Letter from President Roosevelt Regarding Baseball
1/15/1942
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Five weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II, Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis wrote President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking whether major league baseball should be played. Here, President Roosevelt responds affirmatively with personal hope in what is known as the “green light” letter. President Roosevelt suggested “that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going.”
This document is featured in "Baseball: The National Pastime in the National Archives," a free eBook from the National Archives.
This document is featured in "Baseball: The National Pastime in the National Archives," a free eBook from the National Archives.
Transcript
[Handwritten, circled] 227January 15, 1942
My dear Judge:-
Thank you for yours of January fourteenth. As you will, of course, realise the final decision about the baseball season must rest with you and the Baseball Club owners -- so what I am going to say is solely a personal and not an official point of view.
I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before.
And that means that they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before.
Baseball provides a recreation which does not last over two hours or two hours and a half, and which can be got for very little cost. And, incidentally, I hope that night games can be extended because it gives an opportunity to the day shift to see a game occasionally.
As to the players themselves, I know you agree with me that individual players who are of active military or naval age should go, without question, into the services. Even if the actual quality of the teams is lowered by the greater use of older players, this will not dampen the popularity of the sport. Of course, if any individual has some particular aptitude in a trade or profession, he ought to serve the Government. That, however, is a matter which I know you can handle with complete justice.
Here is another way of looking at it -- if 300 teams use 5,000 or 6,000 players, these players are a definite recreational asset to at least 20,000,000 of their fellow citizens -- and that in my judgment is thoroughly worthwhile.
With every best wish,
Very sincerely yours,
Hon. Kenesaw M. Landis,
233 North Michigan Avenue,
Chicago,
Illinois.
This primary source comes from the Collection FDR-PPF: Papers as President, President's Personal File.
National Archives Identifier: 6997537
Full Citation: Letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Kenesaw Landis Regarding Baseball; 1/15/1942; PPF 227: Baseball; President's Personal Files, 1933 - 1945; Collection FDR-PPF: Papers as President, President's Personal File; Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY. [Online Version, https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/green-light-letter, December 3, 2024]Activities that use this document
- Baseball: A Morale Booster During Wartime?
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