The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1943-01-19
NO HOPE FOR BASEBALL HOLDOUTS;
PLAYERS May DO TRAINING AT Home
BY DILLON cRHAM Ap Features Sports Editor

BY DILLON GHHAM.
NEW YORK, Jan. LIT looks
as though we're not going to have
to fret over the baseball holdouts
this winter.
In other years along about this
time, after salary contracts had
been sent out, you could general
ly count on finding at least one
story on your sports page about a
baseball player who'd be- burned
If he'd play for the chicken-feed
offered him.
Yes sir. Joe Bloke would quit
baseball first. He was doing
pretty well tending the counter
in his paw-in-law's hardware
store back home and he'd just
keep right on ADDING that UNI
less the cold-hearted club own
er paid him what he was worth.
That is. what he said he was
worth.
Such statement from the same
players would bring counter re-
marks from the club owners. And
then, sometimes for weeks on end,
they'd be swapping mild insults
in the public prints. But history
has shown that the players gen.
orally had their tongues in their
cheeks and their fingers crossed
when they popped off. You'd have
to shoot most of them to keep them
off the field come opening day.
There was the Joe DiMaggio-Ed
Barrow sports page duel OF a
couple of years ago. Joe may not
have won his argument but he did
get his salary boosted to around
$4,000. And then when the sea-
son opened, and for sometime
thereafter, the fans showed they
were a trifle fed up with it all by
giving him the boo.
It's pretty hard to work up
good cry over an underpaid gent
drawing as much as the presi-
dent of the u. S. A. for playing
ball three hours a dav.
We aren't taking sides. We're
just remarking that the holdout is
likely to be as extinct this WIN
ter as the dodo bird, whatever
that was.
Players who are asked to sign
without a raise, or even to take
salary cut, probably will accept
quickly. They know the public
isn't going to have much sympathy
for a player who finds fault with
the salary he is offered to play
baseball.
- While baseball clubs are going
to establish their spring camps
in the north this year. some
players may be permitted to do
their training alone in their own
backwards. Fellows who live IN
the warmer sectors probably
will be asked to spend part of
the training season conditioning
themselves under sunny skies.
Some holdouts of past years did
their training at home until salary
arrangements were adjusted and
when they reported at camp it was
evident they were just as far along
toward top shape as the others.
Quite few players have purpose
ly held out in past years so that
they wouldn't have to go to train
ing camp. They preferred to rate
themselves along without the di-
rection of manager. Lefty Grove
was one or a number of players
who, at the spring camps, were al
lowed to condition themselves as
: they sawafit.
The ban on pleasure driving
probably will hurt baseball less
than any other sport That's be-
cause, most of the major league
parks, We're built years ago, before
the horseless carriage, and were
situated so the fans could easily
reach them. Since then trolley
lines and subways have been built
to carry the crowd right into the
ball park.