I was wondering earlier today how sports in America would react if we were involved in another world war. Ex: Would the NFL stop playing? Temporary delay of MLB games? What if players got drafted?
Which made me realize we do have somewhat of historical precedence. The NFL has been around since 1920 and the MLB has been around since 1869, so I assume they had to be affected by the second world war.
I have sort of two questions here:
Sorry for the multitude of smaller questions, but I just really want to know what overall effect the war had on sports of the time so I could try to imagine what would possibly happen now if some crazy scenario broke out (despite these sports organizations being billion dollar companies now).
Below the pro level college sports were greatly curtailed. For the reason you would expect, lack of bodies and transportation.
It also obviously coincided with the last golden age of service Academy Football. It's no accident Army won 3 national championships in the mid 40s. Training programs held on college campuses also saw great success often. Iowa Preflight still has more ranked wins and finishes than many schools even today. Some powers held on, but for instance about half the modern FBS dropped for at least one season between 1942 and 1944.
Some changes were also made for safety, the 1942 Rose Bowl was the only one moved from California. Due to fears of Japanese subs or aircraft it was played at Wallace Wade stadium on Duke's campus in North Carolina.
Baseball continued on apace. Indeed, no less a personage than Franklin D Roosevelt himself requested that Baseball continue in his "green light" letter.
Players pulled into service by the Draft generally went without struggle. The first two draftees went in before the US was in the war, Hugh "Losing Pitcher" Mulcahy in March of 1941, and slugger Hank Greenberg, the American League's reigning MVP, went in in May of '41. By the time the war ended, some 4500 major and minor league players had entered the various services. 151 minor leaguers and two players with major league experience lost their lives.
But it wasn't just the pro ranks that were hit. Scores of Negro League players served, including Jackie Robinson. College, semi-pro and amateur teams sent their best to war.
And before we forget, Japan had a professional baseball league as well. 69 NPBL players were killed in action, including Eiji Sawamura, for whom the league's "Best Pitcher" award (MLB: Cy Young Award) is named. The league kept playing games until late 1944, by which time those players that hadn't been called to service, were.
The pro game itself suffered a distinct loss of quality during the war... which you would expect as the players were drafted away. Extreme examples of this would be Pete Gray, who played Outfield for the St Louis Browns in 1945 despite having only one arm, and Bert Shepard, who pitched one game for the Washington Senators in 1945. He lost a leg when his P-38 Lightning was shot down over Germany.
It is also telling that the last time the Chicago Cubs had been in the World Series was 1945. They lost. Of course, that's all history after 2016's championship.