National League club owners faced many challenges throughout the Deadball Era (1901-1919). Twice they went to war with upstart rival leagues, once winning and once making peace. And there was no shortage of controversies, especially the 1908 Merkle game and its aftermath. The owners, or magnates, as they liked to be called, could easily have picked any of these as the most important issue they had faced. But Brooklyn’s Charles Ebbets, an active participant in every owner’s meeting of the period, would have disagreed. The Dodgers owner claimed that “the building of a schedule,” something we may take for granted today, was the “the most important proposition that we [the owners] have to deal with.”
How could something seemingly so routine have so much significance? While the assignment of playing dates may not seem crucial, the schedule’s importance lay in its impact on ticket sales, every team’s primary, if not only, source of revenue. In a world without television or radio and little, if any, merchandise sales, the quarters fans put down to enter the ballpark were all owners had to meet their expenses. And the potential supply of paying customers was limited. No matter how many fans wanted to see a game, most worked six days a week, well before night baseball. Further limiting ticket sales was the inability of the five clubs in the sabbath observing east to play on the one day most people were off from work. All of this made for intense competition for the best dates known as “plums.” So fierce were the “heated discussions” on the 1888 National League schedule that the debate lasted twelve hours, finally ending at 3:00 a.m.
Clearly the schedule-making system, to the extent there was one, wasn’t working. Fortunately, when the Brooklyn club joined the National League in 1890, club owner Charles Bryne brought with him, his right-hand man, the aforementioned Mr. Ebbets. During Brooklyn’s time in the American Association, Ebbets “did most of the work” on that league’s schedule. When Brooklyn joined the National League, Byrne, and therefore, Ebbets joined the schedule committee. His work was of such high quality that both leagues passed resolutions thanking him for bringing order out of chaos. Perhaps Ebbets’ greatest achievement was the 1892 schedule when he converted a 140-game, eight-team league, full-season schedule to 150 games with 12 teams and a split season. Ebbets did such a good job, that his proposed schedule was adopted without a single change. Although it hardly seems radical, the solution to the fight over the “plums” was the seemingly obvious approach of rotating the most lucrative dates. Recognizing the value of his work, Ebbets, who was nobody’s fool, obtained copyrights on his schedule forms as early as 1885.
By the early twentieth century, the National League was no longer solely dependent on Ebbets’ schedule-making expertise. About 1904, Barney Dreyfuss, owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates joined the committee, a position he held until 1927. Although little specific information survives about Dreyfuss’ schedule-making skills when he retired from the committee, the Pittsburgh owner was “lauded for his expertise, his evenhandedness and the integrity he exhibited as committee chairman.” Ebbets, himself, praised Dreyfuss’ ability, calling the Pittsburgh owner his “superior as a schedule maker.” There was, however, a cost to the added expertise, two men with large egos and a penchant for being difficult. Dreyfuss, more than a little immodestly, considered himself “ a pretty smart fellow.” Less broadly, but no less egotistically, Ebbets dubbed himself “an expert on schedules.” Contemporary sportswriter, Fred Lieb claimed Dreyfuss “wasn’t too easy to get along with” and said fellow owners “often accused him of being arbitrary, unreasonable and obstinate.” Ebbets may have been Dreyfuss's equal in the latter category, acknowledging his own “stubborn disposition.
Having two experts on the committee was an advantage so long as the two men agreed. But if they disagreed, especially on a major issue, there was the potential for bitter conflict. And such was the case with the great schedule war of 1910. It began innocently enough at the December 1909 NL owners’ meeting. After much debate, the eight owners finally agreed on a compromise candidate for league president, retired umpire Thomas Lynch. With the owners exhausted and ready to go home, Ebbets proposed increasing the 1910 schedule from 154 to 168 games. Unfortunately, for Ebbets, his fellow expert, Mr. Dreyfuss immediately claimed it wasn’t feasible. Ebbets wisely avoided a debate no one had the energy for, by seeking and receiving approval to prepare a 168-game schedule for future consideration. In voting for the resolution which passed 6-2, Cincinnati owner Garry Herrmann reminded everyone, and especially Ebbets, that the vote was not a commitment to adopt such a schedule. Ominously for Ebbets, Barney Dreyfuss cast one of the two negative votes.
While Dreyfuss might have had legitimate concerns about the practicality of adding 14 games to the season, Ebbets had good reasons for arguing that the league should experiment with an expanded schedule. Most importantly, the extra games would generate additional revenue with little added cost since player salary expenses wouldn’t increase. Furthermore, scheduling the games as add-ons to regular series meant travel expenses would remain the same. The only additional expenses would be increased hotel costs and higher ballpark operating expenses, which Ebbets estimated would be about $1,000. All told the Brooklyn owner projected that each team would generate $7-10,000 (about $238,000 to $340,000 today) of additional revenue, almost all of which would go directly to the bottom line.
Ebbets, recognizing that Dreyfuss could wreak havoc with his proposal, gave all of the owners the chance to express their opinions. He found that only Dreyfuss was totally opposed although some support for the longer schedule was qualified. Since the American League had a voice, the Brooklyn owner also polled that league’s eight owners all of whom seemed to be on board. Unfortunately, for Ebbets, however, given Ban Johnson’s autocratic nature, that didn’t mean that the American League would support the idea. Touching all the bases, Ebbets went to Milwaukee to learn about the American Association’s experience with a 168-game schedule. While the rest of the National League owners enjoyed Christmas, Ebbets worked all that day and the following day, a Sunday, to prepare a draft schedule which he sent out for comment. As a preemptive move, Ebbets tried to meet with Dreyfuss, but that didn’t happen. That was a bad omen, suggesting that war clouds were gathering.
Like a general going on the offensive, Dreyfuss could choose when and where to attack. The Pittsburgh owner decided to fire his first shot through the media. Rather than use local Pittsburgh papers that might be accused of favoritism, Dreyfuss chose Jack Ryder, a prominent sportswriter for the Cincinnati Enquirer. The attack began on January 7 under a headline proclaiming, “Barney Hopes for Fewer Games” and “Will Oppose It [the 168 game schedule] at League Meeting.” Dreyfuss’ objections included conflicts with football, problematic fall weather and potential damage to the still relatively new World Series. The Pittsburgh owner left little room for debate, telling Ryder “It is hard to me to see a single reasonable argument in favor of extending our present schedule.”
Emphasizing Dreyfuss’ power on schedule issues, Ryder claimed it was “quite likely that the long schedule will be abandoned.” Piling on a day later, Ryder, reported that Dreyfuss was recruiting Reds owner Herrmann to his side, news guaranteed to upset, if not infuriate Ebbets. Rubbing salt in Ebbets wounds, Ryder said Dreyfuss “took some delight in finding these flaws [in the schedule].” Ryder even claimed that “the agreement to play 168 games was rushed through . . . with no consideration at all.”
Understandably, Ebbets was livid over Dreyfuss’ public attack on him and his brainchild. Responding in kind, the Brooklyn owner used the Brooklyn Daily Eagle to tell the world that “Dreyfuss has been discourteous.” Reminding Dreyfuss, and everyone else, that his draft schedule was for discussion purposes only, the Brooklyn owner rightfully argued it was not “proper for anybody to throw rocks at the tentative work of anybody especially in the papers.” Making the public criticism even more inappropriate was Dreyfuss's failure to have the courtesy to even acknowledge receipt of Ebbets' draft. Going on the attack, the Brooklyn owner claimed Dreyfuss was so confident his club would repeat as pennant winners he was afraid the extra regular season games would hurt World Series attendance and, therefore, the Pirates' bottom line. If this was too subtle, Ebbets added that Dreyfuss “is only looking at his own selfish end of it.” With magnificent understatement, the Eagle noted that the two men “have locked horns.”
Having gone on the offensive Ebbets kept up his counterattack, using the Eagle to demand Dreyfuss resign from the committee for publicly criticizing a working document. Ebbets argued that if the Pittsburgh owner didn’t step down, there would be two experts on the committee with opposite viewpoints. The divided National League delegation would then be at a major disadvantage in schedule negotiations with the American League especially since new National League president Lynch admitted he knew nothing about the subject.
Dreyfuss would have none of it, shrewdly saying he would resign, but only if Ebbets also did so. It was a shrewd move because Dreyfuss knew Ebbets would dismiss the idea since there would then be no one left on the committee with the necessary expertise. The Brooklyn owner promptly did so calling Dreyfuss’ counterproposal a “a joke.” That being the case, Dreyfuss retorted “There is no chance of my withdrawing and allowing Ebbets to sit in there with his long schedule ideas, not a chance.” Clearly, no minds had been changed and the media campaign was a stalemate. But Dreyfuss had already opened a new front, less public, but directed at the only audience that really mattered.
A day after Brooklyn owner launched his newspaper counteroffensive, Dreyfuss finally wrote to Ebbets about his 168-game draft schedule which Dreyfuss claimed had “many flaws.” Deflecting the Cincinnati Enquirer articles by claiming they weren’t “authentic interviews” and promising he would go along as “a good soldier should” if he lost, the Pittsburgh owner got down to specifics. According to Dreyfuss, playing 168 games meant the World Series couldn’t start until October 17 or 18, turning the Fall Classic into “a farce in more ways than one.” Beyond that, the weather would be too cold and there would be competition from college football. Scheduling doubleheaders, as opposed to using them for makeups, was also a problem as was a shortage of open dates in some cities. Anticipating correctly, that Ban Johnson wouldn’t approve of the 168-game schedule, Dreyfuss stressed the importance of working cooperatively with the American League.
If Dreyfuss thought his letter was going to stop Ebbets, he was very much mistaken. In keeping with his verbose nature, the Brooklyn owner wrote a seven-page response, again ripping into Dreyfuss’ “discourteously ridiculing [the draft schedule] through the public press.” With more than a little sarcasm, Ebbets wondered if he had been “dreaming” about the Cincinnati Enquirer articles since they contained “precisely” the same arguments Dreyfuss made in his letter. And Ebbets asked, if the draft had so many flaws, why Dreyfuss didn’t help like “a sincere committeeman would” to correct them. Nor did Ebbets have much time for Dreyfuss's specific criticisms. Ebbets believed “the World Series will draw anytime in October” and asked if baseball was “to be a sideshow for football.” Perhaps most powerful was Ebbets' argument that there was little risk in trying the 168-game schedule in 1910 since if it was “not satisfactory we can easily go back to 154 in 1911.” Escalating the conflict even further, Ebbets shared his letter with the other league presidents, angering Dreyfuss in the process.
Ebbets’ proposal for a one-year experiment with the 168-game schedule was a reasonable approach, but by this point, there was little interest in rational discussion. Nor would there be any more indirect debates between the two sides. The time had come for face-to-face confrontation beginning with a January 24 joint schedule committee meeting in Pittsburgh. It's hard to imagine a house more divided than the National League committee. Dreyfuss and Ebbets were adamantly opposed to each other while Lynch, who had been in office all of 30 days, brought no experience and little credibility to the debate. No such division existed in the American League. In spite of Ebbets' claim that the American League magnates favored the 168-game alternative, it was Ban Johnson who prepared the schedule. Sadly for Ebbets, Johnson was opposed to playing 168 games, agreeing with Dreyfuss that there would be too many doubleheaders and that it would hurt the World Series.
Given the degree of disagreement, it would have been no surprise if the meeting was a total waste of time. Surprisingly, Lynch, who seemed unlikely to make any meaningful contribution, helped turn the meeting from a disaster into a highly productive session. At the National League president’s urging Johnson agreed to have the two sides work together to build the best schedules possible for both the 154 and 168 game versions. To that end, the assembled magnates and league presidents devoted two days to the 168-game schedule and a third to the 154-game version. It was, Dreyfuss told Herrmann, “the hardest work I have ever been called upon to perform on a schedule. While no minds were changed, there was agreement that the 154 game schedule was the best ever. It was in Ebbets' words a “great improvement.”
While the joint schedule meeting was productive, it was only a preliminary skirmish to the decisive battle of the great schedule war. The final engagement took place on an unlikely battlefield, the palatial Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, the site of the February 1910 National League owners meeting. It was a decisive battle because when all was said and done, the decision rested with the eight men who gathered in New York City. True to his promise at the joint schedule meeting, Ebbets presented the advantages and disadvantages of both schedules acknowledging the quality of the 154 game version. However, the Brooklyn owner then shifted gears, warning his fellow owners that to “chloroform” the longer schedule would cost the Brooklyn club $10,000 in revenue. Ebbets then moved approval of the 168-game schedule and to no one’s surprise, Dreyfuss repeated his arguments against it.
As the other owners spoke it became clear support for the expanded schedule was eroding. Somewhat amusing was Giants owner John T. Brush’s claim that after all of Ebbets work, it grieved Brush that he couldn’t support the Brooklyn owner’s proposal. Grief was not an emotion ordinarily associated with the dour Brush. In the end, Ebbets mustered only four votes, and his proposal failed. The failure also meant the end of any effort at polite debate. Ebbets angrily complained that the league had placed the schedule committee in a difficult situation and claimed the owners were making him “a God damn Patsy Bolivar.” (Patsy Bolivar was a scapegoat in a vaudeville act) And on that happy note, the meeting adjourned for the day.
By the time the magnates reconvened the next afternoon, the atmosphere hadn’t improved. Dreyfuss moved the 154 games schedule with the proviso that clubs could play through Columbus Day, another pet Ebbets project. The concession did little for the Brooklyn owner’s state of mind. Complaining bitterly about Dreyfuss's treatment of him, Ebbets warned the Pittsburgh owner not to “cram words in my mouth” and that he would “be God damned” if he would be “misrepresented.” The verbal fisticuffs weren’t helpful and Dreyfuss’ proposed schedule didn’t do any better with another 4-4 vote. Just how divided the owners were became crystal clear when a motion to adjourn was lost by a 3-5 vote. Another 24-hour respite, part of which was spent at the hotel bar also didn’t help. Just discussing the schedule at this point required a change in order of business but that too failed by a 3-4-1 vote.
By then it must have seemed like the owners would never agree on a schedule. Finally, however, Ebbets faced the reality that he couldn’t achieve his 168-game dream and that a 1910 schedule had to be approved. Desiring “in a measure to sacrifice myself,” the Brooklyn owner said that if some minor changes were made to the 154-game version, he and his supporters would vote for it. After the changes were accepted, Ebbets moved approval of the schedule and asked Dreyfuss to second it. Dreyfuss agreed to do so, the resolution passed unanimously, and the great schedule war was over.
Although the 1910 schedule was finished, the debate about the schedule-making process was far from over. At the February meeting, Bush had proposed that the league president prepare future schedules. When owners gathered in December of 1910, Gary Herrmann moved a constitutional amendment to that effect. Dreyfuss supported the idea, noting that in the American League, President Ban Johnson prepared the schedule and couldn’t, therefore, be accused of favoring his own team, a charge frequently lodged against Dreyfuss and Ebbets. It was here in vehemently disagreeing that Ebbets argued that the schedule was “the most important proposition” to come before the magnates. From his own experience, Ebbets firmly believed schedule making “needs an expert.” Ebbets also praised Dreyfuss’ schedule-making ability and apologized for his role in the acrimony. Moved by Ebbets eloquence and perhaps by his graciousness, the amendment was defeated leaving the schedule committee in place.
In the best of all possible worlds, the debate over schedule-making would have ended in this spirit of reconciliation. But it was not the best of at least that world. Ebbets had tangled with Thomas Lynch over other issues and the National League president now had his revenge. In reappointing the schedule committee, Lynch retained Dreyfuss but left Ebbets out. The Brooklyn owner knew full well that making only one change to the membership of the schedule committee told the world he was the “discordant element.” Understandably, and rightfully upset, Ebbets denied he was the cause of any such discord and insisted he had always acted in the best interest of the entire league. It was Ebbets told his peers “A deliberate slap at me and I thank you for it.”
Although Ebbets’ “thank you,” was more than a little sarcastic, it didn’t take him long to see the benefits of being relieved of his schedule-making responsibilities. Early in the new year, the Eagle reported that Ebbets was so “delighted” at the new “state of affairs” that he was going to celebrate with a month-long vacation to “forget baseball.” Ebbets was not, however, leaving without a parting shot. Since “harmony” supposedly now prevailed on the schedule committee, the Brooklyn owner expected “a perfect schedule” and would “be satisfied with nothing short of that.”
Needless to say, the 1911 schedule, like all schedules, past, present and future, wasn’t perfect. There was no perfect schedule, the challenge was to build the best one possible. In 1910, Barney Dreyfuss and Ban Johnson may have been correct that trying to cram 14 more games into an already crowded schedule wasn’t a good idea. Ebbets, however, was proven right over the long term. Fifty years later, the American League moved to 162 games, proving major league baseball could play more than 154 regular season games. And the addition of playoff games seven years later was the first step in pushing the World Series well beyond the mid-October dates so feared by Dreyfuss. In December of 1909, Ebbets was subject to more than a little ridicule for proclaiming that baseball was “in its infancy.” Although perhaps poorly expressed, the Brooklyn owners’ point was that baseball had evolved and would continue to do so. And the schedule was, and always will be, part of that evolution.
