The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-01-26
SUMMER BASEBALL
IS NOT A MODERN
EVIL, SAYS P. DAVIS
AS Far Back as 1870 Cole
gians Were in Great De-
mand-Present Rule
Adopted in 1879

New York, January 25.-That summer
baseball" the most important issue IL
current college athletics, is not a modern
sports evil is attested by Parke Davis in
treatise recently prepared on this sub
ject He writes:
1.-THE testimony of experience is strongly
against the practicability of summer
BASEBALL in the early days of the dia
mond, the decade of the '70s. eastern col
lege stars were in great demand by the
professional teams, for in that period the
college nine, particularly Harvard
Princeton and Yale, were superior to the
city mines. For time there was no OBJ
lection to the collegians playing with the
professionals during the summer vaca-
ton, although the former openly
were paid for their services. In
the spring of 1879, however, two famous
college players from the same ;nstitu-
ton, who after graduation were playing
with a great city nine. suddenly left the
professional team, re-entered college and
by their presence lifted their college nine
from the rear to the front in the intercol-
legiate campaign.
This spectacular occurrence naturally
centered attention upon the subject of
professionalism. AS a result of the agi-
tation which followed, six colleges, No me-
ly, Amherst. Brown, Dartmouth, liar.
ward, Princeton and Yale, met in the Old
Massasoit house at Springfield Decemb Der
6, 1879. for the purpose of drafting a COM
mon eligibility rule and II possible to
form a baseball league. Their 1elibera
tons eventually produced both. The ri lie
adopted on that occasion ran as follows.
Rule Adopted
Any student who has been in regular
attendance for the whole of any college
year in any department shall be eligible
in that year for the nine. Any student
who after this date shall play upon
professional team or who shall play 11r
money shall not be eligible
This pioneer rule struck directly at
the grievances as they existed in the sim
horizon in which simplicity in sport was
to develop rapidly into complexity. With
the decade of the sos came the organized
amateur athletic club nine, the summer
resort nine, the manufactory nine, and
the small city amateur nine, some ot
which were so managed that the puLlic
nconsciously but accurately styled them
as 'semi-amateur' mines. These organiza-
tions, likewise, chiefly sought the col
lege stars. Again no objection was raised
at first to the collegian playing with these
teams provided he received only his eX-
penses.
1T was not long, however, before ru-
mors were rife of padded expense ac-
counts, of highly valuable gifts, of his h
salaried commercial positions in Which
10 service was required, and even of
secret pay rolls. Not only Were the col
legians embroiled in charges and coun-
ter charges, but the partisans of these
summer teams likewise Joined the hue
and cry. The divided allegiance of sore
of the latter led them to furnish secretly
to their college proofs of the profession
aiism of rival collegians
Football Suffered Most
"Curiously, it was football that suffered
most from the ensuing storm, due to The
double fact that the football season fol-
lowed baseball and that the star of the
diamond usually was a star of the grid
iron. Thus the fall of 1889 found the old
American intercollegiate Football asso-
citation, which had founded and nurtured
the intercollegiated game, locked in a
bitter row over charges of professional
ism which had arisen in summer base
ball. a row that eventually wrecked the
asso citation. This was followed by SINH
lar controversies among the various insti-
tutions forming dual leagues in ath-
letics and the breaking of intercollegiate
relations made a great din during the
early years of the decade of the '9Os.
The bitterness of the rival student bodies
extended to the alumni md to the facul-
ties. Thus the condition became intol-
cradle.
up to this time college faculties had
regarded competitive athletics as eXclu-
sively a matter of student management.
They now perceived. however, that the
institution had reached a stage of evolu-
| ton when it was as much a matter OF
| faculty supervision as any department
of instruction or business administration.
| subject reform began"