The Waterbury Democrat., 1940-04-22
TODAY'S
SPORT
PARADE
BY HENRY McLEMORE
UNITED Press Staff Correspondent


New York, April 22-(UP)-Major
league baseball owners apparently
don't have enough sense even to
came in out of the rain.
They are proving this now and
proving 1t vigorously.
The baseball season, their base
ball season because it was arranged
by them, opened on April 16. From
the shelter of the ivory tower in
which they dwell they fixed a sched-
ule that called for the playing of
48 games between April 16 and April
q, which was yesterday.
My staff mathematician, whose
initials are H. Mel, just informed
me that % of these scheduled games
have been postponed because of
rain or cold or sleet or hail or snow
or just plain laosy weather.
This is nothing new. The weather
always is bad this time of the year
in the east and midwest where
major league baseball games are
palyed. You can thumb old al
manacs until both your thumbs and
the almanacs ask you to lay off
without finding nice weather this
time of year for the past 10 seasons.
DeluSiOn
Everyone knows this except the
baseball owners. Either they can't
read or they are suffering under the
delusion that mother nature is a
red-hot baseball fan and is keenly
interested in taking a box seat along
the third base line. It's pretty OBJ
vious now that mother nature doesn't
care one whit about baseball and
is not going to readjust the weather
solely for the convenience of a
handful of athletic promoters.
1t has long been suggested, not
only from this pillar of truth, honor
and fairness, but from countless
other sources just as no-account,
that baseball owners stop being
greedy and cut their season from
1874 games to, say, 140 games. This
would enable the teams to start the
season 10 days or two weeks later
than at present, when the elements
normally provide sunshine, clear
skis and the other bits of natural
trivia that are supposed to go along
with baseball.
have talked to baseball men
about this and they have a stock
answer. 1t is this: We can't pos
sibly make any money if we play
fewer than 154 games. Our invest
ment requires that we start early
and close late.
This doesn't make sense and say
1t without access to their books. The
clubs spend thousands of dollars in
training camps to build up an in
terest in the fans who have been
without baseball all winter.
Some of the holder owners, who
refuse to worry about their players
dying of exposure, go ahead and
play in weather that no thoughtful
Siamese would bring his twin out
to sit in.
Too Cold
The New York Giants, for eX-
ample, opened their home stay in
New York city before a crowd of
$4,000 people. With a little pub
LEFTY you can get that many to
watch a man demonstrate fountain
pens in drugstore window. The
Yankees, champions of the world
and the biggest drawing card in
Baseball, played to a handful OF
IS 900 in weather that I promise you
having been there-would have
caused Admiral Byrd to slip on his
galoshes.
My argument. and it is based only
partly on the fact that don't like
to acquire pneumonia merely re-
porting things, is that baseball
would make more money with fewer
games. If the owners don't son re-
alize this, the fans are going to de-
mand a vapor tent with every score
card.