The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-07-22
The Turnstile's Woeful Testimony
That They Do Not Attend
the Games.
Multiplicity Of Leagues Has
Largely Killed Public Interest
In BsAe Ball
The Problem Of Recouping Financial Loss
and Crowding the Bleachers With
Extempore Lunatics.

people who used to go to games of baseball,
is almost as puzzling as the question what
song the sirens sang, or what name Ulysses
took when he hid himself among the
women, says the New York Times. The
one thing that can be said of them with alb
solute certainty is that they no longer go to
see baseball played. AS a summer amuse-
ment, baseball is very nearly as obsolete in
New York as the late. and by some lament
ed, Italian opera for winter amusement.
There are three or four games every day
in New York and Brooklyn among profess
sional players of the highest preteEsions.
ostensibly contending for national honors,
where there were at most two last year.
1t is safe to say that all these games put
together do no. draw rs many spectators
as were drawn in 1889 by the games of the
dehoy no longer stands breathless over the
ticker evolving the latest news from the
grounds: neither does the small boy who IS
hunted from the ticker clutter up the side
walks in expectation of the bulletins.
These things ought not to be without
their effects upon the managers of the vari-
GUS 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 entrusted
with the money Of other persons, for which
the investors expect handsome return.
They are getting no returns whatever. The
managers prudently abstain from giving
returns or even estimates of the numbers
who now attend the games. They
would no more think of doing such
a thing than the Sun of printing
the figures showing its circulation, a
practice which it formerly insisted was re-
ouired by common honesty. And for much
the same reason. The managers are aware
that to publish the figures would do them
no good. Inasmuch as the great bulk OF
the receipts, when they were much larger
than they are now. went, as in manufactur-
ing generally, to labor-that is, to the base
bali player-and only modest residuum to
capital, it is manifest that the total re-
ceipts will not now suffice to maintain the
been accustomed, and that they are not
nearly as we'll off. under competition in
stiQated BY themselves, as they were under
the heel of the oppressive monopoly which
they organized the competition to destroy.
They and the capitalists have the sweet re-
ciprocal consciousness that the other side
is not making any money, but that cannot
be truly satisfactory to either, and both
must be inwardly Disguised with the pres
The way out of it is not at all difficult OF
intricate. All that is required is very
SSHASSs
What the players most strenuously objected
to was the limitation of their freedom in
the League contracts. The courts have
sustained their objections. The natural So
luton at the difficulty would be for the
League to adopt Ia new form of contract
omittino the features that have been in
validated. and allowing popular players t.
reap the benefit of their popularity, while
holding them to their agreements for tn
several seasons" The players would b
and so would the investors in the League
The only persons who would suffer woult
be the investors in the Brotherhood. Really
these would be better of also, since the.
would no longer be in the painful
attitude Of throwing good a.,, none one
sunk their investment, and this they mus
do in any case, hwving for consolation onl.
Z musty maA'sh about the facility will
which certain classes Of investors and thei
money are parted. At any rate. they ar
the only persons who have an interest ad
pears to consist in the right of paying as
eessments.
The managers of the rival organization
appear to think of nothing but the desir
abteness of defeating each other. 1t
assumed that when one orRanization is d a,s
goodwill that both have not succeeded
retaining. This is great mistake. 1t too
nearly thirty years to work up the enthu
eiasm for the national game that made
% profitable business in 1883. Alread
that has very much cooled. If this seaso
passes without an amaleamation of the q
val organizations, the base ball public WI
virtually have disappeared altogether
1891, and must again be brought into e,
istenoc. The survivor of the two oontes
ants will not inherit what the contest hs
dissipated, for it no longer exists. III
sooner the men of sense in the two organ
ciates the greater the chance that the bat
bali public may be preserved in a conditio
to make one league profitable. If they d
not succeed in doing this, the chances al
that the investors will find their none
sunk as completely as if they had thrown
into the sea, and that the players will /
forced into some pursuit OF which Il
emoluments are ~ per day or thereabou