On February 28, 1931,Ban Johnson dies in St. Louis, at age 57. Johnson had served as the founder and first president of the American League from 1901 to 1927. He was a dynamic and dictatorial leader until subdued by the advent of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who took office as the first Baseball commissioner in January 1921. Johnson will gain election to the Hall of Fame in 1937.
Finally cut loose by the New York Giants, for whom he refused to play in 1930 in a season-long holdout over salary terms, two-time National League batting champ Edd Roush returns to the Cincinnati Reds.
E.S. Barnard, recently reappointed American League president, dies at 57. He had succeeded Ban Johnson in 1927.
The Chicago White Sox and the New York Giants become the first major league teams to meet in a night game. They collect 23 hits in a 10-inning exhibition game played at Buffs Stadium in Houston, TX.
The Brooklyn Robins arrive in Cuba to start a series of five inter-squad games.
Crescent Lake Field, the Yankees spring training site since 1925, is renamed Miller Huggins Field in honor of the team’s late manager, who passed away at the end of the 1929 season. In 1963, the facility will be called Huggins-Stengel Field, to honor another Bronx Bomber skipper, Casey Stengel, who is now piloting the National League’s expansion team which is working out in the St. Petersburg ballpark.
Hack Wilson, who set National League records last season when he drove in 191 runs and hit 56 home runs, a mark since surpassed in 1998 by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, signs for $35,000. The 31 year-old Cub outfielder’s 1930 RBI total remains one of the game’s most enduring records.
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