Judge, 1925-08-15 · page 12 of 37
Judge — August 15, 1925 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "When Big Business Takes Over Big Baseball" This 1920s satirical cartoon critiques the commercialization of baseball by corporate management. The baseball diamond is redrawn as a corporate flowchart, with businessmen discussing strategy using jargon like "out-drops," "spitballs," and pitch selection—but filtered through absurd business-speak and references to stock market analysts (Mr. Babson, who appears to be a real financial advisor of the era). The humor targets how big business has replaced traditional baseball intuition with charts, data, and corporate bureaucracy. References to entertainment ("Follies"), employee transfers, and corporate chains of command mock the sport's loss of spontaneity. The visiting players are reduced to "butter-and-egg" men—a period phrase for wealthy, unsophisticated businessmen. The satire suggests that commercialization has drained baseball of authenticity and replaced player skill with corporate management consulting.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
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