Salt Lake Tribune | 1915-09-05 | Page 29 | Boston Magnates Astound Associates

BOSTOIIGIIES AST01D ASSOCIATES Show Good Sportsmanship by Treating Fed Leaders as Guests. NKW VOKK, Kt. 4. Boston ia hin((iil,'irl v l,lss(;i l,fl-ausfi it. him at the head of it rival hall rlubit two of the mopt gAnbiot ami cloanest sportsmen in the game .Jim Gaffney, owner of tin; BrAVW ari'l .loe Lannin, owner of the !! Hox. iiotb men tQCWtij have brought gaf.pii of astonishment to the lips of their auociateg la organised baseball through their courtesy toward the Federal Fed-eral league leaders. But at the eame time, those very acts have caused the rank and file of fanoom to vote them the enviable honor of being the rarest and best ton M of manhood that represent rep-resent Laseball today. Lannin started it." Last fall he had as his guests at one of the Boston games a number of the Federal league leaders. And Liaffncy recently finished it by duplicating Lannin rs action. Just recently President Gilmore and some of tho other Fed leaders went to B'ton to inspect the new park of the Braves. Gaffney did not call out the militia and try to keep them out of his park. Treats Them as Guests. What Gaffney really did when he beard the Feds were coming was to send tbem this message: "When you come to Boston, come as my guests. ' The message astonished the Feds, but they accepted the invitation. Gaffney Gaff-ney placed the best box in the park at their disposal. He showed those Feds every courtesy, and even went out of his way to do it. And when Gaffney was told that some of his National league associates didn't like his action. Gaffney almost duplicated the remark that Lannin made some months before, when he said : "I see no reason why I shouldn't treat my baseball rivals as I do rivals in my private business of contracting. Just because the Federals are business enemies of my league is no reason whv I should treat them as pirates or brigands and I won 't treat them that way. Because the Feds are business enemies of mine I shall fight them, but I '11 fight fair and according to business standards of fighting. Personalities Per-sonalities do not figure.' And Gaffney and Lannin, if you '11 remember, have been hit as hard bv the Feds as anv magnates in organized baseball. The 'Feds took Pitcher Jack Quinn, Outfielder Leslie Mann and In-fielder In-fielder Charlie Deal from the Braves, and they forced" Gaffney to bid up high to keep his other stars. Joe Lannin was forced to pay Tris Speaker 16,500 annuallv for two years simplv because the Feds wanted Tris and offered him a huge bank roll. If it hadn 't been for the Feds Tris probably would have signed for $8000 or $9000. Clyde Engle and Hugh Bedient were Red Sox players until the Feds grabbed them. Prove True Sportsmen. All in all, through increased salaries they have been forced to. pay, of through the loss of players that would have brought a good sum of money on the auction block, Gaffney and Lannin each have lost around $50,000 because of the Feds. And yet these men can forget this, can forget any ill that some of the Fed actions might have created and stand the test of genuine sportsmanship. "Live and let live," is the Gaffney-' Lannin motto and they have followed its dictates. From out of the babble of those who 'denounce the Federal league the voices of Gaffney and Lannin never have arisen. They never have befouled the air or besmirched a sporting page with a bitter, vitriolic criticism of the. Feds. They never have howled "joke" nor. " they can 't last. Lannin and Gaffney have conducted themselves as clean-rut. honorable, dignified dig-nified and courteous business men. and fandom doffs its hat and bows low and sweepingly, because it knows that those two Irishmen have honored the game they represent. Oh. for a few more Gaffney and Lannin? or for an effectual muffler on those who aren 't.