Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1914-02-11
FEDERAL BOOM
MEANS MUCH
To VETERANS
OId-Timers Only Ones Benefited
by Present Fight, Declares
Baseball Expert.
By Sam Crane.


dust just now, the young
nlavers in organized baseball do not
want to be blinded by it.
Certain older players, who have
only few years of baseball life left,
have and will scurry to cover under
the furry and help themselves to all
the visionary good things" that are
being handed out so literally by the
promoters of the new league, who
have. been behind the stormclouds
and aroused the preliminary dust just
for the purpose of befogging the I'M
initiated.
The old timers are the ones who
will be first to take advantage of the
BOOM and they will be found in the
end-or when this clouds clear-to be
the only ones benefited. They will
have feathered their nests with the
preliminary coin at hand, which is
always too literally distributed, and
the Youngsters who follow in the
wake of the wise old has beens" will
only have the leavings-and the pick
ings of what is left will be very, very
nsager.
BECAUSE Joe Tinker, Otto Knabe,
IL Mordecai Brown and other play
ers, who have not more than three
years at the most to look forward to
In baseball, have Jumped at the chance
TO make this soft money" and they
can not be blamed either for their de-
sire to make themselves well fixed
in their declining athletic years, still
the Youngsters with future ahead of
them should not follow like sheep
and make the plunge They, If they
do that, are leaving certainty for
an experiment., and an experiment,
TOO, that at the best outlook that can
be given it has nothing Stable to
recommend H.
have been through three wars in
baseball against organized baseball,
and know whereof / speak.
The Federal League has a perfect
right to launch out and try. The
new organization can not be called an
outlaw" either, until it does some
thing to warrant the stigma title.
When the Federal League attempts to
steal players from organized base
ball by inducing the latter to jump
the reserve rule, the bulwark of or
ganized baseball, then the name out
law" might be given them, but not
until then.
THE Federal League has Just as
much right to start a baseball
eague as the National or American
Leagues, to grasp new territory legal
MI
ers to decide is the buttering of their
bread, and surely the side that has
always shown real butter and plenty
Of it is preferable to the ones who
IAN only make promises and they
very doubtful of fulfllment.
If | was a young player of promise,
would take advantage of the pres
ent situation by signing a long term
contract wits a club in organized
baseball. The player doing this will
ne absolutely sure of his salary for
the term of years he signs for, and
at a salary that will be bigger than
if the Federal League had not en-
tered into the field.
The big leagues may pooh pooh the
new league; decry it's financial stand
ing and predict dire failure for it,
nut nevertheless the same old leagues
are worried more than they care to
acknowledge, and nothing shows that
more than their willingness in fact
desire, to sign their players for term
Of years. And this is Just the time
that IS offered the youngster and
yes, the oldster, to climb on to the
bandwagon of organized baseball.
And by the oldster | mean players
who have been in the game as long
as Chief Meyers and others, who are
apparently watching the drift of
events with more financial sentiment
than loyalty to the league and club
that made them.