The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-08-01
EASTERN BASEBALL DEAD.
Competition of the Leagues Has D.
stroyed All Public Interest.

Competition of the Leagues Has De-
stroyed All Public Interest.
New York Times.
: Tie question what has become of the
people who used to 60 to games of baseball
is almost as plzzling as the question what
song the 81 ems sang, or what name Ulysses
tool when he hid himself among the
women. The one thing that can be said Of
them with absolute certainty is that
they no longer go to see baseball
played. As summer amusement
baseball is very nearly as obsolete in
New York as the late. and by some la
mented. Italian opera for winter amuse-
ment. There are three or four games
every day in New York and Brooklyn
among professional players of the highest
pretensions. ostensibly contending for
national honors. where there were ut most
two last year. 1t is safe to say that all
these games put together do not draw as
many spectators as were drawn in 1889 by
the games of the New York League club
alone. The hobbledehoy no longer stands
brs athess over the ticker, evolving the lat
est news from the grounds; neither does
the small boy, who is hunted from the
ticker, clutter on the sidewalks in expecta-
tion of the bulletins.
These things ought not 10 be without
their effect upon the managers of the va
rious professional clubs. These, not being
themselves players, are presumably men
OF sense. At least they are men of sense
enough to have accumulated some money
OF their own, or to have been intrusted
with the money of other persons. for
which the investors expected a handsome
return. They are getting no returns what
ever. The managers prudently abstain from
giving returns or even estimates of the
numbers who now attend the games.
The managers are aware that to publish
the figures would do them no good. Inas-
much as the great bulk of The receipts.
when they were much larger than they are
now. went, as in manufacturing generally,
to "labor"-that is, to the baseball PLAYERS
and only modest residuum to capital. it
is manifest that the total receipts will not
now suffice to maintain the players in the
style to which they have been accustomed,
and that they are not nearly as well off
under competition, instigated by them
selves, as they were under the heel of the
oppressive monopoly which they organized
the competition to destroy. They and the
capitalists have the sweet reciprocal con-
seriousness that the other side is not max
ing any money, but that cannot be truly
satisfactory to either, and both must be
inwardly Disguised with the present stu
alton.
The way out of it is not at all difficult or in
tricate. All that is required is q very mod.
crate allowance of common sense. What
the players most strenuously objected to
was the limitation of their freedom in the
League contracts. The courts have sus-
tanned their objections. The natural so u
ton of the difficulty would be for the
League to adopt a new form of contract.
emitting the features that have been invali-
dated, and allowing popular players to
reap the benefit OF their popularity, while
hnI sy,v ho,v f<.t he s.
eral seasons" The players would be
much better off under such an arrange
ment. and so would the investors in
the League. The only persons who would
suff r would be the investors in the Broth
erhood. Really these would be better off
also, since they would no longer be in the
painful attitude of throwing good monsv
after bad. They would merely have sunk
their investment, and this they must do in
any case. having for consolation only =
musty maxim about the facility tn
which certain classes of investors and their
money are parted. At any rate they ara
the only persons who have an interest
adverse to coalition, and their interesi
appears to consist in the right of pa, in .
assessments.
The managers of the rival organizations
appear to think of nothing but the desira-
oieness OF defeating each other. II is as
sumed that when one organization is de.
stroyed the other will succeed to all the
goodwill that both have succeeded i'm re-
tanning. This is great mistake. II took
yearly thirty years TO work up the en-
thusiasm for the national game that made
1t so profitable business in 1889. Already
that has very much cooled. Ii this season
passes without an amalgamation of the
rival organizations, the baseball public
will virtually have disappeared altogether
in 1891, and must again be brought into
existence. The survivor of the two con-
testants will not inherit what the contest
has dissipated. for it no longer exists: The
sooner the men OF sense in the two organi-
cations impress this view upon their assoc
ciates the greater the chance that the base
ball public may be preserved in cor ditien
TO make one league profitable. If they do
not succeed in doing this, the chances are
that the investors will find their money
sunk as completely as il they had thrown
it into the sea. and that the players Will be
forced into some pursuit of which the
emoiuments are So day or Whereabouts.