The Connecticut labor news., 1921-02-18
BASEBALL POPULARITY CALLS
 FOR GREATER SEATING SPACE
Big Leagues Provide Seats for Only 1.6 Population Where Games Are Played.

Baseball throughout the country dur ! ing the 1921 season promises to show continued growth ii popularity, which has been consistent feature of the na- l t1Onal game since the close of the World War. Last season new attendance rec
 ords were made in the major and minor leagues, and unofficially 1t was said that never III its history has the game enjoyed such prosperous season gen orally Off season indications are that the records of 1920 will be surpassed next summer This leads to the ques- ton: "Where will the club owners put the fans who desire to use the games Ii baseball continues to grow in popular favor"
 There are some sizab1e baseball parks Ill the country, the largest of which is the Braves Field at Boston, with a seating capacity of 47,800. Most ot the parks are sufficiently large to accommodate the crowds that ordinarily attend the games, but in every baseball city there are occasions during the sea son, especially on holidays and in the cases of important series, when the largest Of parks are inadequate to ac- commodate those who desire to pass through teh turnstiles.
 Large and numerous as are the base ball parks throughout the coutnry in cities represented by professional teams, teams It will surprise a majority of the fans to learn that the total seat ing. capacity of all the parks of the maJor and minor leagues of impor- tance IS less than 1 per cent. of the total population of the country, 1O5,- 685,lO0, as shown by the 1920 census. The seating capacity of the parks in the maJor leagues and the principal m1nor leagues totals approximately ol,OOO, which, with minor leagues whose statistics are not available, probably would bring the total seating capacity of all league parks in the country up to a round million.
 The apparent congestion of seating capacity is more acute in the two major leagues than it is in the minors. The cities represented i'll the National League have a total population of l2,655,308 and the baseball parks in those cities have a total seating capac- ity of about 199,000. This meafls that there are seats in all National League parks for only 1.6 per cent, of the population, and 1t would mean that if all the people of those cities took the notion to attend the games on some holiday, about 60 persons would be scrambling for possession of each seat.
 As regards the proportion of. seats to population, the situation in the American League is virtually the same as in the senior major league The cites in the circuit headed by Ban Jol1n- son boast of total population of 13,- 594,O14 persons, while the clubs in the American League have provided seats for close to 215,000. Here the percent age of accommodation for the popu1a- tion IS about 1.6, the same as in the National League, but reduced to actual figures. 1t means one seat for each 6 persons.
 The club with a particularly at tractive star, such as Babe Ruth was to the New York Yankees last season, finds 1t difficult many times during the season to take care of those who are anxious to contribute to the financial success of the club There were sex- eral Saturdays and Sundays last season when the Yankees were playing on the Polo Grounds when 1t was necessary to close the gates long before the game started, thus turning away thousands of disappointed fans