The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-04-14
Southern League Is Off

Following close on the heels of the major circuits, the Southern league will inaugurate it's pennant chase to- day, beginning struggle which is scheduled to continue to the ninth of September. This is the sixteenth annual championship race of Dixie's leading baseball organization, the present Southern Association dating from 1901. The twentieth century Southern circuit is the successful is sue of previous attempts to put pro- fesstonal baseball on a sound basis in the larger cities of the Southland
 The opening of the 1916 season finds oP John Dobbs again at the helm of the champion New Orleans Pe1icans, and making noises like he proposed to repeat his 1915 triump ph OF lawn has been in the baseball business since 1898, making his professional debut in Springfield, H., several years before the present Southern League opened up shop. He also played with Wheeling and Utica, and broke into the big show with Cincinnati in 1901. He spent two years with the Reds, but was sold to the Cubs in 1903, and soon bar tered to Brooklyn, where he remain ed until 1906. He returned to the minors that year with Louisville, and after two years with the Co1oneIs landed in the Southern League with Chattanooga. In 1910 he became y, 4, he took over the helm of the Peli- cans.
 The Birmingham club, which fin ished second last year, is again led by Manager Molesworth. Randolph Stark is the Memphis chieftain, hay ing succeeded Briscoe Lord. Roy El1am is in charge of Nashville s baseball destinies taking the place of Pilot Schwartz Charles Frank is now the boss of the Atlanta team, his predecessor, Bill Smith, now being at the head of the Richmond Interna- tfona1 League. club. Kid Elberfeld, once famous as the pepperyi shortstop of the Yankees and other American League clubs, is in charge at Chat tanooga, having succeeded to the management in the middle of last season. Charlie Schmidt of Mobile cellar champs are both hold-overs from last year.
 With several new managers and much new blood in the playing ranks, the Southern League race promises to be full of interest. The Southern circuit probably fared better last year than any other big minor organiza- ton, and there is every indication that 1918 will be even better. Presi- dent R. H. Baugh, who succeeded the late Judge M. ". Kavanaugh as president of the league, has been an able aQmln1SLTaLOr ana mas F0IalnSu for the Southern the honor of being the best managed minor league.
 Baseball has been popular in the South ever since the close of the civ 1 il war. The annual visits of the bie l league clubs to their Dixie training ltcamps has served to foster the pop
 uIar enthusiasm for the great pas time. The first northern club tc
 make a trip south was the Cincinnati
 Red Stockings. the pioneer fprofes-
 sfona1 cliess which visited New Or leans in 1870, ana defeated the Pe1t- cans 51 to 1. the Southerns 80 to 6 the Atlantics 39 to 6, the Lone Stars 1 26 to T. and the Robert B Lees 24 to 4. The Reds also played the Ort- entails in Memphis and beat them 1oe I to 2. Tn these days however, the big league clubs that play the Southern
 CTS are about as often defeated as victorious. Of late years the South and the Pacific Coast have led al
 other sections in producing players
 of big league calibre. and the majors lnow have dozens Of graduates of the
 Southern league and the smaller cir cults of Dixie.