The Sunday Baseball Issue in Milwaukee in 1898

Sunday baseball was under attack in many parts of the country in the mid-1890s, but in Milwaukee it was a popular day for amateurs to play and fans to attend Milwaukee Brewer games. But clouds were threatening this calm.

In February of 1897 the Senate Debating Society chose the topic for its entertainment at the First Reformed Church at North 10th and Harmon (present day Brown Street). One member acted as judge, while two debaters conducted the prosecution of defense of playing baseball on Sunday. ¹ After the famous lawyer, politician, and orator Robert Ingersoll told a reporter in Cleveland he favored Sunday baseball, saying it always gave him pleasure to see the Sabbath broken, the Milwaukee Sentinel quipped: “Perhaps he might feel differently if he occupied a residence adjoining the baseball grounds during the baseball season. The Sunday crowds are generally as much of a nuisance to the impious as to the pious.” ² A bit more ominous, in March 1897 the Protestant Ministers’ Association intimated it was to broaden its work on Sunday observance to include an attack on baseball. ³

The matter gathered more steam in the spring and early summer of 1898. On April 25 the Wisconsin Conference of the Evangelical Association met in Forest Junction and passed a resolution in favor of a rigorous observance of Sunday. ⁴ On May 30 the Milwaukee Ministers’ Association met and among the items discussed was Sunday baseball. The Rev. Oliver H. Chapin of Perseverance Presbyterian church (North 18th and Walnut) started the discussion on the subject. As his church was only about two blocks from Milwaukee Park at 16th and Lloyd he was familiar with the “evil of the game.” The Reverend told of 4,000 people paying to see ball games (and many more watching games from other positions outside the park) on Sundays. After the game many of these fans would rush into nearby saloons. At the same time there were only a few people in his church. Others at the meeting agreed with him and a committee was formed to take some action. On this committee were Rev. J.B. Davison, a member of the Sunday Rest Day Association; Rev. Chapin; Henry Colman, pastor of Oakland Avenue Methodist Episcopal church (North Oakland and East Greenwich) and also the superintendent of the reform work of the Wisconsin Anti-Saloon league; the Reverend F. Homuth from Zion Evangelical Association church (5th and Walnut); and C.G. McNeill, pastor of the Church of Christ at Hanover (present day South 3rd Street) and West Washington. ⁵

Milwaukee Journal
November 17, 1898

Very soon a “radical difference of opinion” was reported within this committee. It was said Chairman Davison was strongly opposed to the sport on Sundays, while Rev. McNeill saw no serious harm in watching baseball played on the Sabbath, and could not find anything “inherently vicious” in baseball. He believed “many people are kept out of worse places than the baseball park on Sundays by seeing Connie Mack’s colts tussle with their visitors.” Rev. McNeill thought the individual pastors should take up the matter of attending baseball games on Sunday with their church members. ⁶

On June 24, 1898, the Milwaukee Ministerial association came out with a statement regarding Sunday baseball. The association stated it was not opposed to baseball “at proper times,” only against Sunday ball. Setting aside the question of a religious observation of the Sabbath, it presented five reasons that would appeal to everyone.

1) Sunday games are a tax upon the players themselves who need that time for rest.
2) Sunday amusements lead to seven days’ toil for laborers in general; 10,000 people were working Sundays in Milwaukee alone, where, if there were Sunday laws, they would be at liberty.
3) Sunday amusements tend towards criminal life. “Not all who play baseball Sunday will become criminals, but a few years hence nine-tenths of the criminals will be those who now are taking lessons in Sunday fun.”
4) Sunday amusement is a peculiar badge of tyranny and pointed to Spanish Sunday bull fights as a proof of this.
5) Sunday baseball was illegal, and that the laws governing it should be enforced “to protect the life, health and character of the citizens and to preserve the freedom and prosperity of the nation.” ⁷

Of course, Brewer president Matthew Killilea was quick to respond to this statement.

Milwaukee Sentinel
January 16, 1898

Regarding the players putting in seven days of labor he said the men work only three hours a day, giving them plenty of time for recreation. He continued, “you give a ball player his Sunday and he will often spend his time at a saloon or other places which do neither work to his moral or physical advantage.” As for attending a baseball game depriving the laboring men of their recreation or rest time, Killilea found this ridiculous. Recreation to a working man was the opportunity to forget his work and many troubles, and amusements such as a baseball game is where he derived the most recreation. Sunday was the only day the laboring classes had an opportunity to see a game. President Killilea had this advice for the ministers: “”But were Sunday baseball wrong, it seems to me that there are many other evils that should be attacked before Sunday baseball. The saloon, the Sunday theater and the park are all creative of more evil than a baseball game and if the ministers intend to reform the town, it would be advisable for them to begin with the city’s most prominent evils and not strike at an amusement which is attended by many of the clergy themselves.” ⁸

On June 26 the Milwaukee Sentinel published this editorial in regard to the point in the statement that no doubt related to the ongoing Spanish-American War:

No devotee of Sunday baseball, however ardent he may be, can withhold admiration from one of the arguments of the Milwaukee Ministerial association. Sunday amusements, says the association, are peculiarly Spanish. Do not bull fights take place on Sunday? The implication here is that since whatever is peculiarly Spanish is bad, Sunday amusements, including Sunday baseball, must be bad. Surely this is a “timely” and “up to date” argument.Nevertheless, we seem to have heard or read somewhere that the custom of going to church on Sunday still obtains in Spain, and that the Spaniards eat, sleep and wear clothes upon the Lord’s day. This, however, may strike the Ministerial association as irrelevant. ⁹

The Western League Brewers, as well as amateur teams, continued to play baseball in Milwaukee on Sundays.

Notes
1) Milwaukee Journal February 22, 1897
2) Milwaukee Sentinel April 8, 1897
3) Milwaukee Sentinel March 30, 1897
4) Milwaukee Sentinel April 27, 1898
5) Milwaukee Journal May 30, October 29,Nov 6, 1898; Milwaukee Sentinel May 31,
October 28,1898
6) Milwaukee Sentinel June 8, 9, 1898
7) Milwaukee Sentinel June 25, 1898; Milwaukee Journal June 25, 1898
8)Milwaukee Journal June 25, 1898
9) Milwaukee Sentinel June 26, 1898