Page:Spalding's Baseball Guide (1894).djvu/109

 place most of them begin playing ball young—before they have had any opportunity to learn commercial ways and means—very suddenly jump from a state of no income whatever into the possession of salaries equal to those which are drawn by judges or earned by bank officials. Like all men who fall into fortunes, or who suddenly find themselves in possession of a great deal of money, these ball players show that they have no idea of money's worth. It comes easy and it goes easy.

"He enters the profession without any education in business ways, and once he has tasted of the luxuries and extravagances of a base ball life he can never afterward bring himself to a tie down to the exactions of an instruction in business at a moderate salary. The lazy, idle life he leads as a professional, as well as the possession of immense salaries, wholly disarms him for the real battle of life, which so often comes after his brief meteoric fame on the ball field has flashed and died away.

"Another reason why so few ex-ball players ever make themselves felt in business circles is the lamentable fact that the vast majority are poorly educated and are wholly unfit for positions which require any reasonable amount of trained intelligence. For this reason probably eighty per cent. of all ball players who 'go into business' do it by opening a saloon or by putting money in that particular field, with a belief that their supposed great popularity will draw them a fortune-making patronage."

Since Dick Higham was expelled for crooked umpiring, not a man has been found to possess the bold effrontery to render crooked decisions. They may have acted partially in their renderings at times, but this has mainly been the result of quick temper, or of the irritating annoyances from continued "kicking." One obstacle in the way of an umpire's doing his work successfully is the habit of being on too familiar terms with players. In this respect the old saying that "familiarity breeds contempt" comes into play with considerable effect. An umpire who desires to earn a prestige of success in his position should do nothing to lessen the respect so necessary for him to have at the hands of players. This is half the battle in umpiring. Many an umpire, who has shown good judgment and thorough impartiality in rendering his decisions, has offset the advantages these requisites of good umpiring gave him by ways in his dealings with players which have either lowered him in their respect or destroyed his prestige as a competent judge.

It is well known that each season's experience in League club management involves a certain amount of experiment in the organization of the several club teams; especially is this the case in the formation of a club's batteries; and the League season of 1893 was no exception to the rule. Indeed, rather more of the experimental work, in the make up of the several clubs pitching departments, was done in 1893 than for some years past. This experimental business in selecting pitchers was especially over-done by the Baltimore, Cincinnati, Washington and St. Louis clubs, and one result was their occupation of second division places.

A few clubs, each season, go to the other extreme and adopt a false economy in the make up of their batteries, only a minority each year striking the happy medium.

No club needs over four pitchers and three catchers at the utmost. In fact, three pitchers and two catchers ought to suffice.

The board of directors of the National League, in interpreting the League contract with its clubs' players, has these important words to say, which all the club players would do well to read attentively:

"Experience has amply demonstrated the necessity for some plan of discipline that will reach the pocket as well as the pride of the player who deliberately and systematically falls short of the honorable discharge of his obligations toward the club and the patrons of base ball. The compensation paid to players in League clubs is so liberal as to entitle the clubs to the highest degree of skill and the best service a player can render, and it is the intention of the League to exact precisely this and nothing less.