Total Baseball (1994 Edition)/Total_Baseball_1994_Edition_Creative_Multimedia_1994.iso/dp/0128/01288.txt

Text File | 1994-01-31 | 40KB | 611 lines

$Unique_ID{BAS01288}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Appendix:  Fans and Concessions}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{
Adomites, Paul D.}
$Subject{Fan Fans Concession Concessions kranks bugs Gambling hippodroming
Attendance food drinks REFRESHMENTS hot dogs soda pop beer}
$Log{}

Total Baseball:  Appendixes


Fans and Concessions

Paul D. Adomites


Called "kranks" or "bugs" during the early days of professional baseball, the
followers of the sport were allegedly given the name of "fans" by Ted
Sullivan, manager of the St. Louis Browns in 1883. Although some say the word
came from "fanatic," etymologist Peter Tamony has stated it probably derived
from "fancier"--i.e., one who fancies the sport.

Famous Fans

Along with heroic athletes and staunch umpires, baseball has had a large
number of fans who also achieved celebrity status. In the first modern World
Series in 1903, the Boston "Royal Rooters" were headed by the tall, bulky
bartender Mike McGreevy, whose stature as ultimate authority on all baseball
matters earned him the sobriquet of "'Nuf Ced." The Rooters sang parodies of
popular songs with new lyrics uncomplimentary to Boston's opponents: "Tessie,
why do I love you madly?" became "Honus [Wagner], why do you hit so badly?"
for example. When Boston triumphed in the Series, at least one Pirate gave
the Rooters credit. Tommy Leach noted, "It was that damn song."
     'Nuf Ced and the Rooters also had an effect on the 1912 World Series,
although an opposite one. When a 6-6 tie in the second game, called on
account of darkness after 10 innings, sent the Series back to Boston for an
additional game, the Rooters expected they would keep the rights to the seats
they had for Games Two, Three, and Five. But a clerk wasn't thinking; he sold
the Rooters' seats for Game Seven.
     The game was nearly ready to begin when 'Nuf Ced and his gang (five
hundred strong), including Boston Mayor John Fitzgerald (whose daughter would
bear future President John Fitzgerald Kennedy) marched onto the field and
toward their seats, only to discover other people sitting there. The Rooters
took to the field in protest. Today it would have been called a riot. It
took mounted police more than a half hour to clear the crowd from the field.
Meanwhile, Boston starting pitcher Smokey Joe Wood, who had stopped his
warmups while the police rounded up the Royal Rooters, cooled off, and was
ineffective.
     But before 'Nuf Ced and the Royal Rooters, many teams had fans who earned
fame, usually through lung power. In the 1890s, Frank B. Wood of the grizzled
countenance and loud voice became a minor celebrity at the Polo Grounds for
his editorial "Well well well."
     The 1940s and '50s were the era of three of the most famous female fans.
One, Mary Ott of St. Louis, had a "neigh...known to cause stampedes in Kansas
City stockyards"; Lollie Hopkins, a prim Bostonian, used a megaphone to cheer
for both sides when they played well; the legendary Hilda Chester toted two
large cowbells and displayed a banner saying "Hilda is here" to make her voice
heard in Ebbets Field for years.
     Ebbets Field featured another famous fan in the late 1930s who did more
than just root. Jack Pierce used to buy ten seats, a bottle of Scotch,
balloons and the gas to blow them up, all to salute Dodgers' shortstop Cookie
Lavagetto. Pierce's dedication was so complete that he continued his gaseous
act even in 1942, when Cookie was in the Army.
     Legendary lungs could be found in nearly every big league town. In the
1930s, the Kessler Brothers, Bull and Eddie, of Philadelphia, would sit "on
opposite sides of the grandstand and conduct what practically amounted to a
private conversation across the diamond." In Pittsburgh, Bruce McAllister's
screeching could be heard at every game and over the radio, too. Detroit's
Patsy O'Toole was hailed as the "All-American earache."
     Then there were the fans of dedication, not just noise. Some fans
received press mention because they routinely took road trips with their
favorite team. Others made a point of never missing a World Series, spring
training, or All-Star Game, thereby meriting recognition. Still others built
extensive (and expensive) "museums" or libraries.
     The Royal Rooters tradition of fan groups--sitting together, leading
cheers, and heckling the opposition--also had counterparts in most towns. In
St. Louis it was the Ice Wagon Boys, in Chicago the Stockyards Boys, and in
Pittsburgh the Steel Puddlers. But group cheering was less popular during the
thirties and forties until it reappeared in the form of Wrigley Field's
Bleacher Bums, who have inspired their own literature, including an
Off-Broadway play. Active in the 1960s, dormant in the '70s, and resuscitated
in the '80s, the Bleacher Bums were described tongue-in-cheek as "almost on a
par with the old Brooklyn Dodger fans, but with more taste."
     Fandom once created an on-the-field star. In 1902, Bill Armour, manager
of the pitching-short Cleveland team, was told by a Philadelphia ticket-taker
that a talented young pitcher was in the stands. Given a quick tryout and
just as quickly signed, Charlie Smith won the game and went on to a ten-year
big league career.
     Worthy of special mention are the Brooklyn Dodger fans of today who still
cannot mention the name of Walter O'Malley without a curse, and the St. Louis
Browns Fan Club, active today more than thirty years after their team's
demise.
     Many people who achieved celebrity status in other fields were famous
fans, too. Poetess Marianne Moore's love of the game was legendary. Composer
Charles Ives wrote a piano piece called "Some Southpaw Pitching." Broadway,
music, and film stars, including DeWolf Hopper, Harry Ruby, George M. Cohan,
Jack White, and Pearl Bailey were avid fans, along with many politicians,
especially Presidents Taft, Eisenhower, and Nixon, and Speaker of the House
Uncle Joe Cannon. Of course, many pols used fandom to garner favor; it was
never certain whether they attended because they truly loved the game or
whether they simply loved being seen in public.

Being Rowdy

The color that fun-loving fans add to a game turns, however, when fans
interfere with the on-the-field action. Baseball kranks were causing trouble
from the beginning. As early as 1857, there were eight incidents of bad fan
behavior altering a game's result.
     In fact, in the game that many call the first great American professional
game (the Cincinnati Red Stockings vs. the Brooklyn Atlantics, June 14, 1870),
a Brooklyn fan is said to have jumped on the back of Red Stockings' outfielder
Cal McVey as he tried to field a ball in the eleventh inning. Brooklyn won
the game 8-7, ending Cincinnati's 84-game winning streak.
     Through the 1890s, a fan attacking the umpire or an opposing player was
considered a social gaffe, but hardly a criminal offense. There are several
instances cited of umpires being mobbed, seriously injured, or two-fistedly
turning on their attackers. Pop bottles were the commonest weapons for umpire
abuse, and a record of a woman serving time for tossing a bottle at an ump was
not described in the outraged tone one might expect.
     Fans could harm the game even without maiming the umpires or attacking
opponents. In the 1880s, tossing straw hats on the field to acknowledge a
good play was common. However, cleaning up the skimmers often delayed the
proceedings. In 1892, a Chicago crowd "cheered madly as Anson's men thrashed
the whey out of Louisville." The exuberant fans demonstrated their joy by
tossing a deluge of seat cushions on the field. Manager Cap Anson pleaded
with them to stop, but to no avail. Chicago lost in a forfeit.
     In 1911, William Phelon described a different kind of fan behavior. "Out
at Kansas City, the crowd had a custom, once, that was all its own. Whenever
the multitude couldn't see the wisdom of a decision, they arose, marched down
onto the field, and advanced upon the umpire. They never offered harm or
discourtesy to that official, but simply asked him, with all courtesy, to tell
them the rules governing that one decision. The umpire would tell them, and
then with a chorus of thanks, they would turn, march back to their seats, and
let the game go on."
     But two major factors changed the sentiment about what made a baseball
outing fun. The first was the gradual elimination of ballpark gambling, which
altered behavior both off and on the field. Another was the increased
presence of women at the parks.
     Legend has it that Ladies Day began in 1889 in Cincinnati because the
women wanted to see handsome Tony Mullane pitch. However, the New York
Knickerbockers had established a regular Ladies Day by 1867. The Athletics
and Orioles did the same in 1883, Brooklyn in 1885. The Sporting News pointed
out in 1886 that when women are present, the men become less excited and
exercise "more choice in their selection of adjectives."
     By the turn of the century, baseball was less a rowdy afternoon for
gamblers and toughs, and much more of a family enterprise. The newer parks of
the century were larger, too, making it harder for the fans to interfere.
     But they still managed. A rain of snowballs from the stands in April
1907 led to forfeiture of the Giants' Opening Day game to the Phillies. The
same year, some thought the pop-bottle hit taken by umpire Billy Evans would
be fatal. (Evans did survive, though, and his teenaged assailant was fined
$100.) This kind of behavior was hardly unexpected; a popular song of the
teens was "Let's Get the Umpire's Goat."
     On May 15, 1912, Ty Cobb leaped into the stands to beat up a fan who was
harassing him--a fan described in the press as a "helpless cripple." Cobb's
suspension for this act led his teammates to walk out the following day, and
the locally recruited "substitutes" took a 24-2 licking from the Athletics
before Cobb's reinstatement.
     After Yankee center fielder Whitey Witt was struck by a pop bottle in
1922, the leagues cracked down on bottle throwing, and seriously. Ban Johnson
offered a $1,000 reward to find the culprit. However, he received so many
versions of what happened that he finally settled on $100 cash, railroad fare,
and a World Series ticket to someone who claimed that "Witt stepped on the
neck of a bottle and caused it to jump up and hit him on the head." The
stricter enforcement (and public relations efforts of paper cup manufacturers)
did the trick.
     Fan violence was minimal in the 1920s. By the '30s, things had
re-soured. In the seventh game of the 1934 World Series, Cardinal left
fielder Joe Medwick slid hard into third baseman Marv Owen. When Medwick took
his defensive position the next inning, the Tiger fans showered him with
fruit. Four times he was forced off the field. (Allegedly the concessionaire
was increasing the price of an apple each time.) Finally Commissioner Landis
ordered both Medwick and Owen out of the game. Owen later admitted that he
overreacted (the score was 7-0 at the time) and probably helped to incite the
crowd.
     In 1940 umpire George Magerkurth was attacked in Ebbets Field by a Frank
Germano. The story goes that the attacker, looking toward a sentence of six
months at hard labor, commented, "I'll be out in time for Opening Day."
     The Cleveland Indians of 1940 earned the nickname of "Cry Babies" for
their public dissatisfaction with manager Ossie Vitt. Fans demonstrated their
displeasure by hurling baby bottles. The changing tables were turned,
however, when Cleveland fans pelted the Detroit Tigers' Hank Greenberg with
fruit in a critical series at the end of that year.
     In 1941, a sportswriter, reflecting on "Fifty Years of Being a Baseball
Fan," said that night baseball and broadcasting had resulted in a "marked
increase in the baseball intelligence of the fans...Perhaps this increased
knowledge is responsible for one marked change for the better I have noticed
over these fifty years--the improvement in sportsmanship of the fans."
     His perception held true throughout the 1950s and '60s. But the 1970s
were the noisiest years of fan violence since the early days of professional
baseball. Unlike the literal "Kill the umpire" cries of the 1870s and '80s,
however, the violence of the 1970s was undirected and mindless. Fans turned
on each other, on the players, on the fields themselves. "Celebrations" after
winning playoff or World Series games became orgies of destruction that
spilled out of the ballparks into city streets.
     Several ballpark promotions to boost attendance resulted in hometeam
forfeits when fans got out of hand, most memorably a riot during a "10-cent
Beer Night" at Cleveland in 1974. At Chicago's Comiskey Park in 1979, a
"Disco Demolition" record-burning event began rowdy and got worse. The second
game scheduled for that night was canceled and forfeited to Detroit.
     An incident in the 1973 National League Championship Series in New York's
Shea Stadium paralleled the Medwick/Owen spat. Pete Rose slid hard into Mets'
shortstop Bud Harrelson; ballplayer fisticuffs resulted; the fans got into the
act when Rose took his place in left field the next inning. Their garbage and
abuse actually drove the Reds from the field. It took a peace
delegation--Yogi Berra, Tom Seaver, Cleon Jones, Rusty Staub and Willie Mays
(a legend on his last legs)--to walk to the outfield and settle the crowd.
     All in all, the 1970s had nearly forty "noteworthy" examples of bad fan
behavior, with 1974 and 1979 being the worst years. The nation's
sportswriters were unable to offer viable reasons. One national columnist
interviewed a medical nutritionist who said additives in the ballpark food
were the culprit, another lay the blame at the feet of the Watergate scandal
("Richard Nixon loves baseball and used to come out to the ballpark. No more.
Wonder why?").
     The situation stayed consistently grim for the first few years of the
1980s. Detroit owner Jim Campbell closed the bleachers after fourteen fans
were arrested for fighting during a 1980 contest. On the day that Pittsburgh
paid tribute to Willie Stargell, the noble heart of its "family" team, a
battery nearly struck Pirate right fielder Dave Parker, and Parker and
Pittsburgh were never on speaking terms again. During a 1981 playoff game, a
Yankee fan jumped from the stands and attacked umpire Mike Reilly.
     Since then, baseball teams have taken strong steps to prevent the
ugliness that fan rowdiness can become. Tightening of alcohol sales--smaller
cups, limited quantities per sale, closing of beer sales after a specified
inning--have shown success. In every park, security is emphasized. The
massive troubles of the 1970s have not reoccurred.
     Curiously, there came to be more incidents of ballplayers going after
fans rather than fans attacking ballplayers. Twice in 1981 Reggie Smith felt
the need to slug a heckler (once was in Spring Training.) In 1985 Rick Miller
of the California Angels felt he had to leap into the Anaheim stands to
protect his wife and son from harassment. Three stars showed thin skins in
1991. Albert Belle of the Indians, a recovering alcoholic, threw a ball at
(and hit) a Cleveland fan who had loudly invited him to a beer party.
Cincinnati loose cannon reliever Rob Dibble hurled a ball into the stands
after a game, injuring an unsuspecting fan. And Oakland's Jose Canseco charged
the stands after a New York attendee who had overzealously reminded Jose of
his late exit the night before from Madonna's apartment. (We learned later
that Jose was only giving Madonna batting tips for her upcoming role in "A
League of Their Own.") The 1993 Mets, who had already made noise with rude and
weird behavior toward sportswriters (throwing fireworks at them, spraying
bleach on them), saw a team member perform one of the most outrageous acts
ever directed at fans. Vince Coleman thought it would be amusing to toss an
M-80 explosive at some people who were gathered at Dodger Stadium after a
game; Dodger Eric Davis and Met Bobby Bonilla apparently agreed. The
firecracker injured an eleven-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl. The Mets
suspended Coleman for the season.

Gambling

One of the major factors that changed baseball from crude entertainment to
"the National Pastime" was the eradication of gambling from the game. In the
early days, betting at ballparks was widespread, with a double effect. First,
the atmosphere in the crowd was rowdy and vulgar; people with money at stake
behave differently from people who are there merely for the pleasure of seeing
a game well played.
     The second effect was more damaging to the game's health. Ballplayers
themselves were bettors, and "hippodroming," or throwing games, was common.
     Despite fines and bans and the inclusion of antigambling statutes in the
league bylaws, gambling remained a large part of the game. Along with the
notorious Hal Chase, figures as "respectable" as John McGraw, Ty Cobb, and
Tris Speaker had their names linked to game fixing. Every year the Spalding
Baseball Guide railed against gambling evils in its introduction.
     From the 1870s through the early 1900s, the baseball pools were the most
popular form of gambling. Similar to today's football pools, a pool bettor
simply picked the team that would win the most games or score the most or
fewest runs in the week, rather than bet on a team to win a particular game.
Although certainly less harmful than direct game betting, these pools still
offered the gamblers great chances to win money by "involving" players or
managers.
     The betting was substantial. According to Professor Harold Seymour, one
such pool in Pittsburgh ranged over the entire East Coast and Canada, offering
prizes of $1,000 a week. (The average per capita income annually was less than
$550.) Another pool earned its managers from $30,000 to $50,000 a week. A
1911 estimate said that in the city of New Haven alone, 40,000 factory workers
and boys held pool tickets costing $10,000.
     Baseball understood the danger and kept responding, in fits and starts,
to the problem. On August 5, 1908, the New York Evening Telegram said,
"Efforts to stamp out gambling in baseball will immediately be made by the
American League." (Interestingly, this followed by two days a spurious
announcement in the New York American: "Bookmaking on baseball games in
Chicago has not been profitable, and bookmakers announced they are going out
of the business . . . 'The baseball "fan" is too wise. He knows too much
about the game,' said one disgusted bookmaker.")
     The effort to eliminate betting continued throughout the 1910s. New York
Times, 1913: "Gamblers ejected from game"; 1914, "Gambling pools barred";
1915, "Arrests for gambling." By 1919, the Times could state "Gambling
stopped at all ball parks."
     But it wasn't until 1920, the year of the Black Sox Scandal, that the
action to eradicate gambling took hold. That year six people were arrested
for gambling in Boston, four at the Polo Grounds, forty-seven in Chicago, five
more in New York, ten at a Pacific Coast League game. The uproar over a
gambling-run World Series had finally been too much for baseball and its fans
to take.
     Today baseball is still heavily gambled; Las Vegas estimates of legal
baseball gambling place it at around thirty million dollars a year, about a
third of that wagered on pro football. But with major league baseball playing
2,000 games a year and pro football one-tenth as many, the difference per game
is substantial. When less is wagered, less can be won, which means less
incentive for someone to attempt to "swing the odds."

Attendance

Before the National League was founded in 1876, baseball already had recorded
single-game attendances as high as 40,000. In 1876, the patent of Bright's
self-registering turnstile helped keep baseball body counts, although formal
data were not regularly available until the turn of the century.

1880s: According to baseball historian Bill James, "Systematic data [were]
not available. [But] attendance grew rapidly during this period."
   - 1884: The first "bargain bill" doubleheader was held by Cleveland.
   - 1889: The White Stockings drew 216,802 at home.

1890s: The average per game according to Bill James, was 2,000-3,000. He
described overall attendance during this period as "Awful, and declining,"
reporting that "In 1890... the Players' League drew 981,000 fans, the National
League 814,000."
   - The first promotion and advertising occurred: streetcar billing,
     signboards, handbills, window hangers, posters, boys on streets giving
     out handbills. Cincinnati ran paid ads in local papers (including the
     German-language one).
   - Baseball cards were introduced as advertisements.
   - "Children's Days" with 10 cts admission were popular, and women were
     admitted free on Ladies Days.
   - 1891: "Base Ball Day" in Chicago let all amateur teams in uniform in
     free.

1900s: Total attendance was about 50 million, or 4,100 per game.
   - 1908: "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" was introduced.
   - 1909: The first concrete and steel stadiums were built.
   - Old Timers Days began, along with "days" to honor individual players.

1910s: Total attendance was 56 million, or 4,500 per game. James: "Essentially
a decade of no growth." Seymour: "A prodigious $100 billion increase in
national wealth brightened the first two decades of the century." The effects
included suburbs with trolley lines and stadiums as the population moved from
the country to the city.
     Sunday baseball, which had disappeared with the demise of the American
Association in 1891, was finally permitted by state and local legislatures.
By 1918 it was legal in Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington. New York voted it
in the following year. (Boston didn't allow it till 1929; the state of
Pennsylvania, the final holdout, did not until 1933.)
   - 1912: "Foreign-born spectators from seventeen different countries were
            observed at a game in New York." (Spalding Baseball Guide).
            Blacks also were becoming avid fans.
   - 1913: In Brooklyn, the first Honor Roll Day was held.
   - 1917: Scorecard winning numbers become common.
   - 1917: The first "Knothole Gang" was organized in St. Louis.
   - Ladies Day, which had been abolished by the National League in 1909,
     resurfaced eight years later.

1920s: Total attendance, about 93 million, or 7,500 per game. The Yankees
exceeded a million almost every year. Average club attendance rose 50
percent over what it had been the decade before. Seymour states that
even though 1920-1930 showed the largest single-decade rise in American
population ever (17 million), baseball attendance rose at an even faster rate.
   - 1921: Pittsburgh, August 5. The first baseball broadcast occurred,
     over KDKA radio with Harold Arlin. The World Series (Giants vs.
     Yankees) was also broadcast that year.
   - 1925: Philip K. Wrigley allowed all Cubs game to be aired every day.

1930s: Total attendance, about 81 million, or 6,600 per game. The first night
baseball game was held in 1880, at Nantasket Beach, Massachusetts. Amateur
players from two local department stores performed in a promotion for the
light company; the event has since been celebrated in a General Electric
television commercial. Described as having "innumerable" errors because of
lights, the first effort was not successful. Three years later, a game in Fort
Wayne, Indiana, was.
     Night baseball was first embraced on the minor league level. By 1934,
fifteen of nineteen minor leagues had at least one lighted park. On May 24,
1935, Cincinnati owner Larry MacPhail hosted the first major league night
game, at Crosley Field. A total of 20,422 attended, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt threw the switch from the White House. Ford Frick, then the
National League president, threw out the first ball, and the Reds defeated the
Dodgers 2-1.
     In 1938, when MacPhail moved to Brooklyn, so did lights. The first
Brooklyn night game, on June 15, was Johnny Vander Meer's second successive
no-hitter. The first American League team to play night games was
Philadelphia, in 1939. By 1940, seventy major league night games were
scheduled. The only parks without lights that year were Washington, which
added them the next year; Yankee Stadium and Braves Field (which added them in
1946); Fenway Park (1947); Detroit (1948); and Chicago's Wrigley Field (1988).
The first World Series game to be played at night happened on October 13,
1971, when the Pirates beat the Orioles at Three Rivers Stadium.
   - 1930: Major league attendance in 1930 was 10,132,272--the highest of any
     season between 1901 and 1945.
   - 1931: Players' numbers became official practice in the AL.
   - 1935: Night baseball was introduced.
   - 1939: All teams broadcast their games on radio.
   - August 26, 1939: The first TV broadcast was made.

1940s: Total attendance, about 135 million, or 11,000 per game.
     James describes 1946 as "the Great Leap Forward"--1946 attendance was
18.5 million, 71 percent above the previous high. He lists as reasons the
advent of night baseball, a return to economic normalcy after World War II,
and great pennant races.

1950s: Total attendance, about 165 million, or 13,500 per game.
   - 1951. The first nationally televised World Series game occurred.
     David Voigt says, "In the years after the war, baseball crowds became
predominantly family gatherings, united by the ethic of 'togetherness' in
their fun-seeking. Television pushed the trend by bombarding families with
ball games in the summertime."

1960s: Total attendance, about 224 million, or 14,000 per game.
   - Bill Veeck added players' names to their uniforms in 1960.
   - Major League Baseball expanded (after changing only two locations in
     fifty-seven years previously), adding eight new teams.

1970s: Total attendance, about 330 million, or 16,500 per game.
   - 1976: Free agency was instated by an arbitrator's decree.
   - 1977: Cable television began to have an impact on viewing.
   - 1978. Dodgers are first team with single-season attendance
            of more than 3 million.

1980s: Total attendance about 512 million, or 24,300 per game.
   - 1981. A strike by players eliminated as many as fifty-nine
           games of the season for some teams.
   - 1982. Braves take name of "America's Team" for themselves.
   - 1984. Cal Griffith sells the Twins.
   - 1985. The Pittsburgh Drug Trials.
   - 1985. Players' strike settled in two days by Commissioner
           Ueberroth.
   - 1986. For the first time, all 26 teams pass 1 million mark
           in attendance.
   - 1988. Night baseball comes to Wrigley Field.
   - 1989. Toronto's new SkyDome opens.

1990-1993. Total attendance, 237 million, or 27,633 per game.
   - 1991. New Comiskey Park opens in Chicago.
   - 1991. Toronto is first team to draw 4 million fans.
   - 1992. Oriole Park at Camden Yards opens in Baltimore.
   - 1992. Second overall attendance drop since 1989,
           attributed to weak teams in major cities.
   - 1993. NL expansion to Denver and Miami adds 8.5 million to attendance.
           Rockies set record with 4,483,350, more than 55,000 per game. Even
           subtracting the effect of the expansion teams, baseball's
           attendance jumps by nearly 6 million fans, the largest ever.
           (Although part of the reason is an accounting technique; for the
           first time the National League did what the American League has
           done for years--include no-shows in the total.)
   - 1994. New parks open in Cleveland and Arlington.

Concessions

     Food and beverages have been a big part of the fun at a baseball game
from the beginning. In 1859, New Orleans ballclubs pitched "commodious tents
for the ladies . . . under the umbrageous branches of fine old live oaks" to
shelter their delicate skin from the sun as they enjoyed refreshments as well
as the local baseball rivalry.
     In the first decade of professional baseball, you could find an array of
food: peanuts, soft drinks, crackerjacks, ice cream, cherry pie, cheese,
chocolates, planked onions, and even tripe. Vendors moved through the crowd
hawking sandwiches, soda water, and chewing gum. By 1871 the Olympics of
Washington, D.C., had anticipated the "stadium clubs" of today's parks when
they opened a first-class restaurant at the park.
     Ballpark concession stands as we have come to know them can be traced to
1872, from which time we have a photo of the Boston team posed in front of
their grandstand clearly showing large painted signs saying SODA and
REFRESHMENTS. During his tenure as owner of the Chicago team, Albert Spalding
himself encouraged concession stands, rather than hawkers moving throughout
the crowd. The ChiFeds of 1914 lay claim to the earliest permanent concession
stand in Wrigley Field.
     Along with various sorts of munchies, ballparks sold beer and hard
liquor, too. In his Baseball: The Early Years, Harold Seymour lists how many
beer and whiskey glasses the typical ballpark bar stocked. But in 1880, the
always image-conscious National League tried to eliminate ballpark drinking,
and the result was the second major professional league, the American
Association.
     The four-year-old National League was trying to civilize its image,
fighting the coarsening effect of gambling and promoting the calming influence
of female attendance. As part of this effort, in 1880 the league passed a law
forbidding gambling and the sale of alcohol at the ballparks. Unfortunately
the Cincinnati team had a long tradition of beer and whiskey sales; they were
averaging $3,000 a season of concession income. Breweries and distilleries
were two of the largest industries in the city. So rather than face the
financial damage of a no-beer ballpark, Cincinnati quit the league and was the
leader in starting the Association, which detractors unsurprisingly called
"The Beer and Whiskey League." The New York World, with perfect big city
parochialism, charged that Cincinnati was a place to "watch for flying mugs .
. . cheap sports and toughs" gathered behind home plate. Meanwhile, the New
York Giants had a bar in full view of the field.
     Although the major league American Association folded after ten years,
and the attempt to eliminate gambling continued for twenty more, baseball and
beer have always remained linked.
     Ballpark food and drink and scorecards can be traced back to the 1850s
and sixties, but it wasn't till the 1880s that one man turned these concepts
into enterprise: the first professional concessionaire and the first
concession empire. Harry M. Stevens, a British immigrant, went to a
baseball game in Columbus, Ohio, one afternoon (so the story goes). Realizing
that there was no way to identify the players, Stevens sought out the owner
and for $500 obtained the right to publish and sell a program. (Scorecards
predate this anecdote by twenty years, but they were usually very modest
items, with little or no advertising. It took Stevens to see the potential
for profits.) "Scorecard Harry" sold the programs himself, calling out the now
famous slogan "You can't tell the players without a scorecard."
     The scorecard idea had an intriguing spinoff. Although the ballplayers
had no numbers on their uniforms, they were given numbers on the scorecards.
Then, as each player came to bat, his number was placed on the scoreboard. A
scandal occurred when people brought old scorecards into the park, or bought
"counterfeit" ones from "illegal" scorecard vendors outside. The teams were
forced to change the scorecard numbers often.
     Harry M. Stevens didn't stop with scorecards. An ambitious promoter, he
started selling food: hard-boiled eggs, sandwiches, even coconut custard
pies. He expanded his business into Wheeling, Pittsburgh, Toledo, and
Milwaukee. A conversation with New York Giants manager John Montgomery Ward
in Pittsburgh in 1893 led to Harry's landing the Polo Grounds concession.
Before long the Stevens empire used its New York connection to include
contracts with Madison Square Garden, hotels, and racetracks.
     Stevens was always the innovator. On a cold day in the Polo Grounds in
1901, ice cream wasn't selling, but Harry had an idea. He sent an assistant
out for frankfurters (locally called "dachshund sausages"), which were sold in
the neighborhood German groceries, heated the sausages in hot water, and put
them in long buns so the fans could hold and eat them. The vendors shouted
out what made these inventions so special: "Get 'em while they're hot!  Get
your red hots here!"
     Sports cartoonist Thomas A. "Tad" Dorgan, looking for an idea that day,
drew a sketch of waiters serving talking frankfurters ("You're not so hot!"
"Bologna!"). Some say Dorgan couldn't remember how to spell "dachshund";
others say his spelling problem was with "frankfurter". For whatever reason,
he coined the term "hot dogs" instead. Baseball food has never been the same.
To this day, hot dogs, soda pop, and beer are the three biggest-selling items
in every major league park.
     Stevens continued to bring new ideas to his business. Realizing that
fans might not purchase soda pop because raising their heads to drink might
make them miss some of the game action, Harry came up with the idea of selling
the soda with a straw. Now even the most devoted fan could quench his or her
thirst and never miss a single pitch.
     Still largely family-owned and -operated, the Harry M. Stevens Company,
one hundred years later, is one of the largest ballpark concessionaires in the
nation, with sales close to $175 million overall.
     During the early decades of the century, only scattered figures are
available, but they mention profits of several thousand dollars a year for the
average club. By 1929, Baseball Magazine was saying that concession "receipts
at Wrigley Field soar far above $100,000 a year." The same article stated
that money from gate sales created 87.6 percent of the major leagues' gross
profit, and concessions 5.5 percent.
     But the end of the Second World War brought a new popularity to baseball.
America's return to normalcy was also a return to the ballpark. As historian
David Voigt puts it, "In the years after the war, baseball crowds became
predominantly family gatherings, united by the ethic of 'togetherness' in
their fun-seeking . . . The new breed of fans demanded and won comforts and
pleasures from promoters . . . including neatly packaged food, canned music
and giveaways. Food and drink sales now rivaled ticket sales in revenue
production."
     Today selling food at the ballparks, stadiums, and racetracks of America
is big business. Since Harry M. Stevens, many companies have entered the
field. At the most basic level, professional concessionaires provide and
prepare all the food for the ballgames, hire and train their employees, and
then agree to pay the contractee a percentage of their gross. (The few
absolute exceptions are those teams which act as their own concessionaire,
subcontracting specialized stands for specific food items to outside
companies--Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, etc.)
     By 1990 the average tab for the fan at a ballgame ran from $4 to $6
(that's up from 70-90 in the 1960s), so rough figures indicate that a
ballclub with 2 million in attendance will generate as much as $12 million
in concessions. How much the team gets, however, depends upon its contract
with the ballpark's owners.
     The contract to provide concession services may be with the baseball
team, or it may be with the stadium authority, or it may be with the city or
municipality that owns the stadium. Everyone gets a share; the main
contractee gets the most. For example, some concessionaires pay as much as 52
percent of their receipts back to the contractee. If the baseball team signed
the contract, it could receive 47 percent of that 52 percent, and give the
rest to the other partners. Or the club could receive 24 or 25 percent (which
is about average).
     But few baseball teams own their ballparks; most share the facility with
pro football or other teams. So the football team could receive a certain
percentage of the gross, the baseball team another, the stadium authority
another. In certain categories the percentage can vary; the baseball club may
get a bigger percentage of soft drink sales than the football team, which
might get more for hot drink sales; the city may take the lion's share of the
concessionaire income and allot only a certain percentage to the teams, or
vice versa.
     With only a handful of major concessionaires (Harry M. Stevens, ARA
Services, Ogden Allied, Sportservice, and a few others), and with contracts
that typically run for fifteen to eighteen years (some for thirty), the
competition is fierce.
     The growth of fast food restaurants has changed the kinds of food
available in ballparks, by making certain kinds of packaging more acceptable.
Because fans have become more demanding and the American palate is changing,
concessionaires experiment, sometimes adding as many as twenty new menu items
per year. For some reason soft ice cream is a hit in air-conditioned Houston,
while windy Comiskey is selling a lot of cold deli sandwiches and funnel
cakes. Oriole Park at Camden Yards brags about its Maryland crab cakes ("made
here fresh daily") and crab soup. Sausages varieties way past the humble hot
dog (Italian, Polish, brat- and knockwursts) have proliferated. In Toronto's
SkyDome, the number two selling item in the park is the Big Mac, according to
their chief concessionaire, McDonald's. "Out-sourcing," or bringing in food
from well-known restaurants in the area, is popular in Pittsburgh, where a
deli sandwich favored by truckers and a popular fish purveyor's sandwich have
created two of the most crowded stands in the stadium.
     In addition, the modern stadiums of today are echoing the earlier days,
with their "cafes" and restaurants offering more serious fare before, during,
and after the game. Homer Rose, longtime employee of the Harry M. Stevens
Company, and grandson of Harry himself, said, "At first it was peanuts, ice
cream cones, lemonade, and bottled soft drinks. Now in the dining rooms and
private boxes we're serving shrimp salads and full-course dinners." The
Stevens Company alone runs restaurants at dozens of racetracks and stadiums.
     On the average, a typical ballpark hot dog is close to $2.00 today, 92
years after its Polo Grounds introduction. Hamburgers can cost $3.00, pizza
around $2.00 a slice, and french fries $1.50 or more. Popcorn can cost
anything--how big a barrel do you want?
     One more change is becoming apparent--beer, a ballpark staple since the
beginning, is again less easy to obtain. Concern about drunk driving has
resulted in every team selling beer in smaller servings, allowing fewer
servings to be sold to one person at one time, having special no-alcohol
sections, and stopping sales after a certain time in the game. So far, no one
has raised a serious voice about banning all alcohol sales at the ballpark.