Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1914-02-10
FEDERAL BOOM
MEANS MUCH
To VETERANS
OId-Timers Only Ones Benefited
BY Present Fight, Declares a
Baseball Expert.
By Sam Crane.

yJII,E the Federal League is
M/ kicking up quite cloud of
dust just now, the young
players in organized baseball do not
want to be blinded by It,
Certain older players, who have
orIv few wears of baseball life left,
have and will scurry to cover under
.be 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
.nd-or when the 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
nnlv have the leavings-and the pick
,ngs OF what is left will be very, very
meager.
BECAUSE Joe Tinker, Otto Knabe,
- Mordecai Brown and other play
ers. who have not more than three
4, 20 rd n
in baseball, have jumped at the chance
10 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 a future ahead of
them should not follow like sheep
and make the plunge. They, if they
do that, are leaving a certainty for
an experiment, and an experiment,
too, that at the best outlook that can
be given it has nothing stable to
recommend 1t.
I have been through three wars in
baseball against organized baseball,
and know whereof l 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 baseball
league as the National or American
Leagues, to grasp new territory legal
ly. The only question for the play
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
can only make promises and they
very doubtful of fulfillment
If l was young player of promise,
! would take advantage of the pres
ent situation by signing long, term
contract with club in organized
baseball. The player doing this will
be absolutely sure of his salary for
the term of years he signs for, and
at 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 its financial stand
ing and predict dire failure for it,
but 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
mat Is offered the youngster and
yes, the oldster, to climb on to the
oandwagon of organized baseball.
And by the oldster l 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
man loyalty to the league and club
mat made them.