The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1912-08-23
BASEBALL GAMBLING.

BASEBALL 0RMDEilN1.
The Twin-State baseball league in
which Brattleboro and Bellows Falls
of this state have teams, is going the
way of all such organizations. The
expense of maintaining the teams Is
more than the revenues will warrant.
The trouble arises from the keen ri
yalry between the townsville desire
TO win. A salary limit is agreed upon
at the opening of the season but 1t is
not long before it is being lodged.
One town strengthens its team and
then all the others do likewise. Those
sports who are not content 10
watch good baseball for the pleasure
they get out of the game and are not
satisfied unless they have some money
up, get next TO the management very
early. They are good patrons of the
game when they win but they are
the first to kick when the team loses.
1t is the gambling element which
kills baseball in small towns. Base
ball cannot be run for that portion of
the community who want to bet. 1t
has been tried time and time again
and failed every time. 1t looks as
though the TwinState league were
going to founder on this same old
rock.-Burlington Clipper.
This is pretty stiff criticism but it
is a good guess that the allegations
contained therein are not far out of
the way. There has been a contin-
uous rattle of the can" in Brattle-
boro ever since the season opened,
players having been fired and hired
in droves. If inducements offered
had been accepted majority OF the
members of the Bennington team
would be playing in Brattleboro to-
day.
A charge of gambling against any
community, or aggregation of com
munites, is pretty difficult to sustain,
especially if the person who makes
the charge is not on the ground and
has no first hand knowledge, but
looking back into their own eXpsri-
ence of previous years it is compare
lively easy for residents of Benning-
ton 10 dope out the situation in the
Twin-State league, particularly in the
towns of Brattleboro, Bellows Falls
and Keene The continuous hunt
for star players and the paying
out of increased salaries can not be
charged to the wish of the patrons
for a superior grade of baseball but
to a desire on the part of the gambl-
ers to get the other fellows money,
especially to get back some that they
have lost. As the Clipper well says,
baseball cannot be run for that por-
ton of the community who want to
bet. 1t has been tried time and
again and has failed every time"
One of the reasons why baseball
has succeeded in Bennington has
been the persistent determination of
Manager E. S. Higgins to discour-
age gambling. There is no denying
that wagers have been laid on the
games played here in Bennington,
but there has been absolutely no
connection between the management
and the betting element The sports"
who would place a bet on the home
team and lose and then ask the man
agement to strengthen the nine so
that he could get it back on the next
game would be told point blank that
the team is being run to provide
amusement for the public and not
for gambling.
Bennington has tried he other kind
of baseball and doesn't want any
more of it. We used to run baseball
here for the double purpose of pro
viding recreation for the people and
getting the other fellows money at the
same time. Under that system we
had some good baseball and a whoie
lot of excitement, but II wasn't
healthy sport and, especially since the
plans to get the other fellows money
didn't work out satisfactorily, we
used to come through the season
with soreness of heart and a general
crouch.
These deductions relative to the
situation in the over-the-mountain
towns of the Twin-State league are
made, as was originally stated, with
out any frsthand knowledge, but
the surface indications are so SINH
lar to those that existed in Benning-
ton a number of years ago that the
are almost inevitable.