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Show 1 CHANGE FOR J, fill USUlf 111 MSI Semipro. Ball Games Seem to Be About the Only Hope oft Fans for Coming Year. By I. E. SANBORN. Predominant in the discussion of base nail's future, wherever it is headlined, Is the question of resuming major league operation and when it can occur. gev. oral club owners in each of the big leagues have expressed the opinion that the professional sport can be revive" i year- with government approval, on thSjhf theory that it will be a necessary caver- sion to keep up the morale of the- stay-at-homes. The natural question is "What with?" Seems to me these optimists overlook an important item. It most certainly would cheapen the sport beyond repair to attempt to foist major league baseball base-ball on the public with players under the IS-year draft limit, and a farce to try to use players over the 45-year mark. Where would these club owners get their players? Essential Work Takes Them. Men exempt from military service between be-tween 18 and 45 are expected to engage in essential pursuits under the work or tight edict, and the minimum is thirty-six thirty-six houis' work a week. Consequents, it would be impossible for players within the draft ages to make any extended trip witli a baseball team. Naturally, it' this war should end bo-fore bo-fore Christmas, as some superoptlmisls seem to think it will, there would be the possibility of reviving the professional sport under curtailed conditions next 1 year, but that chance is considered by i most folks too remote to be taken seriously. seri-ously. Even if an armistice were effected this fall actual peace would be a long way off, and in the meantime war conditions would, of necessity, obtain in this country. coun-try. Maintenance of a Yankee army In France would be necessary indefinitely, and normal conditions in sport cannot return re-turn until the more than 2,000,000 Yankees already over there return. The most rosy outlook for baseball seems to be in adapting the sport to some Saturday and Sunday basis, with players who are engaged in essential pursuits the rest of the week. This would, be along semiprofessional lines and restricted re-stricted geographically. Nothing longer than overnight railroad jumps would be possible, of course. Semipro. League Probable. The scheme of the National Baseball federation to form a. semiprofessional league for Saturday and Sunday ganM during the coming year is about as arou-. tious a project as can be undertakeAHuJ cording to the present outlook, anrfpB'T has not met :my hearty response froSsV promoters in the cities which were ten- l-tatively l-tatively included in the proposed circuit, fo Most of the big league park owners seem r to object to cheapening their plants by K subletting them for semi profession ; baseball. That, of course, is a. matter J pride, as practically all o' them kxs sublet or donated the use of their .JlUnta when idle in past years for all kinds of things, from semiprofessional football down to neighborhood picnics. without the use of the' big league plants 1t would be impossible for the Cleveland semiprofessional . scheme to succeed. The cost of transportation for a league that would include Chicago and Pittsburg, for instance, would be considerable. consid-erable. Figuring the round-trip fare and sleepers from Chicago -to Cleveland only, the expense for the transportation of fifteen fif-teen players would be over $400. Then there would be the hotel and incidental expenses, besides paying the players something for their services. There certainly cer-tainly would not be much profit, when the vagaries of the weather are considered, consid-ered, and there would be losses to be financed by somebody. Must Have Substantial Backers. The plan to devote all the proceeds to providing athletic equipment, through government channels, for soldiers ana sailors is an excellent one, and woura prove popular with the public, but there must be some backing willing to put up for possible deficits in order to insure carrying out the scheme, and there must be an organization strong enough to provide pro-vide and enforce rules that will prevent all chance of the fiascoes which haAe been so common In semiprofessional baseball base-ball In the past. , , . The public will patronize semiprofessional semiprofes-sional baseball if it cannot get anytnin. better, but whether or not it will suppo" it on the National Baseball federations basis depends on how well the national federation works out Its Idea. |