The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-12-18
PRAY FOR PEACE
That Alone Can Save Baseball,
Many Believe.
Major Leagues Must Hold On
Regardless of Cost.
BY lack VEIOCK.

New York, Dec. 1S.-Time alone
will tell whether or not baseball is
strong enough to live on thru trouble
some years of war.
Baseball men have been trying to
stick to the optimistic viewpoint and
it is generally agreed that the major
leagues must continue in operation
at any cost for the good of the game.
Should baseball be discontinued en-
tirely for year the game would re-
ceive a blow from which it might not
recover in five years time, and the
ma gnates realize the necessity of
keeping the ball rolling.
The season of 1917 proved conclu-
sively that the big majority of minor
leagues cannot be operated success
fully in these troublous times. Many
of the minors were forced to close
their gates by midseason this year,
and altho seven or eight minors will
make an effort to continue in 1918,
the outlook is far from encouraging.
All Minors Threatened.
The length of the world war means
everything to baseball. Should the
| war last three to five years longer,
every minor league in the country
would cease to operate and even the
majors might be forced to quit. But
until such a time arrives the big fell
lows are keeping stiff upper lips.
With the opening of the 1918 sea-
son the major league fan may find
it bit hard to recognize major
| league ball as the same attraction he
has been used to. There will be many
| players missing from the majors and
the makeup of some of the clubs
which will be hit hard by the draft
will be almost entirely changed.
Should the war continue for sew
eral years longer and baseball as rep
resented by the major leagues be con-
tinued also, a good many old-timers
will return to the diamonds to which
they had said goodbye for all time
be, can still put up a more attractive
brand of baseball than oncoming
youngster who are too young for the
army. And the players who are ex-
empted because they have dependent
families will be valuable assets to the
club owners.
Old Ebbets Wise.
The Brooklyn Dodgers furnish an
interesting example of this Presi-
dent Ebbets holds title to fourteen
players who will not be affected by
the draft They are: Pitchers Mar
guard, Cheney, Combs and Mitchell:
inf1elders Daubert, Cutshaw, O'Mara
O'Rourke and Olson; outfielders Zach
Wheat, Hi Myers and Jim Johnston
and catchers Mack Wheat and Otto
Miller. All other members of the
Dodgers are either in some branch of
the service at present or subject to
| call thru the draft law
| There are few clubs, however, with
! SO many players sure of being ex-
empted as the Dodgers. The CIeve-
| land club lost seven men. and six
members of the Boston Red Sox, in
| GLIDING Manager Jack Barry, may be
missing from the 1918 lineup.
Manager Clark Griffith, of the
Washington club, generally has
worry of some sort on his shoulders
! He considered that luck was with
him when Foster, Judge. Rice and
Henry were exempted, but he has
/ been worried over the chance that he
may lose Walter Johnson his biggest
/ card. Johnson, tho a married man.
| is very well off and is just within the
draft limit If Johnson isn't called,
Grif will have a pretty good war
time club.
Sherman Was Right.
Other clubs in both leagues will be
! Var1ously affected by the war and
! in the short space of a few months
major league baseball as we left it
/ the first of October may be hard to
recognize.
The big league club owners are
quite sure that General Sherman wa
/ absolutely correct