National Commission
After the American League, led by president Ban Johnson, ascended to major status at the turn of the century, big-league baseball was governed by a three-man National Commission, consisting of the head of the A.L., the head of the N.L. and one independently elected chairman. For the life of the Commission, founded in 1903, the A.L. head was Johnson and the chairman was Reds owner Garry Herrmann (who was palatable to A.L. owners because he frequently sided with his close friend Johnson). The N.L. presidency was less steady, and in 1915, former Pennsylvania governor John K. Tener took over the post from Thomas Lynch.
By 1918, though, the Commission was teetering. It was inefficient, subject to seemingly arbitrary decisions and losing the respect of the owners who gave the Commission its power in the first place. Some were already calling for the establishment of a one-man head of baseball—former 
Events throughout 1918 helped to sap the power of A.L. president Ban Johnson. (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.) president William H. Taft was among those proposed—and it was rumored that both Tener and Johnson were considering resigning. News of the Black Sox scandal in 1920 finally provided the death blow for the Commission, but 1918 was a key year in toppling the system
The main cause of the weakening of the Commission was the case of a pitcher named Scott Perry, who had been with a minor-league club in Atlanta in 1917 when his rights were sold to the National League’s Boston Braves. Perry showed up in Boston on June 1, but jumped his contract with the Braves 16 days later and signed with an outlaw team. At the time, the Commission ruled that if Perry returned, his rights belonged to the Braves. The following spring, though, the Atlanta team released Perry’s rights to Philadelphia in the American League. The Braves made no objection—until Perry started the year pitching extraordinarily well
At that point, the Braves brought their case to the Commission, and in June, both Tener and Herrmann agreed that Perry should go to the Braves. But Johnson advised A’s manager Connie Mack not to give up Perry, and Mack took out a court injunction preventing the Braves from taking Perry. This marked the first time that the courts had been used to violate an edict from the Commission. Tener threatened to resign in July, and followed through on that threat in early August.
Not only did the Perry case make the Commission look weak, but it looked absurd. Problem was, that wasn’t the only situation in 1918 that led to a weakening of the game’s governing body.
While the National League was scattered and without strong leadership, Johnson tended to run the A.L. with an iron fist and the owners in his league, who had made money under Johnson’s rule, tended to comply. But his grip was weakening in 1918, and increasingly, owners defied him. Entering the season, Johnson had feared that the war would do great damage to the game, and, it turned out, he was right. In 1917, he offered to shut down the game for the duration of the war, but was labeled a calamity-howler for it, and president Woodrow Wilson declared the government supported baseball. Johnson wanted to get a limited number of players exempted from the draft to keep the game going—18 for each team—but was heavily criticized by the government, press and public for making the suggestion.
In July, when the war department declared baseball a nonessential occupation and ordered that its players be subject to the work-or-fight edict (which stated that all men of draft age must be employed in work essential to the war or be subject to immediate conscription) that had been handed down in May, Johnson quickly declared that all American League parks would be shut down. His owners were outraged. They had not been consulted on that declaration, and they defied Johnson by continuing to play. Johnson, humbled, saved face by sending out a telegram directing A.L. teams to keep playing their schedule, which they were already doing.
Eventually, baseball was granted a stay by the government, its players exempt from work-or-fight rules until September 1. Johnson wanted to end the regular season in August, and play a World Series starting on August 20. Most team owners wanted to play through September 1 and start the World Series on September 4. But Johnson’s good friend, White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, gave a rousing speech to team owners that persuaded them to vote against Johnson’s plan, one of the early sticking points in a fateful freezing-over of the relationship between Johnson and Comiskey.
Johnson was not accustomed to being so freely ignored. One of the early strengths of the National Commission was that Johnson had the strong backing of the owners in his league and could usually count on the support of Herrmann. In this case, he had neither. Things truly were changing. Johnson issued a statement: “If the club owners wish to take a chance on acting contrary to the ruling of the War Department, that is their business.”
That brought a scathing rebuke signed by Red Sox owner (and frequent Johnson critic) Harry Frazee, Washington manager Clark Griffith, and Comiskey. They accused Johnson of bungling the work-or-fight situation and added something like an A.L. magnates’ declaration of independence: “From now on, the club owners are going to run the American League. We criticise [sic] Mr. Johnson merely as an official. We have nothing against him personally, but from now on we intend to take a hand in the management of the league. His rule or ruin policy is shelved.”
A week later, though, Comiskey and Griffith said they did not authorize the statement. This is what a joke baseball’s governance had become in 1918—even the anti-Johnson faction had factions. Things would only get worse in the coming years.
