The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-02-19
--SPORTS
Yankee Players Want a
 Small Fortune Says Owners
Difference Between Players Demands and Owners Off, ferS Amounts to Nearly $250,000, Is Conservative Estimate
By GEokGE WICK
Special Correspondent ot Inc Age Heral
 Copyright, 18E2, uy inc lAge-Iierutut

NWFTEeFIWWWHTTT
 Copyright, 1Yz2, ny the .,ge-neruiut
 New fork, February ls.-Ali the players in the Wofld are dreaming ol automobiles and sitk shirts agatn. according te Colonel llustoH, one Jt the owners ol the NeW urk Auer.- can league club. Huston ueclared tu- day that In his shor. career aa part owner of ball club, he never knew tune when suth a greal sam of money separated Ihe cfHps and Che players,
 In 1gIa. before the baseball season opened, a few thousand dollars rep resented the difference between what the owners offered in their. con tracts and what the players de- manded. It did not take long to patch up the differences and by the time the season started pTsc tically all players yere under coutract.E
 Difference of $40, o,0O0
 In 1920 the differences Of opinion as to relative value of services Of players amounted 10 about s40,GUV. conseryatively estimated. some of these differences were adjusted by increasing salaries and part were taken up by promises of bonuses for good playing or good behavior.
 This year the differences between tAub b0 lltit s dllA pldS may bE NoAi~ mated according to good judges, to amount 10 almost s250.000. The mill lion dollar gate at the world series still looms big in the eyes of the players who want their bit of past and future receipts.
 Isn't it true your club is paying the penalty of having won the cham pionship?n Colonel Huston was asked.
 There may be something in that Colonel Huston answ erred, but we ai- lowed for that when We sent con tracts to players. We didn't forget that they won the championship of the American league for us in 1921. But other owners whose clubs did not win championships and whose players did not play exeitable base ball tell me they are having trouble. ! am opposed to making public any thing about business relations be tween owners and players. I pre- sume. however, 1t is piece of news if Ruth signs a contract for the larg- est salary ever paid a ball player. I never heard anybody ask about the smallest salary in baseball, however. They tell me ball players once played for the honor of playing-but not now. Certainly not now"
 How much money separates yorr players and your club?" he was asked
 Plenty, plenty and enough" was the diplomatic answer Some of them seem to think they should be draw ing at the rate of 40 per cent on in- vested capital"
 Mack Having Trouble
 Connie Mack it is said, has had half score of contracts returned un- signed and he put the salaries up for all the boys, too. Then take Ruth. for instance. It is said by those who profess to know all about his com ings and goings that the first little speech he made about salary show sd that about s40,oo0 stood between him and the check book of the Yankee club in 1922. That estimate is inst as likely to be false as true. The sum may be more With Ruth it is just a question of how much more he can get than he did last year, and he is going to press the game to the limit This year he holds the whip hand He will be quite asI well off in a salary way as if he had not been suspended. If he does not play in the early part of the year The owneres of all the American league clubs feel 1t will hurt them and the Yankees will need him the worst way the latter part of the month and thereafter. especially on holida-s. when he is a capital drawing card. Therefore. all Ruth has to do is to ask for as much as he would have gotten had he not been suspended and just as much more as he can get because he was suspended.
 The Meusel brothers, wEo live in California. where the flowers and the melons are big, have grown big no- tions about salary during the winter. They want more than the New York clubs have offered them and each club has raised the salary of it's spe cial Meusel at that.
 All the players who live in Califor mia complain about the expense If travel and the owners moan when one asks for his fare from California and return Each year the owners de- clare that no ball player will be per- mtted at spring training camp un- less he has signed his contract. Each year there are some players who have not signed and who seem somehow to be able to make their way to camps and make terms after they