagues played the first World Series in 1903, with Boston defeating Pittsburgh. Also, the first baseball stadium was constructed in Pittsburgh, followed soon by similar stadiums in Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, and New York. The famous baseball anthem, "Take Me Out To The Ball Game", was first heard in 1909.
BOXING
THE 1900s: SPORTS: OVERVIEW
Roosevelt as Symbol
More than any athlete of the 1900s, Theodore Roosevelt epitomized the sporting character of the decade. In 1900, the year before he became the twenty-sixth president of the United States, he encouraged Americans to act aggressively and confidently but with a sense of fair play: "In life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is: Hit the line hard: don't foul and don't shirk, but hit the line hard." Roosevelt believed that participation in "vigorous, manly sports" was so important in the development of character and the preparation of young men for leadership roles in business and politics that he called Ivy League presidents and athletic officials to the White House in 1905 to discuss ways to reduce the high rate of injury and death in college football. Although Roosevelt's football summit did not lead to immediate reform of the game—as injury and death continued to haunt the college game throughout the decade—it did lead to the formation of organizations such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The NCAA and other governing bodies legislated sportsmanship within college sport and took other measures to insure the safety of football and other sports.
The Boxing Paradox
Throughout the decade sports culture promoted a conflicted character that was both aggressive and gentlemanly. No sport demonstrated this contradiction better than boxing, or prizefighting, as it was commonly known during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While boxing attracted its chief promoters and participants from underprivileged classes denied access to traditional means of employment because of ethnicity and race, the sport also enticed interest from society's most respectable elements. For proponents of boxing such as Roosevelt, who had practiced the "manly art" as a student at Harvard, the sport offered an appropriate means for building character, instilling confidence, and improving physical dexterity. The critics of the ring, however, saw boxing as a senseless, brutal activity that bred immorality and crime. Although certain cities such as New Orleans legalized boxing under the Queensbury Rules, which limited rounds to three minutes and required pugilists to wear gloves, prizefighting remained illegal in most states until the next decade.
BASEBALL
Although baseball would not confront its racism and desegregate until 1947, the game faced serious management and labor problems during the early 1900s. Once these were resolved, the path was open toward establishing a truly national game. In 1900 Byron Bancroft "Ban" Johnson expanded the minor Western League to include major eastern cities and renamed it the American League, declaring it to be a major league in competition with the established National League. Johnson formed the American League to halt the National League's practice of drafting minor league players without adequately reimbursing the minor league teams fairly for the players' worth. After a year of luring players away from the National League with greater salaries, the American League agreed with its rival to respect each other's team rosters. The two leagues also established a three-man National Commission to govern the game and settle disputes with the minor leagues. After 1903 major league baseball came of age in the United States, as the nation became obsessed each year with the outcome of the World Series and formulated a mythology about the unique American origins of the game
BASKETBALL
Of the sports that were popular during the century's first decade, only basketball was originally American. James Naismith, a physical education instructor in Springfield, Massachusetts, developed basketball in the winter of 1891 to replace the gymnastics and calisthenics routinely practiced during the months between the end of football in the fall and
BOXING
THE 1900s: SPORTS: OVERVIEW
Roosevelt as Symbol
More than any athlete of the 1900s, Theodore Roosevelt epitomized the sporting character of the decade. In 1900, the year before he became the twenty-sixth president of the United States, he encouraged Americans to act aggressively and confidently but with a sense of fair play: "In life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is: Hit the line hard: don't foul and don't shirk, but hit the line hard." Roosevelt believed that participation in "vigorous, manly sports" was so important in the development of character and the preparation of young men for leadership roles in business and politics that he called Ivy League presidents and athletic officials to the White House in 1905 to discuss ways to reduce the high rate of injury and death in college football. Although Roosevelt's football summit did not lead to immediate reform of the game—as injury and death continued to haunt the college game throughout the decade—it did lead to the formation of organizations such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The NCAA and other governing bodies legislated sportsmanship within college sport and took other measures to insure the safety of football and other sports.
The Boxing Paradox
Throughout the decade sports culture promoted a conflicted character that was both aggressive and gentlemanly. No sport demonstrated this contradiction better than boxing, or prizefighting, as it was commonly known during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While boxing attracted its chief promoters and participants from underprivileged classes denied access to traditional means of employment because of ethnicity and race, the sport also enticed interest from society's most respectable elements. For proponents of boxing such as Roosevelt, who had practiced the "manly art" as a student at Harvard, the sport offered an appropriate means for building character, instilling confidence, and improving physical dexterity. The critics of the ring, however, saw boxing as a senseless, brutal activity that bred immorality and crime. Although certain cities such as New Orleans legalized boxing under the Queensbury Rules, which limited rounds to three minutes and required pugilists to wear gloves, prizefighting remained illegal in most states until the next decade.
BASEBALL
Although baseball would not confront its racism and desegregate until 1947, the game faced serious management and labor problems during the early 1900s. Once these were resolved, the path was open toward establishing a truly national game. In 1900 Byron Bancroft "Ban" Johnson expanded the minor Western League to include major eastern cities and renamed it the American League, declaring it to be a major league in competition with the established National League. Johnson formed the American League to halt the National League's practice of drafting minor league players without adequately reimbursing the minor league teams fairly for the players' worth. After a year of luring players away from the National League with greater salaries, the American League agreed with its rival to respect each other's team rosters. The two leagues also established a three-man National Commission to govern the game and settle disputes with the minor leagues. After 1903 major league baseball came of age in the United States, as the nation became obsessed each year with the outcome of the World Series and formulated a mythology about the unique American origins of the game
BASKETBALL
Of the sports that were popular during the century's first decade, only basketball was originally American. James Naismith, a physical education instructor in Springfield, Massachusetts, developed basketball in the winter of 1891 to replace the gymnastics and calisthenics routinely practiced during the months between the end of football in the fall and