The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-12-08

IT OVER
By JOE

NEW YORK, Dec. 8.-For the
IL first time since Colonel Abner
Doubleday was q water boy. you
could walk up to the box office last
fall and buy all the seats to the
opening game Of the world series
you wanted.
The fiscal returns for the 1882
seasons show that only two teams in
the big leagues-the champion
Yanks and the champion Cubs
made a airly stable return on
their investment.
The smallest number Of minor
leagues in twenty years opened
at the old stand last spring. And
by the Fourth Of July half of them
had folded, hopelessly submerged
in red ink, r~eceiverships and busi-
ness chaos.
What do these developments por-
tend? Is baseball losing it's posi-
ton as the national sport? Is the
depression the main answer? VIII
conditions be better next year, or
worse? What steps, if any, are the
magnates taking?
Despite all the physical evidence Of
apathy. the club owners remain uniformly
Is nothing wrong With baseball that a
winning team viii not cure.
All Of them, however, stress the
necessity for stringent economies from top
to bottom, from Office clerks TO Lands.
There is a unity Of agreement that the
P nSs{ s. Covered sTe odiefr TPom % t n 50 az aer e salaries
Inefe IS a singular prevalence Of
placidity about the situation. It is SEEM
ingly taken for granted that baseball is a
stands now and the form Of its presenta-
ton 70 the public can not possibly be
bettered.
ID OBERT QUINN, president Of the
IN Boston Red Sox, writes: THE
public demands baseball and for that
reason newspapers should cooper
ate to give the public what it wants"
No other sport receives more gra-
tuitous publicity from the news
papers than baseball. This is done
on the editorial assumption that
there is a wide general interest in
baseball.
Quinn seems to imply that one of
the functions of the newspaper is
to help fill his ball park. The di-
rect result of such publicity, of
course, is increased patronage.
In instances where the club owner is
enterprising and the team carries a pop
ular appeal, the newspapers feel justified
IN supporting IT as a quasi-public insti-
tuition. In opposite instances, it does not.
Quinn seems unable to put together q
winning team. That happens to be hard
Clark Griffith, president of the Wash
1ngton club, apparently feels that baseball.
ways. So sublime is his faith in the en-
during charms Of the sport that he
writes: Baseball is the one thing that
lean boys and girls" I'm afraid Griffith
and nd girls in the county Who never even
heard OF Babe Ruth.
7 SUBMIT these quotations as X
a amples of the peculiar state of
mind of the club owner in the pres
ent crisis. To him, there is no need
to do anything but sit back and wait
until the clouds roll blythe news
papers must cooperate with the
public and the little boys and girls
of America must be sent to bed each
night uttering litanies to the divin-
ity Of the fast ball and the two-base
hit.
Nowhere in all the letters do you find
one original suggestion calculated to
stimulate a waning or retarded interest.
Charles Stoneham, of the Giants, for
instance, frowns upon s~howmanship in any
form as having no place in the game.
Baseball is not a circus" he writes.
Ironically, Stoneham's Giants experienced
one of their worst seasons in history both
on the field and at the box Office last
season-and this was the season that saw
the retirement of John j. McGraw as
manager, the greatest Snowman baseball
ever had