One hundred years ago, the term WAR was used in a very different context.
World War I loomed over baseball, with talk that the season might not even be played.
While the minor leagues mostly shuttered themselves in 1917, baseball made a token effort to support the war cause. Few players enlisted. Some gate receipts were donated to the cause — as was baseball gear, as if in-between mustard gas shellackings, soldiers on the front were up to some ball. Players very visibly went through a dog-and-pony show of military drills.
One problem: Fans weren’t having it.