Bisbee daily review., 1912-02-01
CONTINUOUS BASEBALL IS
 IDEA OF LEAGUE HEADS

Continuous baseball. an idea as old as modern vaudeville. is in store for the major league fans of the present generation. No definite steps have been taken Vet towards its introduc. ton into the national safety valve, but some magnates are talking about it as a possible solution of their many problems.
 Here is the proposition faced Iy he'major league club owner who has a modern baseball plant:
 An investment from S50O,000 to Sl 100000 in an establishment which is idle practically 300 out of 36j days
 The necessity of maintaining a wIn- ming or near-winning baseball team. in order 10 get a reasonable income out of the investment
 In sbilitJE to obtain material with which to recruit his team to the nee essary standard without developing it almost from the cradle.
 The maintenance of a farm" in some major league, either through actual ownership of a subsidiary club or by a gentlemen agreement" for the purpose of developing promising green material
 Cash investment Heavy
 Take the case of a club owner like Charles A Comiskey in the American League or Barney Dreyfuss in the Na tional League, each of whom owns outright the land on which his team plays and the expensive stands erected for the accommodation of his patrons. The actual cash investment n f.s cfz hngfuazg h1aalr of office buildings, and the running ex- penses and the upkeep of a modern building would be small 10 the cost of running a ball team and keeping IL up to standard.
 The office building would be pro- ducing the year arounu, while a ball plant in working less than three months of each year. A major league team, playing a 154-game schedule. is booked to appear on its own ground only seyenty-seven days during year. At least ten and generally more of the appearances are prevented by rain or bad weather. Take the average of the last ten years and 1t will be found that the team which played seventy days on its own grounds is fortunate. The plant maintained by the owner Of the team is producing income seveE- ty days or the year and is idle the other 295.
 Yet taxes, repairs and incidentals go right along. the same as if it were an office building, and the only thing that stops during the off season is the salaries of the players. These sal aries run for six months, but they are on a twelve month base.
 No Use For vacant Dates.
 It is a serious proposition what to do with the plant during it's idleness. Dreyfuss partially solved it by de- veIoping the hippodrome fad in Pitts burg. but that has not proved success ful in ether cities where it has been tried Comiskey and Hartmann tried baseball by electric light, but it did not solve the problem.
 To maintain team that will pro duce a reasonable income from the heavy investment in the modern ball year the club owners spend tens Of of dollars each year to get recruits to strengthen weak spots or replace retiring veterans. The scrani- ble has become so intense that lt is necessary to grab half-baked young sters from the outer business and take A chance O! finding a rough diamond amongst them. The hope of picking mn a finished ball player from the minor league has long disappeared Oc- casionaiIy, when there is promise Of obtaining such player, the man who has Q claim on the players services can command almost any price, as vsa the case with Marty AToole last fall.
 Ripe Piayers Hard to Find.
 Hundreds of players nave Dee1 drafted and purch1eed rom the mn ors every season in the hope thst one