Waterbury evening Democrat., 1895-04-13
JACOB MDl,SE.

(Prcsidcnt of the New England assoCiation.l again next year. and the southern invasion will be less unanimous. But patrons on the League circuit should SCC much better playing in May this year than they saw last May, and there will be fewer sore arms and stiff muscles among the hines which start the battle for championship h"nnrs. Tho southern training is expensive, but it certainly k greatly beneficial.
 Chairman Young of the national board has sent to me an official list of the pro fcssional leagues and clubs which on April wcrc banded together under the national as,r,N,mcnt. This roster shows tho mighty hold the national game has upon the American people.
 There arr l2 Of these leagues, embracing 100 clubs and as many different cities rrI,- resented thereby. All hut th" National league arc known as minor leagues. The Western league iS a member under class A, with reservation, which makes it nee csSary for any National league club to pay $l. .ouO for the drafting of a Western league player at tho end of the season. The East crn league and southern association have class B membership, with reservation, which entities them to $500 cOmpcnSat ion when n player is drafted. Tho other eight are in class B without rescrvation-that
 
 be secured by National league clubs with out compensation. But every club, whcth- CT in class A or class II, reservation or no reservation, is guaranteed exclusive con trOl of its players till Oct. l. That iS what the national agreement has done for pro feSSional baseball.
 In New England they havc twins. The New England league monopolizcd the minor professional sport till last year, when there was a split, and the New Eng land association Sprang into existence. The two presidents arc respectively the baseball editors of the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe. MT. Murnane of The Globe is the head of the league, and Mir J. c. Morse of The Herald leads the nssocia- tion. Tho two arc, or have been, the warmcst kind of friends, and if rivalry springs up between tho factions it will have Damon to separate from n Pythias.
 Already the national board has been called upon to interfere and make the twins break away. They tried to ''swipe" each others territory, so the national board put division fence between the two. Tho New England league was awarded n right to Lewiston, Portland, Bangor, Fall River, Pawtucket, New Bedford and BrocktOn and was left to choose another to fill out the circuit. This it did by taking in Au- gusta. The association was given title to Lowell, Lawrence, Havcrhill, salem, Nashua, Manchester and Fitchburg, with an eighth city to be selected. Both have adopted schedules, and it will soon be one succession of base hits from Fall River to Augusta.
 New England has always been the home of the national game since the Boston club first started to play professionally. Bos- ton, by the way, is tho only city in the Union which has had club continually in existence for % years. The Boston club is undoubtedly the pioneer among those that are doing business today, tho great Chicago fire having taken that city's club out of the list
 The title of the Hub is particularly ap- plicable to Boston as applied to baseball. All the cities which this year make up the circuits of tho New England league and association pay baseball tribute to Boston and "root" for the Bostons in the cham pionship race To a certain extent on the Boston clubs success depends the success of the two minor rivals If Captain Nash's mon arouse Boston enthusiasm, they also fire tho line along the New England cir cults. But should, by any mischancc, tho "bean eaters'' meet with revcrses the de- pression would chill the spinal cord of the Puritan twins. Looked at in a certain light, the two New England baseball asso- citations form double tail to Boston's baseball kite If the kite sails high, the tails will soon be "out of sight" Should the kite make dip into the mud tho tails would doubtless become much bedraggled.