| Show m DREAD DISEASE > Ail Epidemic of Swelled Heads in the Baseball World MAGNATES AND PLAYERS SUFFER The Evils of This Disease Are Due the Clash > Between athe Managers and the Brotherhood The sophistical arguments on the baseball situation adduced by some writers on thee the-e havo done considerable to cause the complex nature of the baseball fabric of today to-day and the fallacious reasoning as to cause and effect incompetency in the matter of financial reckoning and bombastical and adulatory accounts of work done by players as well as almost sycophantic congratulations on managerial actions have caused what is known as swelled heads to prevail in the ranks of the bat wielders and among the managers And be it understood that this term is of the vernacular and not meant to be construed as applied offensively Ill feeling feel-ing has been engendered and the players and managers have been led to believe that to caCwas duo the success of the national gaflieSwelled Swelled head bo it known is a disease peculiar to baseballists and their immediate followers It is harmless in its incipiency and is only dangerous in the last stage It is then apparent by the unnatural actions of the patient who assumes unwonted airs and I natty attire His manner becomes cold and his taciturnity is apparent as he struts along the street with a truly patrician air At this time there is also evident a certain hesitancy hesi-tancy of speech He is oracular in utterance and indulges in a superfluous use of the personal per-sonal pronoun These are the more common symptoms It has beset said that the chaotic state of affairs basebalhstic was due to this disease and that the disease itself is due to newspaper puffing and adulation by partisan writers But this must not be taken to mean that the I pencil pushers have been guilty of any wrongful wrong-ful acts On the contrary they have done so only because the public demanded it of them I have also aided in spreading this dread disease by the same methods for the same reason and am by no means sure that at times I have not experienced a mild attack of the complaint But we have the effect and must be shown tho cause Today we have players arrayed against managers We have the American association badly storm beaten if not totally wrecked we have large investments invest-ments imperiled and all on account of this enhsment of the cranium It Ceeds no deep thinker or philosopher to sep the truth of all this The Players brother hcc iwas formed because some players had swMed heads The League denied the right of arbitration to the Brotherhood because be-cause some magnates had swelled heads and the split in the American association was caused by the clashing of the interests of two men whose heads were swelled and who really fought to the bitter end in order to show the world which had the most gigantic head Think you that the Brotherhood would be formed butfor the fulsome flattery showered by the press on John SL Ward Think you that the League would have denied the players play-ers the rights they asked but for the widespread wide-spread advertising and puffing of the magnates mag-nates Would Chris Von der Ahe and Charlie Byrne have fought to the finish and jeopardized jeopar-dized their invested properties but for the fact that their respective admirers in the newspaper newspa-per line praised them beyond measure and gave each cause to believe that the life of the Association depended on his being at the helm Oh nol Ward Spalding Von der Ahe and Byrne all deserve credit for work done but they have been accorded much more than full measure They sought publicity and sought to please those who gave it to them News and notoriety were twm brothers Notoriety begot big head and big head produced warfare which still being waged But swelled head or big head has an other phase In this last it is known as long head and strange to say Ward Von der Ahe Spalding and Byrne are nIl afflicted II with it Its most marked symptoms are an adn ptefc ity to circumstances on the part of the afflicted and a facility to concoct schemes thlnlCare not only feasible fcutjprobably profitable prof-itable Wards swelled head begot long head and it originated the players league with a large monetary capital and vested rights Von der Ahes long head brought him from an obscure liquor dealer in St Louis to become one of its real estate barons a baseball magnate mag-nate a political power and large capitalist Byrnes long head made him a leader in baseball councils led him to forsake the American association and jump into the National Na-tional league while Spaldings lengthy cranium cra-nium contains so much good sense that he has risen from a position as a baseball pitcher to that of a leading merchant with a bank accsunt of half a million of dollars or more Similarly afflicted are John B Day A H Soden Henry Vonderhorst and many other baseball men But the good that big head has done does not offset the bad The latter phase of the disease is accountable for all the harm that baseball has suffered The swelled head of Henry Lucas in 1SS3 caused the collapse of j the Cleveland club the expulsion of several players by the League and severe injury to the game The big head of Devlin and Craver in 1870 brought disgrace on the Louisville Lou-isville club and shame on four men previously pre-viously believed to be honest and swelled head today threatens to bring about a series of catastrophies that will disrupt the existing exist-ing governing bodies and assist in degrading the national game Hence it behooves those whoo long heads to put them together I and deTtea ways and means of avoiding the I shoals and reefs that threaten them This I can easily be done if mediation be indulged I in and a coalition of interests be decided I upon But it must be done without any partisan I par-tisan head swelling The Brotherhood and I League must refuse to harken to the words I of the shouter whoso partisanship is proclaimed j pro-claimed as loudly as the cries of the whang I doodle seeking her young Ward Spalding I I et al must make their long heads work I I against the machinations of the swelled D heads and bring about the amalgamation I which Trill be at once pleasurable and profitable profit-able W L HAEBIS |
