Congratulations to Richard Hausman of Alameda, California, the winner of our Register to Win drawing from the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) conference. Richard won the book Wins, Losses, and Empty Seats: How Baseball Outlasted the Great Depression by David George Surdam.

In Wins, Losses, and Empty Seats, Surdam looks at how organized baseball managed to survive the Great Depression. In a time where extra spending money for tickets was scarce, Major League Baseball pursued other sources of money. By replacing coaches with player-managers and developing the Minor League farm system, night baseball, and radio broadcasts, the teams’ income sources were diversified and the league thrived. Surdam analyzes how the economic structure and operations side of Major League Baseball endured the Depression and was forever changed by the societal forces of the time.