Los Angeles herald., 1906-12-27
BOSTON BASEBALL
GIVEN IMPETUS
BEAN EATERS WISH TO REGAIN
PRESTIGE
National League Club Has Been Sold
and New Owner Will Endeavor to
Restore Diamond Sport to
Former Level

There was introduced into the Ma
tional league councils at New York
last week a new magnate in the per-
son of George B. Dovey, who has just
purchased the Boston club and fran
chise. Mr.. Dovey made a great hit
during the meeting by his pleasing per-
sonality, his genial address and his
evident and energetic desire to build up
the Boston club and place it once more
in the prominnt position 1t formerly oc-
cupied in the league.
The Boston club is the only club in
baseball history which has been con-
tinuously represented in the profess
sional arena from the time of the or
ganization of the old National Associa-
ton of Professional Baseball Players in
1871 up to the close of the thirty-first
season of the National league in 1906.
Moreover this club leads every club
in the country in holding the record of
having won thirteen championship pen
nant races, four in the old National
organization and nine since the forma-
ton of the National league.
In it's long existence the club has
been under the control of but six team
managers, namely, the late veteran,
Harry Wright, from 1871 to 1882, in
elusive; John Morrill,, from 1883 to 1888;
James a. Hart, in 1889; Frank Selee,
from 1900 to 1901, and William Bucken-
berger and Fred Tennq, the present
manager, since that time.
During all that period, besides win
ming thirteen pennants, the Bostons fin
ished second five times, third twice and
| fourth three times. In a big majority
of it's campaigns, therefore, it has been
a prominent factor in the race.
The Boston club has been a great
money maker in it's time. Especially
during the nineties, when the team won
six pennants in eight years, the coin
rolled regularly, and in great volume,
into the Golfers of Messrs. Soden, Conant
and Billings, the celebrated triumvirate
which owned and controlled the club for
many seasons In one year alone the
team cleared a profit of over $120, 900,
and that figure was closely approached
In several other seasons.
OF recent years the club has not been
so successful. It's last championship
was won in 1898. The following year
the Beaneaters finished in second place
after hard and losing struggle with
Ned Hanlon's Brooklyns. Bill Bueken-
berger landed the team in third place
in 1902, and that was the final appear
ance of the Bostons in select company
In the last four years the club has
always been a second division outfit
never a factor in the race. The enter
prise which landed so many champion
ships at the old South End grounds in
Boston seems to have evaporated with
the coming of opposition by the Ameri-
can league in that city.
The owners, Messrs. Soden and
Conant, never given to extravaganza
closed their purse strings tighter than
ever and failed to meet the competition
with the result that the attendance in
Boston has fallen off and the club was
saved from financial loss only by q
: resort to the most parsimonious
methods of conducting It, Still many OF
the fans in the Hub stuck firmly to Its
! fortunes, showing loyalty which de-
served more generous treatment at the
hands Of the holders of the Boston
/, franchise.