Show INTERNAL STRIFE There is Lots of it in the Players League BIG DIFFERENCE OF OPINION The Capitalists of the New York Brooklyn and Cleveland Clubs flare the Key The key to the situation in the baseball muddle is certainly held by the capitalists of the Xew YorkBrooklyn and Cleveland Players league clubs These capitalists also own very nearly a controlling interest in the Cincinnati club and it is claimed could succeed bringing that organization organiza-tion into line with any plan which they might agree upon Whether they really can do this remains to be seen The Players Play-ers league capitalists in Boston Philadelphia Philadel-phia Pittsburg and Chicago appear to be determined to continue the warfare of 1690 another season and if they can hold the Players league together and control it the light will go on perhaps not so directly as conflicting dates would make it but there will be no peace of a nature likely to benefit bene-fit the national game itself Xo matter how it may appear on the surface there is a wide breach between the capitalists of the Players league Four clubs are apparently unalterably opposed I to consolidation and in favor of perpetuating perpetu-ating the Players league Three clubs Lave been doing all in their power to bring about a lasting peace which may insure harmony among all factions and insure the future prosperity of the game The Buffalo club has no capitalists behind it so far as is known and it cuts a small figure fig-ure in the matter The action of the Cincinnati Cin-cinnati club owing to the uncertainty about the feelings of the different owners is equally undecided The men who desire peace are trying to force consolidation and those who are against it are trying to coerce the peacemakers to remain in the Players league and go on on with another year of strife The more both sides scheme and maneuver the further apart they get and the harder it is for them to reconcile their differences of opinion When I say that the New York people hold the key to the situation I mean simply that if they hold out and carry out their plans and the other clubs remain obstinate the baseball war will be practically practi-cally settled for although the Players league may continue in existence it is not likely to be a very formidable rival to the National league without a club in New York and with the men who have been backing the New York Brooklyn and Cleveland P L clubs in the National league that organization will have little to worry it ilessrs McAlpin Talcott Robinson and their allies are satisfied that there is no room for two clubs in New York Brooklyn 1 Brook-lyn and Cleveland and they are equally satisfied that the people demand that this senseless warfare over the control of professional pro-fessional baseball shall end and that its continuance will ruin not only all concerned con-cerned financially but the professional game itself so far as it is to be considered as a profitable investment If they favor what is known as the rule or ruin policy and to a certain extent that is what their insistance upon peace means they are in no way behind their opponents in this regard To use a sporting sport-ing expression it is horse and horse Rather than not have consolidation by which they believe the game can be saved and all parties will have an opportunity in time to get back their losses they may be willing to save themselves although by so doing they take a step which may ruin the Players league On the other hand the men opposed to them are quite as much in favor of a policy which is equally worthy of being called rule or ruin for it is a continuance of a strife which in the deliberate delib-erate opinion of seventenths of the baseball base-ball managers of the country will ruin tho game and if this opinion is the correct one it will ruin all concerned to the extent of their vested interests therein The New York men have no disposition to let others make the money they have already invested a dead loss and so far as I can judge by many conversations with them I think that when it becomes evident evi-dent that a general consolidation is positively posi-tively out of the question they will resign their club membership in the Players league and consolidate their clubs with the National league clubs This opinion applies merely to New York and Brooklyn Brook-lyn Whether Al Johnson will follow them in case matters reach such a crisis is a question of some doubt I Col McAlpin made one offer to the Players league and I think he is still ready to stand by it He told his associates that when capital engaged in a fight with capital all interested shorld bear equally the burdens of that fight and he proposed if it wasdecided to fight to the death that I j each club should put up 20000 as a fund I i j r i from which all losses should be made good I He even offered to make the amount C0 I 000 for each club This offer was not accepted I ac-cepted Col McAlpins theory is a business I busi-ness one and will commend itself to business II I busi-ness men everywhere as being the only proper way to carry on war between capitalists I I capi-talists j i I The capitalists who are opposed to any move which threatens the existence of the Players league charge that the New York i i men and those who aid them are traitors I to the cause andthat while they can have 1 j I no just objection if the Messrs McAlpin I and Talcott want to lay down they conSider I j i o con-sider that if those gentlemln wanted tot I to-t quit they should have gone about it in a different way They think the proper j thing for the New York men to have done I would have been to notify them quietly and allow them to have purchased the club and not do the business in a way that would throw down their general partners part-ners in the enterprise They say that they will not allow the New York men to get out unless they sell out to them and they propose to enforce this claim with the a bond signed by all parties when the League was organized Under this bond they claim they can oblige the New York men to remain in the Players league Against this the New York men say they I will not sell out and that the bond is useless use-less for the purpose mentioned In this view they are sustained by Judge Bacon of New York who says that there is nothing in which can prevent them from leaving the Players league should they decide to do so How the Players league can continue successfully with its backers antagonized in this way is a problem It would seem that the organization would have more chances for success by letting such unwilling un-willing partners go and forming a new circuit W L HARRIS |