The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-06-09
POINTERS ID RANDOM
BY HUGH W. ROBERTS.

Baseball has the reputation of heinz
 that great national game which cannot be
 manipulated either by gamblers or poll
 ticians.
 Baseball has always been the purest
 of all sports
 i Day by day. it is becoming purer still.
 The improvement has not been gradual,
 but almost spontaneous. No longer does | one man spike another for the pleasure | that stream of blood inspires. No long l CT Is the life of umpire at stake every
 afternoon of every season. Very seldom 1 is an umpire assaulted. Profanity about
 the diamond is fast passing out. and the thug in the uniform of a player has had | his day.
 It Is not too roseate view to take of the situation to predict the immediate 1 dawning of a time when the baseball | player will be a man of a profession and l not an ignorant, profane highwayman | In disguise Each season finds the per l sonnel of the game improved. There are
 more gentleman playing baseball today i than ever before The thug, some years | ago the king pin of the diamond, with
 bloody spike and foul mouth, is fast l passing out of existence. and there is cer- | tanly, in the Southern league at least, | not more than one man who would spike 1 a fellow player for any cause whatso-
 ever and few who would fill the at
 mosphere with foul epithets in the hear | ing of body of spectators.
 But there is one germ that is beginning | to hang itself in the flesh of the great . national game, a germ, which, unless | eradicated, will mean it's death l It is that germ which has practically l destroyed the great game of horse racing. ;. of h inp
 The spoilers, having stuffed their maws | for years about the race track, and now l driven from sport, are fast turning to l that lucrative and entertaining field baseball.
 1 To bet on a baseball game is as enter taning and as natural as betting on l horse races.
 With the exception of horse racing, baseball is the only sport lucrative enough to entertain the greasy individual with the bank roll and the art of book
 making.
 Race track legislation has driven the
 bookmaker from the racing field. It is but natural, therefore. that he swing to the baseball diamond. a field with as many clients and sport just as interesting and seductive Bookmaking has ruined the great rac- | ing game.
 It is a daring individual who would loudly alleee that baseball. virile though it Is. can hope to withstand the perpet- ual preying of the gambling germ can fail to read.
 Then why every league president, every magnate. every manager, every player every sporting writer doesnt t
 combine to end the life of the germ be- fore it grows too strong, is mystery. The characteristic of gambling is to make sport crooked. It has made racing crooked. It has made wrestling crooked. It will make baseball crooked. It has done much to undermine the great sport of racing.
 It has distinguished wrestling with black eye that one is warned as by the cry of the leper.
 It will eliminate the purity of baseball,
 cause a falling away of it's patronage, and estrange it's clientele. Ii therefore behooves everyone in- terested in the great national game to do his little share toward the elimi- l nation of the bookmaker. 1 This applies principally to the fan, l the man who makes baseball possible, 1 to the individual person of the great l baseball Kingdom. to whom every re-
  l good thing comes. One man has recognized the evil of baseball gambling. Ban Johnson, president of the Amer l ican league,
 He is the great champion of this needed reformation, the only league president who has anticipated the dan ger before it has firmly established ed itself into tbe flesh of the game l He recognizes the evils of baseball gambling. He knows that when gam blers become the real life of the sport l it becomes a dead letter through crook | edness. The germ's devious course to 1 the heart Is too easily traced to war l rant it's discussion here. It is an ac- l tual fact that every president. every
 manager, every player knows the evil i whether he takes any action toward | it's eradication or not. It is marvel | ous that Harry Pulliam hasn't joined 1 hands with Ban Johnson in this great 1 crusade. It is marvellous that every baseball
 leader throughout the country hasn't 1 joined the ranks of the reformation. 1 It is hoped that President Kavanaugh | will issue a bulletin to every Southern l league club president asking their CO., 1 operation in killing bookmaking in the 1 Southern league. It be stopped within a week. 1 All that is needed in the south is a ] starter"
 It is a lamentable fact that a police | department will not take the initiative | in any needed reform unless urged or 1 compelled to do so. 1 The shrewd blue coat, for self -ad- vertsement, much as anything else 1 will climb to the window of a fourth | story to spy upon little set-to at | poker and will permit gambling on 1 baseball to thrive before his very | eyes.
 1 If card playing is an evil, and it is l 1t affects the man and the family of the | man who plays. If bookmaking on | baseball is an evil, and 1t is, it not l only affects the man who gambles and 1 the family of the man who gambles, | but kills great national sport and profession, out of which many hun | dred men and their families gain a 1 livelihood, and which furnishes amuse. | ment, entertainment and cation to l countless thousands every season. But such is the wisdo moi the aver l age police officer. l He spies upon poker game, or dis |