The Wilmington morning star., 1944-11-30
Fair Enough

Editors note-The Star and the News
accept no responsibility for the personal
views of Mr.. Pegler, and often disagree
with them as much as many of his read
ers His articles serve the good purpose
of making people thinko
By WEsTBROOK PEGLER
downright, 1914, by King Features Syndicate.)
NEW YORK. Judge Kenesaw Mountain
lands the commissioner of baseball was the
first of those decorative autocrats who were
selected by various industries early in the era
Of wonderful nonsense, following til e first
World war; as personal guarantors of the NOR
ais and integrity Of such trades Baseball chose
him at an hour when the game. as a business,
was terribly distressed by the corruption of
the World series between the White Sox and
the Reds in 1919. For similar reasons, the
movie industry selected Will H a VS. as it's
"czar," the newspaper term for such execu-
tives, and czarism became rife in the prize
fight the mop and the broom, the garment
and the hay, grain and feed industries, with
varying results.
Oddly. in nation which had only yester-
day busted off it's clothes, stuck court-plaster
on it's cuts and turned hilariously and feloni-
ously to zynology and viticulture, after crush
ing autocracy forever, the Americans took JOY
ouslv to the rule of cars in their non-essen-
tial but sentimental interests. The mere pres
ence of Judge Lands. of the U. S. District
court, was accepted as an absolute guarantee
that henceforth, as long as he ruled sin and
baseball would be strangers.
This was an illusion. few athletes who
had been doing business with underworld gam
blers found themselves still in the tolls and
the management of one of the large major
league firms had been associated with bucket
shop. crooked race track, questionable real
estate promotion and an equally undgnified
oil stock flotation.
Moreover, although Lands detested profess
sional gamblers and revealed an intention to
prevent even the most casual personal asso-
citation between players and crap-shooters, an
other of the men who was paying part of his
salary as car had been dealer in old-time
gambling houses and was believed to have
been proprietor. Obviously, the car couldn't
fire certain of his own employers and the
other employers, whose own background was
relatively hygienic, could not divest them of
their properties, which were worth millions
and throw them out.
AS time wore on, however, these few be-
holden players aged and drifted out of the
game and mortality adjusted the judges posi-
ton as to the indecorous minority among his
own bosses. There were only three more scam
dals involving players and, as far as the press
and public know, which isn't necessarily every
thing, the ugly spectre of bribery has never
again poisoned the well-springs of basebalPs
fair escutcheon, as the phrase used to go
among the orators at the annual banquets.
Still the judge, or the square as you called
him if you knew him well, was in a strange
position Baseball has many laws, most of
which up to his time in office, favored the
soulless corporations which were paying his
salary and Disseminated against the player,
who was called chattel because he could.
literally bs sold for cash or old baseballs or,
as legend insisted in one case, traded for a
hard-tail bird-dog.
Up to his time it had been the custom of
the bosses to put their heads together and
whisper OUT any player who made a nui-
sance of himself as an "agitator" or hard
rock man, meaning tunneler who under
mined managers and team morale with COM
plants and demands.
major Lacquer, thus whispered out, went
down to the minor leagues or, in some cases,
kept right on going and found himself exiled
entirely from organized baseball while still in
his prime. This could be even though his only
offense was to ask for raise in pay and
it was their resentment against low wages
and the Whispering-out process which animated
some of the Chicago White SoX of 1919 in
their unhappy decision to throw the World
series to the Reds for brides promised by
gamblers which were not fully paid. They
we're receiving less than $4,000 a year, on the
average, although they were rated then and
still are regarded by some as the greatest
team in baseball history.
Their employer, old Charlie Comiskey,
gregaHous host and politician, was known,
through his hospitality and the subsequent pub
Lefty. as the noblest Roman. But he had no
romantic opinion of ball players, having been
ore himself, and he kept his payrols down
unreasonably to his own great cost after the
scandal, when he lost his wonderful ball-team,
and never again in his life, could put together
a winner.
Lands had to interpret baseball law, in
Guiding issues involving enormous property val
ues in which boss and player were the liti-
giants and sometimes, in the manner of cars,
finding no law or the law unreasonable, he
simply rolled his own. He was his own SUI
preme court, except that in crisis he could
appeal to public opinion. Confident of his pub
lie position, he did fight the owners many
times and made expensive decisions against
them, sometimes in favor of individual play
erS.
Strangely, although Lands, as judge, had
paroled an underpaid bank clerk who had
stolen 100000 he never would readrnit to
baseball any players who had been thrown
out for corruption. True in most cases, their
talents waned in few years but disgraced
player could not come back even as coach
or bat-caddy.
The disgraced White Sox remain notorious
to this day, like many Benedict Arnolds
although they did nothing against the public
interest and their ernplOyer had been no mora