Page:Spalding's Baseball Guide (1894).djvu/13

 Rh nineties set in; and that was, in regard to its financial results; which left the majority of its clubs with a surplus in hand wherewith to begin business again in 1894. In fact, the aggregate attendance at the League games in 1893, which led to this financial prosperity, beat the record of any previous season known to League history. But in the important matter of the evenness of the annual pennant race, the outcome of the championship campaign of 1893 was far from being satisfactory; inasmuch as the question as to which club would win the race was virtually settled a month and more before the close of the season. The evenness of a pennant race is a very potent factor in promoting the financial success of each year's championship campaign; a fact which the majority of the League magnates do not appear to fully realize, or they would make greater sacrifices than they do to even up the playing strength of their respective club teams each year. In regard to this vital question of making the competing teams each season as even in playing strength as possible, it is certainly a subject meriting the earnest attention of the League government, if only as a matter of business policy. Up to the time of the organization of the existing League, not the slightest effort was made by the leading clubs under the joint government of the old League and Association, to even up their teams each year, with the views of insuring a closely contested pennant race; the rule then being for each club to be run on the principle of each one for itself and the devil take the hindmost. Of course, this short-sighted policy was in direct and costly conflict with the running of the clubs on true business principles, the working motto of which system is "All for one and one for all."

While it is, of course, almost an impossibility to make the competing club teams in each season's campaign equal in playing strength, especially in regard to the advantages of their possession of competent managers and able field captains, still it is possible to even up the ranks of each club's team to the point of a more equal condition of relative playing strength than has hitherto been done. That this evening-up policy is the true one, in a business point of view, goes without saying; inasmuch as the more closely contested the pennant race of each season is, from start to finish, the greater the attraction, and, in consequence, the larger the public patronage. In this connection it has been suggested that a sort of lottery plan of player-distribution be adopted in order to even up the teams; but any such plan of selecting players as this would fail, because of the impossibility