Major-league baseball was not immune from the global challenges posed by World War I and, as the 1918 season came to a rushed close, it wasn't completely obvious that there would be a 1919 season in the big leagues. A number of minor-league circuits had shut down during the War, but major-league owners had tried their best to portray baseball as a contributing factor to national morale. John B. Foster, the editor of the Spalding Guide, wrote in the Introduction to the 1919 edition of the Guide that there had been a prevailing opinion that "it would be better to have the tonic of good clean sport in front of the public, than to have citizens at home become morbid and misanthropic on the subjects which were demanding international attention".
Whether that opinion was actually ever prevailing or not, it had certainly taken a public thumping in 1918. After originally planning to play a shortened 140-game season (in part, presumably, to manage public opinion), the game's brain trust were caught off-guard when Secretary of War Newton Baker issued a "Work or Fight" mandate in late May that brought "non-essential" work like pro baseball under the draft eligibility umbrella. One look at the other side of public opinion came in the pages of the Southern (Liberty, MS) Herald, where a 31 May article about the mandate listed professional baseball on a list of vocations to be hit by the new order . . . a list that was headed by 'Idlers", "Gamblers", and "Clairvoyants and the like". As a result, the major leagues decided to shut the 1918 season down on Labor Day (when teams had only played about 120-125 games) and stage an early World Series (the Red Sox' last title of the 20th Century) before most of its eligible talent was conscripted into service.
The Armistice that ended the war in November gave the game a pardon from what would probably have been a temporary but complete hiatus, and owners decided in the scramble to reconstitute (from both the War and the flu pandemic) for the 1919 season that they would begin the season a week later than usual, and again aim to play a 140-game schedule. As the American League teams took the field for the first time on 23 April it was Boston, coming off of its third title in four seasons, that was the likely favorite in the AL but there had been considerable financial unrest in the off-season with Ruth, Mays and Bush all threatening to hold out for more cash and the jury was still out on the Babe as a two-way player. ("Every player has a weakness at bat, and while Babe is a natural, free hitter, they are sure to get to his weakness sooner or later" said The Sporting News on 10 April.) Detroit and Chicago looked likely to hit, but pitching depth was an issue for both teams while the Yankees looked strong on the hill but weak at the plate. Cleveland was perhaps the most-balanced threat to the Red Sox hegemony (thanks in part to the moves of Speaker and Wood a few years prior), and the Browns, Athletics and Senators looked like running well shy of the rest of the pack once again.
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