The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-03-04
Training Season for Big
 Leagues Opens This Week
Many Players Remain Un> signed as Teams Prepare to Embark for Camps Holdouts May Be Allowed to Accompany Teams.

New York, March 4-When thou sands of our boys are in training camps, getting ready for their big job of knocking the Kaiser out of the box, 1 the baseball training camp becomes rather tame affair if not a side issue. But it, too, has it's purpose. Experi- ences abroad have tended to prove that "all war and no play doesn't help the morale of the population back home" Furthermore, despite smashups in many minor leagues and the fact that several big league clubs 1 are skating on thin ice, this war has brought baseball to the forefront as | nothing else in the history of the | game.
 Today at Hot Springs nine of the leading members of the Giants are | slated to take the baths and take light 1 training intended to fit them for the more strenuous work at the regular camp at Marlin later in the month The New York National League team is the first of the big league clubs to start training, though the work of 1 the men now at Hot Springs is suppos- ed to be only of an unofficial nature. During the week the battery men of l the Boston Braves will visit Stallings plantation at Paddock. Ga, as the 1 Big Chiefs guests for the purpose of | knocking around for week and get
 ting their muscles Iimbered up for | the Braves training trip. l Alexander and several other pitch
 CTS of the Cubs also are taking the
 baths at Hot Springs for the purpose 1 of getting boiled out before accom- l ho oJ1 +o
 The Giants are one of the few clubs . with practically satisfied lineup. At present only Fletcher, Robertson, Perritt and Thorpe remain as hold | outs, and McGraw expects to sign Fletcher today and Robertson later ip the week.
 It must be admitted that few clubs are pursuing the tactics of the Giants and going after their players. The general policy of the clubs appears to be mo compromise; take it or leave it'' policy. Higgins says the reason so many players are unsigned is that | they got used to having the clubs come after them, but with few excep- l tions this no longer is being done. Higgins did visit Peck and intends to drop, in on Plank at Gettysburg, but | | others.
 A policy of permitting unsigned I players to train this season may help settle the difficulty. President Frazee | of the Red Sox has announced that any unsigned players on his team | will visit the training camps at their
 own expense but it is understood the
 Yankees will make no such ruling.
  | against unsigned players being taken 1 to training camps, but last week | Tener announced as far as the Ma.
 tional League was concerned, it was up to the individual clubs whether or
 not they would have unsigned players
 at their training camps.
 1 While some of the leading players
 may be able to arrange salary com" promises with their club owners, | from present indication it looks as 1 though the players will have to sur> | render.
 1 Objection has been registered in
 certain sections, notably Pittsburgh, to | these unofficial training parties, but | Tener has given them his sanction. saying he looked at the visit of the Giant battery men to Hot Springs the
 same as though bunch of ball play
 CTS went to a Northern gymnasium to get their muscles hardened for the | training season.
 By another week, however, the
 regular training season will be in full
 bloom. The first. detachment of the l Yankees, headed by the new manager,
 Miller Huggins, and including
 lunch of rockies will leave here l ext Friday for Macon. The Yan- kee regulars will report at Macon on March IA, giving the youngsters only
 five days to themselves.
 The Giant Marlin special will leave
 here week from today and despite the war, the trip will be one of the
 most elaborate ever taken by the club.
 Secretary Foster says that more news
 paper correspondents will accompany
 the club this spring than ever went
 on a training trip with major
 league. club.
 - Despite the close approach of the
 training season the hoIdout probiem
 still remains a most serious one. More
 than 100 players still remain unsign- ed. In discussing his holdouts last
 week Miller Huggins, the Yankees
 manager, made the significant remark I that other clubs were in exactly the same fix as the Yankees. Huggins 1 says two or three clubs have lined up | most of their men, but that the ma
 jurity of clubs have no more players signed than the Yankees and several l of them not as mans