What baseball cost in New York during the 1920s

New York was not just the United States' largest city in 1925, it was the world's largest city. Entertainments in New York ranged from theater and cinema to football and boxing, but one sport saturated the city. Kids played baseball in sandlots and professional teams played games at three iconic stadiums. The Polo Grounds in Manhattan, Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, and Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, where millions would come to see George Herman Ruth hit home runs. Thinking about New York's stadiums, I started to wonder about cost. What did it cost to attend a major league game in 1925? What about the price for a bat and ball in a sporting goods store? Let's talk about the cost of baseball in New York during the 1920s. Before we begin, I should say something about annual income. The average worker in New York state had a per capita income of $874 in 1920, or nearly $15,000 adjusted for inflation in our time. All right, let's get going. Most people in New York read about baseball in print. The New York Times cost two pennies, or 33 cents in our time, and like all of the other city newspapers, its sports sections featured box scores and colorful descriptions of the long season from April to September. Tickets to major league games cost 60 cents for the bleachers, $1.10 for the grandstands, and $2.20 for box seats. Adjusted for inflation, the tickets I just mentioned would cost between $10 and $35 in our time, and those ticket prices did not change much during the decade. Elsewhere in the United States, you might get into a major league ballpark for as little as four or five dollars, but in New York City, whether we're talking about the Negro Leagues or any of the major franchises, the cheapest tickets to be found were about ten dollars. Let's talk about the playoffs. Tickets to the polo grounds for the 1921 World Series cost between $18 and $88 adjusted for inflation. A box seat ticket for the 1923 World Series at Yankee Stadium sold for $6.60, or $110 in our time. I think it's safe to say that few New Yorkers could have imagined what people would pay for World Series tickets in the 21st century. All right, let's take the subway to Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. It costs one nickel, or about 80 cents adjusted. At the ballpark, we buy tickets, and now it's time for lunch. Frankfurter sausages smothered in spicy mustard sell for a dime. That's about $1.50 in our money. How about a nice bottle of beer to wash it all down? Not so fast. Americans voted for prohibition in 1919, so selling alcoholic beverages is illegal. If we want a drink, we'll have to visit a speakeasy. But let's go inside the stadium first. We find our seats in the grandstands and sit down. The game gets underway, and fans light up their cigars and cigarettes. The smell of tobacco permeates the stadium. One interesting aspect of life at this time is the stability of prices for certain concessions. Cracker Jacks, Planters Peanuts, and Coca-Cola cost one nickel between 1920 and 1940. Companies were reluctant to raise prices on certain items because they worried consumers would refuse to pay six cents for a Coke instead of five. In 1937, the Boston Braves sold hot dogs, draft beer, ice cream, and roasted peanuts for 10 cents apiece. That means a person could buy all four items for 40 cents, equivalent to eight dollars in our time. What about a person driving to Ebbets Field? Well, they would have to gas up first, and from 1925 to 1940, a gallon of gas averaged about 20 cents. Adjusting for inflation, the price of gas hovered between $3.50 and $4. Sound familiar? Outside of the ballpark, we see kids trying to get a peek at the action through knotholes or underneath a fence. Well, they may not have the money for a ticket, but at least they can go back to the sandlot for a game, and many of those kids owned a leather glove or regulation-sized baseball. What about the prices for those items? This Sears Roebuck catalog from 1922 advertises all kinds of new labor-saving devices powered by electricity. Irons, toasters, vacuums, and washing machines. The cost of sporting goods would not shock someone living in the 21st century. The cheapest leather gloves cost 65 cents or $11, and the cheapest baseballs cost 32 cents or $5.50. The most expensive glove, the Honus Wagner model, retails at $4.20 or $72 in our time. It's a relatively expensive purchase, but not completely outside the reach of a middle-class American family. Radio changed America during the 1920s. This technology meant invisible radio waves crossed state lines and made it possible for millions of people to hear music such as jazz, live sports, and news reports. It was the internet of the era, and 40% of American households had a radio set by 1929. Radio sets cost between one and two thousand dollars adjusted for inflation in 1925, but by the mid-1930s, radios had come down in price and nearly every household had one. Here is Red Barber, voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943. He and other sports broadcasters brought baseball, football, and boxing into the homes of millions. Today, Americans get their baseball from an array of sources, including television, radio, digital streaming, and print media. Thanks to cable television and internet streams, viewers can see and hear live baseball on a daily basis. Tickets to visit a Major League Baseball stadium have gone up, but it is still possible to see the Mets or Yankees during the regular season for as little as twenty dollars. All in all, there are quite a few similarities across the different eras. Attending a National League game in 1876 cost fifty cents, or about fifteen dollars in our time. Here we see footage of the 1952 World Series between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees. Americans living today would recognize the songs, snacks, and high level of competition if they were at Ebbets Field. And that's something I like about the National Pastime, its continuity with previous eras. If you like what you saw, there are more shorts and lectures on this channel. And thanks for watching.