St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-01-10

him up by securing the admission of
Dave Rowe. and Jack Bennett, one rep
resenting Omaha and the other st. Paul,
both pledged to vote Morton the Mime
apoliS franchise. He expresses conf
dence that he has blocked this game.
~
The owners of the Milwaukee base
all club think that the club will make
ONE money next season and retrieve
he losses of several years past, says the
Milwaukee Sentinel. They figure on a
salary limit of not over $4,000 at the
most. Tie sense OF the meeting in Chi
cago Thursday was that the salary limit
should be kept down to the lowest pos
sible figure, and that each club should
be required to give bond that no viola
ton of the salary law should occur. 1t
was suggested that the limit be placed
at $4,000, but there is some doubt
whether this figure will be adhered to.
Some of the delegates wanted to make it
$4,000. they considering that it
would require at least that sum
to get strong club together.
While it is fact that there are num-
Der of good players idle just now, it IS
also fact that a number of minor
leagues ar to be organized before the be-
ginning Of next season. which will
necessarily create more or less compe-
tition, so that some of the players will
be able to hold out for fairly large sal
aries. The question of salary limit
will be discussed by the committee on
organization, which will report its sug-
gestions to the meeting to be called
some time next month. When it is
taken into consideration that the salary
list of the Milwaukee club last season
was over $4,000, it can readily be seen
that the clubs chances for declaring a
dividend would be extremely favorable
under limit of $4,000 or $4,000.
81
The Milwaukee club officials have al
ready taken steps to secure a strong
team for next season. and to this end
have signed Pitcher Nicol, of last sea-
sons Chicago team. Hugh Nicol, the
manager of the Rockford, H., team,
also claims to have signed NicOl and
given him advance money. Without re-
gard to the merits of this case it is
doubtful whether either club could Sc
cure Pitched NicOl if any of the clubs of
the big league wanted him. The theory
of the league people, as eXpounded by
President Hart at the Chicago meeting,
is that when the two big leagues com
bined the whole fabric of the base ball
structure was overturned. and that
there was after that no existing base
ball organization in the country,
and that the big league could
take any player it wanted from
any of the clubs which had
formerly made up the minor leagues. 1t
was acting on this principle that Chi
cago gobbled up DUNCAN, who was
signed by Kansas City, and Meakin,
who was under contract with Sioux
City. President Hart said that the
Chicago club held these men under
base ball law, and did not care rap for
the common law in the case. Under
this novel theory neither the Milwau-
kee nor any other minor club has a
right to sign player now, ii the league
chooses to dictate the matter otherwise.
The fact is the. League and American
association is all powerful, and what
ever minor leagues are organized will
have only such rights as this big mon-
opoly sees fit to vest them with.
-
Discussing base bali with the Central
league delegates at Chicago Jim Hart
said:
"Never mind about the backing; find
the place where base ball has the most
patronage, and where the public is most
interested. Backing don't amount to a
row nf pins in poor base ball town.
When base ball begins to lose it loses
rapidly, and no matter how great the
backing is it will soon be exhausted, as
nobody is going to throw money away
for the sake of keeping up an unprofit-
able club. A base ball club must draw
its own backing through the gate or else
it will never live"