Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1905-09-23
REVIEW Of THE SPORTS
AS Annual Meeting Approaches
Future Of the Iowa League
Becomes the Question
WILL CIRCUIT BE THE SAME?
Believed That 1t Will, Provided a
Reasonable Salary Limit Is Set
Continued Extravaganza Will Mean
Death of the circuit-MarshaIIto
Is Ready to Get In Limo.

Is Ready 70 Get IN Limo
With the annual meeting a little
more than two weeks distant, the ques
ton, what is to be the future of the
Iowa State League? is the one most Of
ten asked, and one not easy TO answer
And the annual meeting may not ans
wer 1t, for during the time which in
tervenes between the October meeting
the fall may have developed nothing
tangible, and the sources from which
financing was expected to have come,
may have proved empty. With all OF
these uncertainties held by the future
the situations must needs develop be-
fore more than guess can be ven
tured. There is claim both for and
against the future of the circuit. 1t is
held the Iowa State League, with Its
present membership will be alive next
year, and it is also said that the
league will be dead. While both
are guesses largely, of one thing there
is a certainty, the Iowa State League
as 1t was this year will not see anoth-
err season thru.
The various associations which have
furnished funds know this, and ack-
nowledged as much in their confessions
at the winter meeting. Too large sal
aries have brought this about, but now
that it has been learned by sad exper-
fence, the time is ripe for ref9yma-
ton of the circuit built upon conserva-
tive lines and on an enduring basis.
Chief among those things needful to
make the league last is a salary limit
under which the associations can live,
and an agreement based on larger
cash bond which will make the limit
compulsory Without this last named
binding link, all else will be forgotten,
and as it was this year, salaries will go
skyward in the chase for material with
which to win the pennant.. Sucn
race once started next year the league
will be "all in and ready to throw
up the sponge by July 4.
There are certain towns in the Iowa
State League, notably Fort Dodge and
keokuk, which have no claim TO mem
bership In a circuit such as the Iowa
State League. Their attendance the
first year did not warrant their reten-
ton this season, and this year has sim
ply served to emphas size what last year
proved. And in this respect Ottumwa
is not far behind the other two. Bur-
lington has a just "kick" coming, when
it holds that its attendance is too
large to be exchanged for the slim
crowds it's team was given away from
home. That its team was tailender
proves nothing, for the best of the
teams drew but handfuls In the three
towns named. For this reason, chiefly,
Burlington looks longingly toward the
Three / League for an opening. She
did the same last year, but returned to
the Iowa circuit.
A number Of the towns, this city for
one, is ready for reorganization with
the funds already in sight to finance
the team. But 1T will not enter into a
scheme with the ceiling for the limit.
If there is an indication that a max
mum will be established that Is rea-
sonable, and that 1t will be adhered
to, none will be more ready to put up
it's money than will MarshalltoWn.
This season it got the little end of a
81, 500 "a month deal, and finished
ioyless sixth. 1t wanted the pennant
and went out with the long green"
to get it, but came closer to capturing
Burlington and the tailend. And this
is not intended as a kick" against
those more successful teams, who beat
the locals fairly and squarely, but
rather as consequence of the scram-
BILE for first place. All of the clubs
did as Marshalltown did, and the
money end was lost sight OF.
$50
Norton has had enough, he does not
want the presidency. And he can
scarcely be blamed, for his base ball
life the past season has been no easy
one. He has been roasted" and criti-
cised by sporting" editors of the cir
cult, more often unjustly than other
wise. until he has had enough. Nor
toms management has been both good
and the opposite. He has made a
financial success Of the league, as a
whole. but has been lax in other de-
partments having nothing to do with
the financial end of its affairs. That
he failed to furnish umpires at much
needed times may be partly his fault
But umpires in mid-base ball season
that is, real umpires-are not easily
found. Then he has failed to assess
fines for forfeited games, for which
the constitution provides, and he also
failed, until the league voted that ne
should do so, to collect of umpires So
game for those they failed to offici-
ate at. But, as whole, his manage
ment has been good.
Two avowed candidates are in the
field to take the soon-to-be vacated
place. One, Martin, of Waterloo, is
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