Evening star., 1915-05-22
NATIONALS MAY OR MAY NOT
BE BENEFITED BY IDLE SPELL
Many Instances Are Known, Though, Where
Teams Have Been Helped by Lay
OH-Other Gossip.

7 McAleer. by the way. is much heavier
! than he was when with Washington.
| He is taking life easy and is not en-
| gagged in any business, and does not
/ expect to be. He is spending most of
! his time at his home in Youngstown.
| but makes occasional hunting trips.
! The former president of the Boston
| Red Sox is optimistic to the future
prosperity of base ball. The shedding
, now is pretty hard and a lot of money
| is going to be lost" McAleer said,
! but the game will survive this crisis
( and be all the better for it. In few
! years ma jor league teams viii carry
! about sixteen players. no more and the
! salaries will be brought down where
| they belong. Under the present ar
| rangements with the players 1t is I'M
! possible for the club owners to 40
| better than break even. and there VIII
have to he a change in the pay the
I players are drawing if there is to he
prosperity in the game hereafter.
Charles Somers also has some rather
forceful ideas as to what the game
needs. He says there Will be a recon
struction of everything connected win
it, The players salaries will have to
be cut down TO what the owners can
a ford TO pay, and. incidentally. there
will have to he reduction of the num-
Der of players carried by team
WHY. in 1908. when we had a team
which stood fighting chance for the
S5S .oo0 for the season Since then 1t
has reached the 100000 mark. and the
result is that there is not chance TO
make money. even when you win Il
pennant Last year the Two teams
which finished one-two in the Amer
;can League lost nearly $4,000 between
them. the Athletics more than s3o.ooo
and the Red Sox $4,000 rms year
owner Lannin of the SoX tells me that
his salary list is S125.00O for the sea-
a
cent this year, regardless of what the
outcome of the race may be Ihat sal
ary list of the New York club, which is
made up of young players. also is
sumner. it being nearly the equal OF
the Boston club
THE time is not far off when there
must be a reconstruction in base ball
/ have lost a fortune in it. but | Will
get even when things adjust them
selves, and that is why l am sticking
to it,
Boehling may be used in the game to-
day. while Fohl refuses to announce
his selection until he has seen several
of his pitchers warm up.
President Somers was much impressed
with Lee Fohl when he sent for him
this morning and Informed him that he
would act as manager of the team IN
the place of Birmingham. Fohl re
ceived this notice just like he would
any other order. and said that he would
go to the park and tell the players
who will you pitch If we play today"
asked Somers
Well. / don't know; I'll look them
over first"
Somers figures that Fohl may be the
very man he has been looking for to
get his team out of the mire.
Doc" Ayers has had occasion to do
considerable worrying of late. In st
Louis the papers sprung the story that
Doc would be purchased by the
Browns. and he sat up that night and
waited for Griffith to turn in SO that he
could get the managers denial. Last
night an early morning edition had the
story that Griffith would make a trade
for a local player in exchange for
Ayers and the Doc" was sick at heart
when he read this. Again he waited to
see Griffith. and once more he was told
that il was plain rot. Now Doe VOWS
that he will never believe anything he
reads in the papers.