The Savannah morning news., 1904-12-17
AMERICANS WILL
LOP OFF SALARIES
GREAT SCALING OF PRICES.
THOSE WHO JUMPED FROM NAT
IONAL ARE NOW KICKING.

American League Was Looked on as
Booster of SaInries-AnnOuRced
That National League Will Raise
Prices Coming SeasOn-Claimed
That High Salaries Paid Players,
and Luxury which They Demand
ed VIII on the Road Ate Up All the
Profits of the Game.
Not since the American League has
been in existence has there been such
a scaling of salaries as this year.
Some of the players caught a shrink
age of their incomes before 1904. but
nothing like the extent to which it
has been suggested this year by the
owners of the teams. says a special
from New York
The players, of course, who are hit
are making quite an ado about the
matter. They have been taught to be-
heve that the American League is the
great original booster of salaries, and
they do not quite relish the notion of
losing any part of their pay through
action taken by those who induced
AliClAA " jump llCll 81 NOt1lIdClS Wlln
the National League.
That such would be the eventful out
come was repeatedly pointed out to the
players, but with their usual accept
ance of the theory that it is better to
live in the present than to think of the
future, they made the leap, and now
are in a position where they have no
power to help themselves If they had
the inclination.
In the meantime, strange as it may
appear, and to some extent not the re-
suit of philanthropy, but of business
rivalry, the National League will pay
more liberal salaries this year In many
instances where there are conflicting
clubs in the same city. This is where
the player i'm the American League
feels that the boot is pinching his foot
particularly hard.
1t is partly the outcome of long time
contracts, which were signed in order
to retain National League players, and
there has been no effort to reduce the
salaries, nor is there likely to be.
That the American League would
some time have to put a cold COM
press on war time pay was long ago
conceded. Players were eating up all
the receipts of the game, and owners
were being left with not enough to pay
their ground rent.
When the suggestion of cutting sal
aries was first made there were some
players who asked that they be re-
leased outright, as they wanted to re-
turn to the National League, but the
American League owners, after the
hard fight they had made to get the
men, could not see it that way, and
could not be blamed for their stand.
There has been no favoritism i'm the
matter of salary cutting. Even the
champions in Boston have heard the
sad news, although there is none of the
Boston men who will be unable to
provide himself with bread and butter
next summer by the hard-heartedness
Of MIR. Taylor, the owner of the club.
All will draw liberal salaries in spite
of the fact that they are not quite so
high as they were when the American
and National Leagues snorted fire
whenever they talked about another.
II is a well known fact that the Chi
cago and Philadelphia American
League clubs are not high salaried at
the best, and there isn't very much
probability that the players in those
organizations have been asked to .ac-
cept very much less, unless Il be some
man who has not lived up to the terms
of his contract or has fallen off so in
play that he Is no longer considered SO
valuable 10 the team.