Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-05-08

and magnates of the big
league teams. We see that they
are worn out with the worry of
trying to get their players to sign up.
Demands for higher salaries and kicks
from disgruntled players are pictured
as eating away their very lives and
reducing them to mere skeletons. This
all sounds very well, and the manager
or magnate has come to be a much
pitied individual. But the people who
read the papers do not give the play
ers side of the question the proper, if
any, consideration. They set down the
man who plays the game as a narrow
minded, selfish sort of a person, who,
not content with a princely salary,
wants to take away all the profits
from the man who enables him to live.
This all sounds very fine, but to one
who knows the inside facts of the
wrangles between magnates and play
ers, it is nothing less than ridiculous.
Baseball today is a business. 1t is no
longer played for the fun or the en-
joyment that is in it. And clubowncrs
are no more who support teams mere
ly because they love good, clean sport.
They are now hard-headed business
men, whose investments bring grand
dividends. To win financial success,
these men must have teams that viii
win games. Is it any more than right
that the skilled artists, whose work on
the diamond wins this success, should
receive a share, and a good one, of the
profits?
Stop to think. Place yourself in the
&c 10 cto h1l1 Al
will say, for instance, that You are in
the employ of q big mercantile con-
Germ You are working for a small
salary. An idea pops into your brain,
and YOU figure out how the profits Of
the concern can be greatly increased,
if the method Of doing some certain
line of work is changed, and the sys-
TEN you have planned out substituted.
You viii so to the head OF the con-
Germ and inform him that You have 1T
hand a means Of improving the profit
of the business. He will listen to your
plans, and if he thinks them feasible,
will Immediately raise your salary. We
will say that you are the only one who
could from your intimate knowledge.
carry out this plan. If, after it had
been working with great success for a
number Of years. YOU went again to
your employer and asked that your
salary be raised again, surely You can
see that he would be willing to do 1t
1t is the same way with the ball
player. He works with q team. and
after a time he becomes almost essen
tial to the success of that team. Be
cause the club is winning games, the
public support it, and the magnates
are coming money. ] believe, and am
firm in my opinion, that any fair
minded person will concur with me,
that the ball-player is only asking
what is due him when he refuses to
play unless his pay be increased.
The club owners can well stand the
expense Of remuneratlig players as
they should be rewarded. 1t is a COM
mon thing to pick up paper any I'm
after the season is, we VIII say, nan
over and to read such notices as "The
owners of the league clubs OF TINS or
that city have announced that the re-
ceipts to date have enabled them to |
paw ali expenses for this season. and
what they take in hereafter viii be |
pure profit" Think over this phase OF
the question for a while and you'll find
that you're thinking that perhaps the |
players have a little justice on their |
side of the argument
When you go to a manager and ask
for more salary, he will of course laugh |
at you That's to be expected. AS | |
said before, he is a business man and |
it's to his advantage to see to it that |
his expenses are kept as low as posi- |
BILE, so that the profit may be great |
or Rut in the end if the PLAYER be |
persistent and show that he really |
means it when he threatens to quit |
the game. the manager will come
around, and will effect a compromise,
and in SO cases out of 100 the player is
no loser in the deal.
To one who does not stop to look in
to it, the amounts paid to professional
ball players seem nothing less than
wonderful The fact that a man, per-
haps without any education, is able
n