San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-11-01
E@a%4
Series Too Tame.
Needs q Snowman.
Old Boston Knew How.
The Great Royal
RIOTERS.
Brush and the Giants.
Brush and the Giants.
49, By Damon Runyon .-As
Copyright. 1895. International Feature
Service, Inc)


Copyright. 1895. International Feature
Service. Inc.)
wish Flo Zeigfeld, or Sam Har-
ris, or George White or some other
enterprising and rcsourceful show
man would get into baseball and
make the worlds series something
more than a prefunctory playing of
number of games to determine the
ownership of the major share of the
gate receipts, and large, cheap BAN
ner, usually not unfurled until the
following summer.
mean to say I would like to see
the worlds series trimmed up, and
staged, and properly produced. and
made into real spectacle, something
on the order of the Army and Navy
football game. In fact, l would be
satisfied if they would just restore
some of the color and festivity that
used to surround the series.
1t seems to me that most OF this
color and festivity has quite van
ished. A few flags here and there
and band are the modern magnates
contribution to the adornment OF the
series that brings him anywhere
from the $4,000 in 1905 to the $780,
600, or more, of this year.
/ hold that the magnate owes 1t 20
his baseball public when he wins
pennant TO present something beyond
a mere baseball game.
The price of admission is adyanc-
ed. The series is supposed to be an
unusual event in every way, and the
big event of the baseball season. !
assert that the magnate should dress
it UP in q manner BETTING its I'M
portance.
You might think that after, six
teen years of waiting for pennant,
Barney Dreyfuss. owner of the Pitts
burgh Club. for instance. would have
made the affair something preten-
tious, as he might easily h4Yc done
BY the exercise of a little magina-
ton.
But Barney's imagination did not
progress much beyond having the
uniforms of his PLAYERS freshly laund-
cred. Clark Griffith, in Washington.
With the President of the United
States as a central figure around
which he might have built vast
spectacle, did little better than Drev-
fuss this year.
This surprised me, too. Griffith
is dour man, but j always sus-
pcctcd him Of being Mt heart show
man from the fact that even in times
of great vicissitudc he carried with
his club the famous baseball clowns,
Nick Altrock and AL Schaacht.
There are very funny men, PAN
tomimists Of some talent and in
vcntiveness. They provided the
crowds in Washington and Pittsburgh
with amusement before the games,
but regard them as part of Crit
fith's regular performance, and L
rather expected him TO add new acts
of an unusual and startling nature
when he first got into the worlds
series.
T do not know just what these acts
might have been. ] am not a show
man. / did not look for any trained
elephants, or trapcze performers, but
I thought Griffith would surely dig
I'D something new and novel.
The parades of the ball players
from the home plate to the flag rais--
ing ceremony in center field, and
the prefunctory handing over OF
flowers. and other gifts to local and
visiting favorites are regular features
of the worlds series program from
year to year, old. now and hack
neyed.
IL seems to me that real show
man would think Of something else.
When John 4. Brush. dead these
dozen years or more, owned the New
York Giants. and they won pennant
for him in 1911, he CARRIED them in
new uniforms of solid black, with
white trimmings, and when the crowd
was all assembled on the field, he
had them make most dramatic and
effective entrance.
They were collected under the
stand in center field. and at Il sig
nal n gate was opened. and out they
came on the run, while their oppo-
nents, the Philadelphia Athletics, in
dull, dusty looking gray uniforms
stood over by their bench fairly
dumbfonnded.
John ]. McGraw always claimed
that this theatrical entrance had
pronounced psychological effect on
the Athletics, and enabled the Giants
10 win that first game, though they
did not win the series.
But perhaps the lack Of color and
atmosphere to a series nowadays is
NOT so much the Hault of the mag
mates. as il is the cities. Boston al
ways made more of n world series
than any other city in the big
leagues.
No baseball fan who saw the Bos-
ton Braves and Red Sox in a world
series will ever forget the Royal
Rioters from Boston, with their band
nlnying "Tessie" intcrminably, or
Honey Titz," the musical mayor,
singing Sweet Adeline."
You can never make me believe
that this roofing support did not help
the Boston clubs, and it certainly
added to the Boston prestige. The
Royal RIOTERS were a lesson in civic
LOYALTY wherever they went.
The Boston merchants always dec
GRATED their windows as profusely for
a world series as they do for Har-
vard-Yale game. The city went in
for baseball to man-aye, to a
woman. 1t made other cities fairly
osbomcd of themselves when the