The evening times., 1898-06-06
TIE WORLD OF SPORTS
Brush R1le Has Taken Much
Spirit From Baseball.
IS The GAME TOO TAMtp
Receipts Show That There Is so~--
thing Wrong-War cnd Weather
Are Not Alone Responsible for
Poor Attendance-Other Gossip OF
the Diamond and the Ring.

Young as the season is, It has already
progressed Tar enough to show conclusive
ly that there is something wrong with
baseball. The situation throughout the
country Is most serious and IL 1t is not
few IL any OF the minor leagues in COM
Portable circumstances, and even the Ma
tional League will have had a decidedly
'off year,
Already the Southern league has struck
the shoals; the Southwestern league Is no
longer heard from; the New England
league has troubles of the gravest kind
and runnors are safioat that the Eastern
league is on the verge of dissolution, de-
spite the frequent assertions by President
Powers that. everything is lovely. The
strong Western league IS not doing SO well
that the magnates are shaking hands with
themselves. and now comes a report that
President aiekey.zof the Western associa-
ton has called meeting of the club rep
resentatives in Chicago for the purpose
of considering a plan to complete disas-
trous season. Every team has lost money
from the start Fit is proposed to make a
uniform reduction In salaries in each club
OF 25 per scelts says the Cleveland Plain
Dealer.
All this. fApnQt be attributed entirely to
the war-aSsd. thesweather. Undoubtedly
many "fans.- have gone to the front. and
the weather has. not been all that the
wnersSsfssans-could ask but there
must reason why the fans
that are sstin at home do not attend ball
games when the weather is good.
There Is just a possibility that the Ma
tional Lague maEnates are themselves re-
sponsible for q part of the troubles that
now confront them. At first thought It
would seem hard to believe that any one
rule adopted by the League at its last
meeting could change the game of base
ball to any great extent, but there are
many Patrons who believe that the Brush
rule has made q different game out of
baseball The rule has gone too far. and
done more than 1t was intended to do.
The elimination Of language that is unfit
for the ears of sensitive patrons is all
well enough, and should have been ac-
complished before offense ever rose from
1t, but the Brush rule has taken much
Of the spirit that made the national game
all that It once was out of It.
II gagging the mouths Of the players
were all that the rule accomplshes all
might be well, but when a player who
knows he Is right is forced to submit to
a decision OF an umpire whom everybody
knows is wrong, and dare not even ex-
press an opinion. that player goes on with
the game feeling like a whipped dog. He
realizes that he is up against 1t and he
is a player of queer composition II he
doesn't throw up his hands and lose
heart.
If the umpires are competent there
would be no excuse for kicking. but the
vast majority of them are not. .
There was a little satisfaction when a
player made a well-founded objection to a
decision that made the audience a little
nearer to even. but now the rankest kind
Of robbery may go on without kick. the
player is bound to lose ambition, and
bound to appear to spectators as II he
doesn't care any way. Thus the dash and
spirit are taken out of the game and few
who have attended regularly this season
can say that they believe the national
game is all that 1t has been in the past.