Salt Lake Tribune | 1915-10-03 | Page 44 | Ten-Cent Baseball will Injure Game

came the 10, 20 and 30-cent shows. The same plays that Booth and Barrett Bar-rett starred in were offered at the lower prices. But Booth and Barrett were not in the casts, at these prices of admission. It was possible to offer the plays, but not the actors, at these prices. The result was that the patrons who were appealed to by the udmission fees saw an inferior production. pro-duction. Thev got their money's worth, but they were witnessing a bush league performance. Big Salaries to Pay. And the same will be true in baseball. base-ball. At 10 cents a head the. Feds or anyone elso cannot provide stars and make it pay. When you have Ty Cobbs, Mathewsons, Johnsons, etc.,-on the pavroll it takes considerable of the proceeds to pav their salaries. And 10-cent baseball does not figure to pay these salaries and leave the promoters with anything but a deficit. And no one is going to remain permanently IB baseball to acquire an annual deficit. Consequcnt.lv, if jitney baseball is continued con-tinued the "class of tho players will soon have to be lowered, and the patrons .will get just what they pay for 10-cent baseball. In the case of the Feds, thev were losing money, anvwnv, and this plan was introduced chiefly to attract tho fans and get them to coming to their ball parks. But it has never been shown that the interest of the fans could be stimulated by cut rates m basobnll. In this connection we are reminded of the experience of Jack Dovle, who owned the Asbury Fark club in the Athletic league last year. The attendance fell off to almost nothing at Jack's park, though among the summer residents there wore undoubtedly un-doubtedly many fans. So Jack de cided to' have the crowds, at least it not the' money. He "papered the town one Saturday, giving out a thousand passes for Sunday's game. hout 200 of the passes came through the gate the next day. That proved to Jack that if tho fans did not want to see the game they would not come, even on a pass. If they want to see the game they will pay the regulai tariff? TEN-CENT BASEBALL WILL INJURE GAME Another View of the Federal Fed-eral League Plan of Reduced Re-duced Admission. Probably the chief thing to consider con-sider in connection with the introduction introduc-tion of 10-cent baseball by the Federal Fed-eral league is whether the quality of the game can be maintained at its present pres-ent standard at that price of admission. Baseball men throughout tho country are watching the experiment with a mild interest, but in spite of several arguments in its favor, no great hope is held out for its success. It is the general opinion that the plan is not founded on sound business principles, says the New York Globe. The host argument advanced in its favor is that it will fill up the vacant seats in the bleachers, a point which remains to be seen. As a novelty the plan has attracted considerable attention, atten-tion, but the experiment has not been conducted long enough to show how much of a grip it will get on the public. pub-lic. If we are to judge by the attendance attend-ance in the first few days there is no great demand for the cut rates, but even if they should draw out larger crowds eventually that will not solve the problem of keeping up the game at low rates-Idea rates-Idea Not Practical. The fact .is, jitney baseball is not adapted to high salaried organizations, and that goes for organized baseball as well as the Feds. When the prices come down it soon becomes a matter of necessity to lower the quality of the players. Experience has shown that with high prices and good attendance at-tendance baseball paid no great dividends divi-dends o'n the whole. Of course, the Feds may be willing to continue at a loss, but they will have to dig into their jeans, and when they get tired doing that the publio will get an inferior in-ferior grade of baseball for its dime. This latest movement of the Feds closelv parallels the introduction of the 10, 20 and 30-cent idea into ' tHe theater. It cost regular prices to see Booth and Barrett, or any of the other theatrical Btars. Then along