“In 1934 the teams were lily-white, the players mostly only of average size, their wages were low, they played in relatively primitive ballparks, they traveled between cities by train, they smoked and were featured in cigarette ads, and the game they played dominated the American sports scene with no real competition beyond intercollegiate football”. Description of the GasHouse Gang by Jonathan Yardley, writing in the Washington Post on April 1, 2007. They weren’t rich, and neither were the fans; the country was in the middle of the Great Depression, with massive unemployment. “They were the unique product of a particular time and place – mostly men who had known extreme poverty and hardship in the South and West, with a few hard-nosed kids from eastern states thrown in for variety. Among their number were a couple of ex-sharecroppers, a pool shark, a handsome dandy who worked as a Hollywood double in the off-season, a grease-stained third baseman who liked to drive his midget auto racer around a track before a game, a surly outfielder who punched any of his own teammates if they looked at him the wrong way, and even a couple of college kids. “ The Gashouse Gang, by John Heidenry ”