Judge — October 23, 1920 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

= oar Stasrcner, Seeretary are S. Meteanre, Revses P. Suescnen, Pr. Peerrrrox Maxwett, Fd ident Groner Grant E. Hamitros, Ar Associate Editor Routacer, Treasurer J. A. Wanoroy, HE baseball season is over. The World Series has been won and lost. Going to press in advance the games, JupGr doesn't know as much as his own readers—that is, who won the championship. No matter who won the World's Series. the whole institution of professional baseball has met a serious if not fatal defeat in the estimation of the public. When one comes to think of it, professional baseball as it has been conducted for a number of years has been a rather unnatural institution. The money end of the game has been its most important feature from the point of view of promoters and players. The elaborate scheme of purchase and sile of players practised among the corporations and individuals owning the clubs was a highly artificial arrangement calculated to protect the money interests. It was not really an inspira- tion for local pride and local loyalty to the teams. It is remark- able how strong those feelings were considering that they backed up nines of hired men drawn from every part of the country except the cities under whose flags they battled. It is a characteristic of the “fan” that he would rather see a little better playing by mercenaries than true contests inspired by genuine local rivalry: Keeping the game clean was essential to its profits. Most of the promoters and players were sufficiently alert to this fact to keep away from the temporary rewards of crookedness. T was inevitable, though, that with money playing so big a part in the whole scheme of things, there should be indi- viduals who would put personal gain above the welfare of the With sufficient inducement it was very easy to cheat, and it was difficult to discover the cheater. The natural human tendency to gamble having been curbed by law in almost every other direction, it was not strange that gambling should turn its attention to so convenient and generally interesting sport as baseball Not much resistance to temptation was to be expected from some of the men who have been educated to regard themselves as to a large extent chattels to be bought and sold according to the money advantage of their employers. Nor is it strange that when temptation came some of them broke under the sport strain. It is in fact more remarkable that professional baseball, considering the way it is conducted, has been so long able to hold the contidence of the public and that so many of the players have been able to maintain their integrity T remains to be seen whether baseball, in its present form, can hold its own against the recent scandal. It has become in a waya great industryand every effort will be made by those whose interests are with the present control to convince the public in other words the goose that has laid the golden eggs—that the crookedness is limited in extent and that the present system is good one. It is doubtful that the effort will be successful, and we may sce the great interest in baseball confined to those with whom it has become a fixed habit, and even with that dwindling to a non-supporting basis. Baseball is too fine a game and its tion is too great to let it sink into an insignificant place in pop ular estimation. Its control should be in the hands of the best sportsmen and citizens in every community. It would make for the betterment of the spirit of the game if membership in the representative nines were confined actual natives of the cities and towns whose names they carried. We might not get such highly scientific baseball, but we would develop a spirit of rivalry and emulation which would rest on something other than the money motive. Local try-outs during the early season, with inter-city games for the championship later on, would give the “fans” plenty of legitimate baseball interest freed from the suspicion which always goes with professional athletics. L result of presidential elections, but at even this long. distance writing from the election, which will be decided shortly after this reaches the of the reader, it seems abso: lutely impossible for anything to occur to change the verdict which the American people will register against giving up its national right to determine its own actions. he people have apparently made up their minds that the League of Nations is a bod direction and are willing to post hieved by $a national institu ST-MINUTE explosions have been known to affect: the very bad move in a very pone action until the desired end can be a better method. It seems a pity that all the energy and effort of a presidential ion had to be devoted to this one question, but Mr. Wilson lung to his forlorn hope, in some elec with the obstinacy of a weak man, volving as it does the utter defeat of his party. Candidates and other more important issues had to be subordinated to the de cision of a question which had already been decided in the minds of straight-thinking Americans. It only remains now to record the vote of those who are more loyal to America and the American Constitution than to Mr. Wilson and his League of Nati “ comicbooks.com Editor