The Washington times., 1935-08-06

threw your
Judge X. NJ. Lands hats into the
air and gave three cheers for
Judge Kenesaw Mountain
Lands when he so benevo-
lently waved aside all sub
ordinate officers of baseball
and admitted Alabammy
Pitts, the Albany outfielder
who formerly played at Sing
Sing, to the sacred ranks OF
organized baseball.
I find that instead Of being
the great, tolerant, torgiving.
understanding and all-seeing
jurist that he was supposed to
be in making that grand ges-
ture, he was an eagle-eyed old
meanie who did it only because
he was afraid of legal compll-
cations were he to bar Pitts
from the cloth of the baseball
trade.
Not Just Once
7 find further, on nosing about
this capital of the baseball
world-the American League Of
fices and those of Judge Lands
are located just off the Loop
that as a matter of truth, and
Warden Lawes to the contrary
Alabammy Pitts is something
more than a firsttime offender
and that they don't want him IN
baseball any more than you
want the landlord to dlSposseSS
you.
I regret that I must make a
record Of the above fact, but
it'll come out sooner or later
and after all I've got duty to
a newspaper which owes one TO
its readers, and SO
The reason Judge Lands
crossed up Judge Willie
Bramham, of the minor leagues,
who originally turned thumbs
down on Alabammy after ne
(Bramham) had Lands assur-
ance that he would be upheld
were the case to get as far as
Chicago, is because the learned
Lands could find no law or rule
in baseball or other statutes that
would bar a former convict from
baseball, and did not wish the
game to be sued by some aggreS-
sive lawyer into whose hands
Pitts case might come-de'
manding the lads right to try
for baseball or otherwise imply
ing that baseball is unfair in its
attitude toward the open door,
free competition, labor, or what
have you.
/ They Fear the Courts
One of the chief excuses for
Judge Lands existence. my
friends. is to keep baseball out
of the courts. He was dragged
into the game by that long,
snowy-w hite ShakeSper1an
name of his, after the Chicago
Cincinnati scandal of 1920, to
steer the sport clear OF legal
shoals.
OF course, every 12-year-old
Schoolboy knows that the stand
ard baseball contract to which
every player is anchored to the
game is as cock-eyed as it can
be, if you were to consider the
Sherman antitrust law, those
dealing with restraint of trade,
unfair competition and other
phases of constitutional hocus-
pocus that make the founda-
tons on which business exists.
So, not because he is a great
liberal-minded man who under
stands the frailties of youth,
but because to hold his job he's
got to keep the law off base
ball, Lands o. KID Pitts lest
all hands be dragged into court
and asked how come a fairish
ball player can't get an answer
when he knocks at basebalrs
door-even though his foot
slipped socially once or twice
or three times.
I was one of those who lifted
a toast to Judge Lands when
he gave Pitts permission to play
with "Paloodilin' Joe Cambria's
Abysmal Albanys. was not
alone. Dozens of my contem-
poraries, yea, colleagues. Saluted
him in print, for the first time
In 10 years.
Writers who had long since
been disguised with Lands and
who purposely avoided the man,
suddenly started eulogizing his
eminent qualities and admitted
that, after all. there must be
come good in him.
I was one of 'em.
was wrong.
I admit it.
A~AIAaj0a - VyASy III