The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-12-29

! Quaker City fans are the Belgians of
 baseball
 Whenever any wronging is 10 be done Philadelphia enthusiasts usually are found on the receiving end; whenever anything happens in the line of baseball
 atrocities Philadelphia is the target And whenever there's 8 war the first point
 of invasion is the Pennsylvania metrop-
 oils
 When Ban Johnson and associates opened warfare on the National league nearly two decades ago, the main at tack was leveled at the Phillies-and great ball club was wrecked almost over night Lajoie, Delehanty and Flick, con stituting one of the greatest wrecking crews" in baseball history, were captured from the Phillies, as was Bernard, the i great twirler, together with other dia- mond luminaries of that era. : Johnson and his American league army changed the Phiilies' outlook from one of the brightest in it's history to it's darkest.
 Philadelphia fans outlived their sor- row a time because they found joy in the doings of the Mackmen of 1904 and 1905 But just about the time they were getting enthusiastic about the machine. Connie Mack kicked 1t apart and it was some years before he could build new one.
 But at last came the Collins Baker Barry-McInnis regime-and once again the Quaker town was in the throes of baseball delight. But grief came again
 in 1914 when Mack, the reconstruetionst, disposed of practically all his great players and made plans for building a new machine.
 War came with the Feds in 1sl4-and the outlaws devoted main portion of their energies against the Phillies. When the roll call of Phillies was sounded aft CT the Feds finished their invasion there weren't enough Phillie regulars left to man the machine
 But by some strange twist of fate-and due also to the managerial genius of Pat Moran-the Phillies made baseball his- tory in 1915 by landing their first pen nant. Joy refgned supreme in the Quaker City. The fans had lost the world beat ing Athletics but they were recom- pensed with a championship National lea que club.
 But in 1918 gloom came to Philadelphia with the sale of Alexander and Killfer, probably the greatest battery in modern years With their passing died the Quaker pennant hopes that year. But Moran, calmly and carefully, built up another team that seemed to look good
  Moran, the Phillie miracle man." was at the helm.
 And now another drop of bitterness has been added to the cup of Philadelphia fandom-Pat Moran was canned. Without warming and seemingly without reason, Moran was released And Philadelphia fandom which has suffered more ups
 and downs than any collection of base ball enthusiasts in history, is discon- solate again.
 Dooin Spins Yarn Charles Dooin, who managed the Phil lies for a number of years remarked the | other day:
 "Say. when I think what I had to go through I marvel that l didn't go slight | ly nutty."
 1 And why?" Dooin was asked Well, I never could be sure one day 1 just who my bosses would be the next 1 It seemed that about every time I'd pay I visit to the club officers I'd find stran- l gers there-the new owners. The club changed hands about eight times while
 was with it. Maybe 1t was more. might have missed being introduced to | g few new owners
 1 "One year--or maybe 1t was only part | of year--the team was owned or con- ] troiled by the Philadelphia Racquet club. 1 Those fellcws-all sportsnlen of the high est class-didn't go into baseball with
 the idea of making money. They wanted