During the time of World War II everyone tried to contribute and help toward the war. Even women helped serve and created "The Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron". All Americas resources and money went out to try and help with the war. World War II cost the United States more than 400,000 deaths. This war brought tons of married women into the work force, and changed the nations minority groups drastically. Also during the time of World War II Major League Baseball was a big thing to Americans, and the players got paid big money to play. Many people thought how are people going to play baseball with this war going on? One man named Frank Frisch said " can you imagine trying to get a baseball club in shape in this kind of weather?". There was a big controversy of whether or not Major League Baseball should be played or not. Another man by the last name of Bradley said " It's too grand of a game to be turned into a farce". I think that during this time with the war going on and everything else Major League Baseball should have just taken a break and started up again once the war was over. I feel that instead of paying all this money to the players they should have put it to the war and anything that the country needed at the time. I especially think that major league baseball shouldn't of been played because more than 60% of the players who were on starting line ups the year before, were out the next year due to the war. Also many other non starting players were in the armed forces and were unable to play. Bradley again said " If I can't present baseball of high quality I'll close my park". I fully agree with this statement because if baseball is going to be played it should be at its best and during a prime time where people can actually watch and enjoy it. Because of the war training camps had to be moved and some teams even had to practice in gyms. Many coaches said when their teams practiced in the gyms all players wanted to do was play basketball and no one even focused on the baseball training. All natural resources, such as gasoline, rubber for tires, natural gas and electricity should have been saved and given to the troops. Instead it was use to fly players to different things and gas was used in buses to also transport players. The U.S Navy was sending targets to the Marshall Islands and as a result they had to post pone spring training to allow the players in combat to remain a little longer at their jobs. It also was dangerous to play ball at this time because of the broadcasting. Broadcasts of the game were relayed over seas by the armed forces. Announcers had to be extra careful about what they said so they wouldn't give any sort of clues to the enemy. This is just another reason why baseball should not be being played during this time because, if a broadcaster were to say something wrong such bad outcomes could fire onto the United States. It wouldn't of been hard to stop playing during this time and it would be easy for them to start everything back up after the war was over. When our country declares and is committed to war, all of our countries assets should go to this cause.
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I do agree with the fact that they should not of put such a strong effort into the whole Baseball ordeal. But I also believe that Baseball could of kept America's hearts happy during the war. Despite the Baseball funding, we still won the war in the end.
ReplyDeleteI fully agree with you that they should of stopped the game and give the money to other things that would help the country and the war. Baseball is like the Olympic games it just makes all your troubles go away when you watch it.
ReplyDeleteI also agree during this time we were devoting most of our recourses to the war. We should of sacaficed baseball too.
ReplyDeleteI don't think we should have cancelled baseball, i think it probably kept our country and our soliders sane. It was a way to take their minds off of the war and focus on entertainment that has no reference to war. broadcasting was probably really hard but if you just stick to talking about what's going on in the game it's not really that hard to give information away to other countries, and gave soliders something to listen to in their spare time.
ReplyDeleteI think watching baseball could have calmed the minds of those who lived during the war, but I agree with you. I mean... was baseball really worth all of that money? Do you think they could have made the choice to use some of the money toward the war, but also keep some for the baseball season?
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with you. Baseball should not have canceled to baseball, because it probably was the only thing they could watch that didn't have anything to do with the war. Baseball is Americas pastime, people wanted to watch it. I gave them a way to escape this war for just a little bit.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the fact that baseball should of been canceled because when the soldiers want nothing more than to remember their old lives back home they could turn on the radio and listen to a baseball game and it could help take them back.
ReplyDeleteI believe that baseball was important during the war. Part of the reason American's held their spirit above all others in war is because they felt as if they had something worthwhile to fight for. Baseball was, and still is, a huge part of American culture. Without it, many soldiers may have lost their sense of what they were fighting for, and with it, a sense of the American nationalistic spirt. If not for baseball and the hope it brought, perhaps American casualties in World War II would have been even greater.
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