The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-01-29

SFSiJ 4a1l apout lfcKet speculation It all comes from the demand for seats being greater than the supply. Any time 100000 people want to get into park that holds but 25,oo0 a percentage of the public is going to be discontented and disgruntled ness is but natural
 Gambling An Evil
 Incidentally, gambling is the one thing that will always ruin baseball if given half a chance. Baseball is different from other forms of profess sional sport. It does not need bet ting to add spice to it, like horse racing, for instance. In fact those who really enjoy the game most get worked up over it-seldom bet At any rate, the situation became so bad in Boston that several of the remaining championship games were transferred to Hampden park, at Springfield, Mass. The attendance in Boston had fallen off to almost noth- ing. This park at Springfield, by the way, had been used for baseball since the days of the old Massachusetts game" That game-something like rounders-was a forerunner of the present baseball. The fielders could throw the ball at a base runner and put him out that way. That wouldn't be such d bad idea today. especially If manager was permitted to throw at player who had just pulled a bone play.
 A comparison of the gate receipts, he winning sharesyand so on of those days With the more recent worlds series gives pretty fair idea of the steady growth of baseball.
 That you may get this clear in your minds--I address the remark to the younger fans-you must bear in mind that we had no national commission ill those days and we did not play under the rules and regulations pro- vided in the national agreement of 1905.
 Players Pared Well
 The players got a larger share of tfe money than now. No part of the money went to commiss and for other purposes, as is the case under the present arrangement. The play CTS got practically all the receipts and they were divided, GO per cent going to the winners.
 In the last Temple cup series in which I participated-the one of 1S97 my winning share was around $500. forget just how many players came in for share, but there were not nearly so many as today. The at tendance at the games averaged around six or seven thousand. In the first series-that of l9o5- played under the rules provided in the national agreement our New York team met the Philadelphia Athletics and won The winning players each got s1,l00 The attendance at each game, however, was more than twenty thousand.
 All Records Broken
 In 1921 when we met the Tank at the Polo Grounds all records were broken. That, though, was a nine- game series. The winning players each got so,400. The attendance was pretty close to 10000 the biggest day. In 1922, the last series, the winning players got .s4.400 each. But that vas seven game series and they got share of the receipts for four games only. In this last series, by the way, the club owners made hardly enough to pay expenses. The fact that we won in four straight games robbed the club owners of a clance. That, by the way. is quite tribute to the honesty of baseball. 'r-3y dragging the series along a lot of oney could have been made Later on I will explain why we didn't play series in 1904,
 Not realizing that my main troubles in baseball were about to begin I had great time that winter of 1897 1898.
 tcopyright. 1929: United States and for San4 North American Newspaper anisass Alianes and The Birmingham Age-Herald.)