The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-18
BASEBALL HE
 AMERICAN CAME Fans Paid s5,OOO,OO0 to See
 Sport Last Year GAME HAD ITS ORIGIN HERE In 1876 Arthur Cummings Pitched a Curved Ball, Thus Sounding the
 Death knell of Big
 Scores.
GAME HAD ITS ORIGIN HERE
BY FREDERIC ]. HAsKIN.


 knocked off to take in a game could ordinary's mans arithmetic.
 i Professional ball players in the two major leagues were paid $500, 900 in sal- aries last year, while the thirty-one minor i leagues expended about g 900, 900 in sal aries. More than six million peaople wit messed the games of the major leagues and the total attendance on all kinds of 1 ball games in one season is roug y esll- ] mated at forty million, or half the popua- i tion of the country if they should have 1 turned out one day.
 Baseball is the one great American game. It had its origin and it's develop ment in the United States, and has gone through the same series of ups and downs which have characterized the pro- sress of the great American industries of today. Baseball was first q purely ana teur game played for the diversion of the players, Spectators were attracted and there was a cooperative organization. The consolidation idea went on, as in all American businesses, and uniform rules came into being. Then came q trust After the trust came the ''strlkei of the players. Then there were dock outs against outlawed players Then the whole business was put into q merger, which is a consolidation Of trusts. and now five men control the entire profess sionai baseball world. If these things are not enough to give baseball q title to a purely American history, then let it be | author of Frenzied Finance has written book about baseball and the question will be settled.
 Mr Lawson's book was entitled 'Kranks" and was published in Boston nineteen years ago. It was bound in horsehlde of the kind that wraps the "tWirled sphere" and was printed on the finest of parchment paper. MT. Law son begins with a definition of the word more or less fitted. He says: ''The krank is heterogeneous compound of flesh, hone and baseball mostly baseball lie came into existence in the early seven- ties. He came to stay The krank is purely American He is found in no other country. The krank has shell Into which he oraWls in the month of November. He does not emerge from it until April. While in his shell his only article of food is stray newspaper articles on deals During the season from Aprn to November he subsists on air, and waXes strong. His first characteristic is knowing it al1,' the second, telling it all" Time has changed the 'Krank'' to Fam but 1t is change in name only.
 In the year 1888. when that little book appeared, baseball had reached for the first time its present status as the absorb ing sport. diversion and study of the Ameriean's summer mind In that year Boston paid Chicago $lo,ooo for the re- lease of John G. Clarkson, the star pitcher of the time, and the days of millionaire" ball had dawned To what dizzy heights salaries of ball players might have scared had it not been for the combinations which prevent contract jumping can hardly be guessed at.
 The game of baseball was evolved some time in the early forties of the last cen tury from the old games of 'rounders' and town ball." regular code of rules was published in New York as early as S45. The first newspaper report of game of baseball appeared in the New York Sunday Mercury in July, 1858: "The Gotham and knokerbocker clubs played q matched game on the grounds of at ldlltl dt IloJohtH Oil lnt otH inSl. lnt KniekerbocSers won. Gotham, 8 outs, | 2 runs; Knickerbockers, l8 outs, 9 runs 2l runs constituting a game" Contrast this with the pages devoted to the post season championship games last year.
 Just after the civil war the game be- gan to be played for the amusement of spectators quite as much as for the di- version of the players. In 567 the Wash iORtnn Nationals a foam Dnana II nf clerks in the departments at the capital, and of which Arthur F. German, after wards senator from Maryland, was one of the promoters, made the first grand tour of the country 10 play ball The trip cost S3ooo and there were no gate re- eeipts, for baseball was still as free as air The team won nine of the ten games played, being beaten in Chicago by the Forest City team of Rockford, Ill.,, for which A. c. Spalding was pitcher.
 Then came the organization of the Cn- cinnatl Red Stockings, the first profes- sional team. which forced recognition from the organization of amateur players. Once professional baseball was born it soon pushed all other varieties into the back ground, and assumed the place at the head of American sports which it prob ably will hold always. The history of the early organization and of the many tribu- lations which beset the game before the present National Association of Baseball leagues came into existence would re- quire volumes.
 The League or Leagues, which came into existence with the beginning of the twentieth century, now controls practi- cally all of the professional baseball of the country. It has thirty-one leagues under it's management, and works in har- mony with the two major leagues, the National and the American. No player may go from club to club without per mission of this central organization which last year recorded 4400 players con tracts. Men are drafted from small leagues to larger ones, or assigned from place to place, at the will of the central body. Thus has baseball reached the apex of the inventive genius of the American business man, the centrally controlled combination of combinations, in which the little fellow no more dares to talk back than does the cog on the wheel attempt to 'argifyn with the steam en- zine.
 In every city of any size there are local leagues, modelled after the professional organizations, made up of from four to eight clubs from various business houses. or offices or churches These amateur championship races are exciting in the extreme to local lovers of the game. The boys play from the time they are years old and the boys baseball games are ] always to be despsed. Many enterpris newspapers publish long lists of res of games and 'ehalenges" from games each day.
 The story of the game itself is .j'