Sunday baseball games

Sunday baseball games were not usually played until the early 20th century. At first, it was frowned upon due to blue laws, but then cities like Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati decided to legalize them. Other cities such as New York City and Philadelphia had intense political and court battles to legalize the games. Nowadays, it is normal for baseball to be played on Sundays in the United States.

Due to blue laws, it was considered offensive to work on Sunday, which was expected to be a day of worship and rest. In 1794, the Pennsylvania Assembly restricted activities on Sunday by passing what they called "an Act for the prevention of vice and immorality, and of unlawful gaming, and to restrain disorderly sports and dissipation".

In 1902, Sunday baseball games were legalized in Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati.

In 1907, New York City Democrats introduced two bills in Albany, New York that attempted to legalize Sunday baseball. State Assemblyman Al Smith spoke out against the ban of Sunday Baseball arguing that it was better for young men to be playing baseball than to "be driven to places where they play Waltz Me Around Again, Willie." However, both bills were unsuccessful.

In 1911, Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack expressed a desire for the Athletics to play on Sunday. The main driving force behind his interest in playing on Sunday was to earn money. The Athletics were not a wealthy baseball club, and Athletics vice-president John Shibe estimated that the team would make $20,000 for each Sunday game that they played in Philadelphia. Mack thought that, for the team, it was financially necessary to play on Sundays, explaining that "we [the Athletics] cannot meet our payrolls playing on seventy-seven weekdays at home". Many Pennsylvania politicians and religious groups opposed Shibe and Mack's effort for Sunday baseball, claiming that playing on that day was a "breach of peace" and that the games would be "a disturbance to persons in that neighborhood desirous of preserving the peace and quiet of Sunday so that they may in such peace and quiet pursue their religious worship and meditation". Unfortunately for the Athletics, Philadelphia's other baseball team, the Phillies, took no public position on the subject, undermining the Athletics' case.

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