The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-25
DID MONTGOMERY CALL BLUFF
 OF LITTLE ROCK PROMOTERS?

1 hour of ;he week and every week of the month and every month of the year.
 Not many moons ago, for instance. a press report came flickering out of Ar kansas 10 the effect that the baseball company in Little Rock had had q meet ing and formally agreed to buy the fran chise of the Montgomery or the Mobile 1 club if either the one or the other would agree to sell.
 We are coming hack strong" was the intimation given Just give us an open ing. We are so strenuous, as a matter of fact, that if we can't buy, we are go- ing to take away"
 ItSs currently reported on most excel lent authority that Montgomery. Mobile and Atlanta, for some inscrutable reason, still possesses franchise, trembled in l their respective pair of boots following the strange cry from the heart of Ar kansas.
 IL Is alleged that the owners of the At lanta document, in the shadow of the night, shipped the parchment 10 Nova Scotia, where if still remains in a state of excellent preservation.
 l In Mobile, C. C. Colsson assumed threatening defense. It is said that he extracted his parchment from safety l deposit vault and sat on it for a week, holding in his trusty arms at the same l time d Winchester of the most improved variety. When Cosson went to meals. I he sat Mique Finn on the franchise. so | determined was he that Little Rock should not snatch away his birthright. 1 Charlie Jones, president of the Mont gomery club, did not fear. In other words, he admitted a sly idea that Lit tic Rock was trying to gobble Up the 1 jack pot with 'boh tail' So he imme- dately called the bluff, and a dense shadow has withdrawn from across the war map of the Southern league l President Jones notified Little Rock, in his choicest, crispest and otherwise most | busness-like tone, that tcould have the old parchment for s2o0OO. it being the in- l nation, furthermore, that with the | franchise, Montgomery would give it's blessing to boot.
 1t is perhaps our environment which causes us to believe that any Southern league franchise is worth s20,000 Were we a resident of Little Rock, Atlanta. Montgomery or Mobile, perhaps we would entertain other views.
 But whether the price demanded was exhorbitant or not. 1t is now our opinion that Little Rock is not quite as anxious to return to the fol das it would have wished us heretofore to believe.
 As a matter of fact, we are glad that
  gomery franchise
 We believe that for the good of the league, Little Rock should not be admit ted again to the fold, and that Montsom- cry, even against it's will, should be re- Quired to stand hitched.
 Seriously there are one or more cities which never make money as result of athletic enterprise and it is discouraginS to the Montgomery owners 10 receive such a lack of appreciation when 1t fur nishes as good a brand of sport as 1t fur- nished last season. But before the franchise is permitted to stray again to Little Rock, for the good of their respective coffers, the league fathers, If Montgomery is determined to sell, should buy the franchise and oper- ate it themselves in Montgomery-at a less directly, though profit indirectly
 All of which indicates that the force of the adage, There is nothing serious enough to worry over," is losing its strength as far as we are concerned.
 II. w. R.