Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-01-28

| cause the contracts show sliced salaries
while others are glooming In the umprag
| eous shelters because the contracts don
| Indicate the more that they've asked 1or'
| or, rather, demanded. Few ball players
by the way, every ask for anything. They
nearly always demand.
Most of these sulkers belong to Never
| Never-Never-Land. That is to say, they re
! never going to sign till they get what thes
want-what they res know sa is coming %nt tbe 70
Not much. So much, or no play. They IN
vite all hands to jes' watch EN-.
1t makes flowing reading, this stun con-
| tanning the sulkers announcements OF what
they're going to do if their terms are not
agreed to.
Most of 'em don't want to play ball any
more, nohow. they tell you. looking you
right square in the eye. They're tired OF
the game. It's an ungrateful business.
They're bored with the whole thing Don !.
like jumping around the country in not
Wea Their. Like home better. Never had
an idea of playing for more than year or
So anyhow, after this year. and 1t I'd SUIT
them every bit as well to quit right now.
They're not going to take chicken feed com
that ought properly to be offered to minor
league players for working in MAJOR
league Not If they are acquainted with
themselves, and they think they are
Others of them are candidiy gong 10
lump to that minor league organization for
the enjoyment and hilarity of bunch OF
nillionaires. They're not playing ball Tor
glory any more they tell you, bit nercely-
tt eyre out for the kale. They're not hunt-
ing for chance to make grandstard plays:
The MACON for them, and all they can get
of It, They'd leave play bail In Iurke-
stan if somebody showed 'em the ker-tlsli
No swelled-up major league has got any
hfwser on them. They'd side-step bum
contract Just as soon as they'd put away
a platter of ham and eggs, and any tlgh.-
wad of ball club owner who thinks ne $
going to work the mucilaginous mitt on
them is camping Seyenty-two miles from
the stage trail, that's all.
There's a bunch of naughty niXy7s gners
who are going to quit the game altogether
ra cher than put their j. Hancocks TO the
cut contracts No minor league for lheni,
They don't have to play ball. Never ala.
ONLY got into the ball playing business III
the first place for the pure fun of the thing
and the exercise. They broke into last COM
pany because they had the merchandise,
and everybody knew they had it, and they Re
moi going to beat it to the hanky-pank CIR
cuit lust to tickle the within and caprice OF
some manager with the Sodered INST. II
they don't get contracts TO sign at the oto
figures, why, the game of ball Is gong 10
be henceforth played for the end pook' So
far as they're concerned.
Fine too, to read about what some OF
'em are going to do If their terms are not
met with. Oh, they've got business plans,
all right and hackers enough TO form
brigade Well they-er-wont say yes or
no whether they're going to accept the
presidency of the First National Bank OF
nome
YOUR own conclusions. They'll neither ar
firm or deny. tm-well, they dldn mean
that that story about their starting an
onyx-trimmed cafe, costing 1900 to nj up,
should get abroad. but-weIl II they d1dn
get the right kind of a contract TO sign
before training time begins-well, people
see. Yep, ten or fifteen of the Leading capt.
talsts of their town were dead crazy 10
start EN- in a fine roller skating rink or
their own but-well, If the contract en-
bracing the old figures didn't snow up
pretty soon there'd be something trans
pirng all right enough.
Such a diverting lot of village cut-ups
and township take-offs as these contract
SulkerS are, TO be sure.
What time the chirky crocuses and the
hardy hyacinths begin to pop, and the will
ing contract-signers are packing their duds
to be off To the slowy southland Tor train
ing, the sulkers for the most part, are
engaging in continuous performance
sanguinary sweats for fear that they're
going to be left out in the C. w.-otherwlse
the cold world-and then, somehow or an
other, they all seem to forget about those
national banks and onyX-trimmed cafes
that they've been going to start, and they
break fourteen different kinds of blood YES
sells in getting that little old lemme-in word
to the manager whom they've been ad-
vertising a tight-Wad during the winter
months They slap the ink on any old
kind of a contract that they can real
through dense fog. Then they come out
with the oleaginous statement that they
won out on that contract business Got
what they were holding out for. Sure they
did.
And Brer Fox. the manager. he says moth
ing. II doesn't hurt him any to have the
contract-sulker state that he'd won out.
Not a little bit.
The clubs that do their spring training
down at New Orleans and Memphis have
to be sort of herded and corralled by
al q hOnTS lnDch-
Otherwise those of EN- whose shoes remain
good would be beating it on the stink for
the little gee-gee merry-go-roun0S of bright
afternoons A whole long raft Of expert
ence has illustrated the fact that a ball
player can't have his mind on his business
and try to pick the right ponies at one and
the same time. In one of Washngtons
show windows, given over to the display of
those framed den" cards, is one reading:
III whisky interferes with your business,
give up your business. Don't try to do two
things at once" And that's about the way
il is with ball players and the horses. But
even il the players who train in the south
ern towns where the horses are running do
not go out to the tracks, they have little
way or so of getting their coin down on the
multitudinous good things that are handed
to them.
Now, the Washington club. training at
Charlottesville last spring. couldn't get any
coin down when the good things were slip
ped to them. And this very sad. too,
did TO the bookmakers at Benning last
spring.
A last springs Benning meeting two Vir-
ginia hoTsemen-Billy Garth and Pa Brad
ley-kept up such continuous perform
ance rdtaplan on the Benning bookies that
the layers We're hopping off their stools and
quitting in sets of tours. The members OF
the Washington club down in Charlottes-
vile knew all about all of the Garth and
Bradley good things days in advance of their
happening. The Virginia horsernen are lib
eral In handing out the word of killings to
their friends and neighbors, and Charlottes-
willie was just humming with news of hog
slaughterings that Garth and Bradley con-
templated making al Benning. All of these
tips percolated TO the camp of the training
Washington players. But they had no way
| Of getting their change down. There was
no handbook running in Charlottesville
| that they could find. So that every day
| when they picked up the papers they Were
| subjected to the acute misery and grief of
| reading about 10 and 30 and 80 and 40 to 1
shots out of Garth's and Bradley's barns,
winning in common walkskies, with regard
! to all of which long ones they had known for
| days and days and days. The climax of
! the Washington players depression was
| reached when they picked up the paper one
| morning and found that one of Bradley s
| land crabs, thing called Waddell II, had
COPIED IN q stroll with the watermelonish
| odds Of all the way from 60 to l to 100 to
| l In the boolies' chalk. Every member OF
4 = al, - l,-,1