Walter Johnson and his Washington teammates were able to play home games on Sundays starting in 1918. | AP Photo Congress lifts ban on Sunday baseball in D.C., May 14, 1918

The term “Sunday baseball” was once as divisive a term as abortion is today. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the United States struggled with Sunday changing from a day of rest and religion to a day of family leisure and ultimately to a day of optional recreation, the issue made headlines.

When the law was flouted, the police would often intervene. Such prosecutions involved professional baseball players performing before paying spectators. They were founded on state and local Sunday observance laws, which criminalized engaging in leisure activities on Sunday, without specifically citing baseball.


Some Americans believed baseball detracted from the sanctity of what became accepted as the biblically specified day of rest.

Charlie Bevis, writing in a 2005 issue of "A Journal of Baseball History and Culture," found that where Puritan influences were particularly strong, along the East Coast, Sunday laws were rigorously enforced. “Before 1900,” he wrote, “the Sunday laws posed a huge problem for many people who desired to view a match of the increasingly popular game of professional baseball. At the turn of the century, the typical workweek for most working people was at least six days of ten-hour days, with Sunday and the infrequent holiday the only time off.”

Nevertheless, franchise by franchise, the ban against Sunday baseball fell. In 1902, they were legalized in three Midwest cities: Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinnati.

In 1907, Democrats unsuccessfully introduced two bills in the State Assembly to legalize Sunday baseball. Al Smith, a state assemblyman and a future presidential nominee, spoke out against the ban, 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.’”

In 1917, the New York Giants and Cincinnati Reds played the first Sunday game ever at the Polo Grounds, the Giants' home field. After the game, both managers, John McGraw, and Christy Mathewson, were arrested for violating the blue laws. Judge Francis Xavier McQuade found them not guilty.

The Friday Cover Sign up for POLITICO Magazine’s email of the week’s best, delivered to your inbox every Friday morning. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

On this day in 1918, Congress voted to allow Washington, D.C., a federal enclave, to lift the curb. Accordingly, on May 19, in the first Sunday baseball game ever played in the nation’s capital, the Washington Senators defeated the Cleveland Indians 1-0 in 18 innings before some 15,000 fans at the American League Base Ball Park.

Besides Washington, Sunday baseball was also legalized in 1918 in Cleveland and Detroit. A year later, New York legalized baseball games on Sunday.

In some other Eastern cities, however, it took longer to do away with the ban. Thus, following a vote by Philadelphians in November 1933 to permit such games, the first legal Sunday game was played in the city on April 22, 1934, in a contest that pitted the Athletics against the Senators.

SOURCE: A JOURNAL OF BASEBALL HISTORY AND CULTURE, VOL. 14, NO. 1, PAGES 78-97

