1943 in Baseball - Events

Events

• May 30 - The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League begins its first 108-game season with teams in Rockford, Kenosha, Racine, and South Bend. In the Opening Game, South Bend win Rockford in 14 innings by a 4–3 score. The league's total attendance for the year will be 176,612.

• July 1 - The first AAGPBL All-Star Game is played, which coincidentally became the first night game ever played at Wrigley Field. The contest was realized under temporary lights between two teams composed of Kenosha Comets and Racine Belles players against Rockford Peaches and South Bend Blue Sox players.

• July 13 - At Shibe Park, home of the Philadelphia Athletics, the American League defeats the National League, 5-3, in the All-Star Game. This is the first All-Star Game held at night.

• October 11 - The New York Yankees defeat the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-0, in Game 5 of the World Series to win their tenth World Championship, four games to one. This would be Yankees' manager Joe McCarthy's final Series win.

• November 23 - Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis rules that Philadelphia Phillies owner William D. Cox is permanently ineligible to hold office or be employed for having bet on his own team. The Carpenter family of Delaware will buy the Philadelphia club and Bob Carpenter, at age 28, will become president. The Phillies, in an effort to change their image, will conduct a contest for a new name. The winning entry, the Philadelphia Blue Jays, submitted by a Mrs. John Crooks, will be the unofficial team name for 1944-45 until abandoned in 1946.

• December 2 - With only nine leagues operating during the season, the minor league convention in New York has an incipient revolt to oust longtime head William G. Bramham in favor of Frank Shaughnessy, president of the International League, who had five pledges. But Bramham rules that 15 non operating circuits which had paid dues are eligible to vote. Five of the leagues had given proxies. A later appeal to Commissioner Landis fails.

• December 4 - After one disappointing season for the Washington Senators, veteran slugger Indian Bob Johnson is sold to the Boston Red Sox. Senators owner Clark Griffith will later call it the worst trade he ever made. Johnson will have two solid years in Fenway Park before retiring.