The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-22
EDWARD MARSHALL MAKES TIMELY AND SARCASTIC RE- MARKS ABOUT WAY THE SE-
 RES HAS BEEN CONDUCTED
By EDWARD MARSHALL

l
 l New York. October Z1-The clean. fine
 game of baseball is in worse danger to-
 day than it ever has been before in the
 United States.
 l It is doubtless true that t would have
 been far better for the sport if there
 l ad never been championship series of 1911. Scandals have arisen which it will
 take many years to wipe away. The public is dissatisfied. It feels, both in Philadelphia and New York, that the
 management has made goat of it. The
 players are disgruntled and are quarreling
 smong themselves There have been as
 many charges of grave scandals in eon-
 neotion with this series as ever were con nected with a crooked race track deal.
 And this is a great pity. While the
 public has been grumbling and becoming really angry, because it thinks il has
 been swindled by q management which favored spectators. the players have been overcome by brainstorms. The various nostponements, due to wretched weather lave been probably responsible for this. They have given the men a chance to quarrel among themselves, and being in a highly nervous state they have grabbed the opportunity. A bunch of baseball stars oooped ID in chilly clubhouses on the edge of laied diamond is apparently much like a bunch Of chilled old women, stranded, on the way to a church picnic, at a country crossroads by a storm. Cackle, cacllle, You don't say, Well, now, I never. It is rather sickening. Perhaps the partisans of both sides will forgive me if 1 say the baseball situation, all around, seems rather yellow to me at this moment. Baseball players would be like actors if they were not more like actresses.
 The nations heroes at the game have fallen into a hysteria. If the manage ment does not hustle in a doctor to look after them, and while he is there take some dope for it's own illness. there will be something done or doing that they Il all be sorry for-the great game will be hurt forever in the eyes of the American public
 Crooked seat sales, That is a sad charge to bring against the management of base ball and one which was never advanced before.
 Silly ehildishness, That is a sad charge to bring against the players, full grown men. who have been idolized by all Amer ica and one which never has been brought before.
 Baseball. the worlds finest sport, has fallen, it would seem. into sorry way.
 Years and years ago when the charge of crookedness cropped up last. A. c. l Spaulding was on deck Then the charge was that games had been fixed" He jumped in and cleaned the game until it shone. Since then, till now we've all been able to see our faces in it. It is pity that theresI is not now an A. G. Spaulding active in the counsels of the sport to take1l wipe the mud from it. If any sport has ever needed an appearing savior, baseball needs one now. With every | days delay in the completion of tho worlds championship series the muck gathers in new mobs upon the fair fame of the game.
 The public wrath over the apparent fact that spectators had in every sense the best of 1t in the seat sales both in Philadelphia and New York has not abated in the least. The fans are not forgiving. and why should they be? It is probably true that specula- ton in baseball seats could not be en tirely avoided. but to claim that the sale of solid blocks of seats to men who afterward charged fancy prices for them occurred without connivance If somebody in authority seems absurd. You can't cut out the spectators ab solutely Every effort has been made, by law. to stop theatre seat specula tion here and little has been accom- plished but to doubt that something might not have been done to help the public in it's recent struggles with the mercenaries would be childish.
 So far have these various scandals gone that 1t is definitely gossiped in New York that, after the present series shall have come to it's inglorious end, worlds championship series at the sea sons end will be abandoned. '. hat a commentary upon basball manage ment, It Is a confession that the men in charge are helpless to prevent what really could be easily prevented by a mana agement of any force. which real ly wanted to be square. The public Is disgusted and it has a right to re disgusted. AS 1t Is the publics money which makes baseball possible and It's magnates affluent. the policy which has permitted the existence of this situ- ation has been worse than silly; it has been close to suicidal.
 Meantime Snodgrass has been charged with spiking Baker purposelg. a charge which he indignantly denies,