The Business of Baseball

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 In the spring of 1914, the upstart Federal League burst onto the scene with parades, packed stands, and a bold promise to challenge baseball’s empire — a rebel league that, for one dazzling Opening Day, looked like the future of the game. 

 In early 1961, flamboyant new owner Charlie O. Finley burst into Kansas City with a salesman’s flair—buying out partners, torching a “Yankee shuttlebus,” repainting Municipal Stadium in turquoise and gold, and transforming the downtrodden Athletics into a spectacle of fireworks, rabbits, and roses that briefly made the city believe again. 

During World War I, Major League Baseball staged pregame military drills not to train players for combat, but to perform patriotism just convincingly enough to keep the games — and the gate receipts — alive during wartime.