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Show HIS FGUL OILS 101 GO TO F!i Critic Says Pellets Knocked Into Stands Are Rare j Souvenirs. By Tribune Special Sport Sei'tce. NEW YORK, July S. Some day the 'bascbfill magnates will awaken to the fact that it would be awfully good advertising ad-vertising if they permitted, the fans to keep all the baseballs that are batted into the stands during the progress of a regular game. Tn every ball park in the country there always is a mad scramble among the folks to grab and to keep a. ball 1 that has been clouted among them. Some Puritans claim that the action of a fan in keeping a ball sizes up as petty larceny; legally, that is true. But the fan isn 't taking the ball because of its material value, but because of sen- timent. Pome days ago a ball was fouled into the Polo grounds grandstand. Tli roe fans, who iu real life are dignified dig-nified business men, made a dive for it. An usher did likewise. A f ree-for-all fight for the possession of a $l.o ball ensued. The quartette rowel so long and so vigorously over that bail that a guardian of the law came along and ' ' jugged 1 ' them. Now those three fans were man of ample means. They hail enough money, rnHei'tivelv, to buy prohahiv ;;tiO,r:uO baseballs. But thev didn't want an v old baseball. They wanted the ball that the big leaguers had played with ; one thev could keep ac a sotiveu i r something some-thing to show to tiieir friends in after years. Back in the 1 PI 2 world series r-nn-rlicts between the b'eii Sox and fJirniis. Tris Speaker lammrd n;;t a triple that t ied tiie Lame and pen t t :-e series to eir.t games. The bad was fouled into the stands bv the next batter. A fan got, it. A neighboring "bug" rushed over and made 'a bid for that ball. "I'll give vou $2-5 for it," he said. "Why are you so anxious to get this ball? " 'the other asked. ' 1 Because I want something that I can show to my friends n real souvenir of a ball game," replied the other. "Speaker always has been my favorite. I've seen him play a hundred times. I a!wavs wanted something tp bring him into ' closer memory. Thai ball you have there will do it. It's the one Tris hit and which probably has saved us from losing this game." The fan ; got. the ball. i So it is everywhere around the circuit. cir-cuit. Baseball 'fans the radicals are so anxious to get a baseball that has historv attached to it that they willingly will-ingly 'risk arrest, for petty theft. They are "willing to fight among themselves for such a ball, if necessary. A blackened black-ened optic or a busted beezer, in their opinion, is a mere incident if they only can get that pellet. The magnates know this feeling among the fans, yet. none ever has ome forward and told fadom that it may keep the balls that are batted into the stands. The moguls, to date, have been ton miserlv and too t hiek. They see onlv that, 'each ball that is grabbed by a fan means tt direct money Iofs to them. They fail to realize that a rule allowing fans to keep the balls would lie a mighty good stroke of business. Oftentimes we have counted the number num-ber of baseballs that are sent, into the stands during the progress of a game. Some day; it ran up to eieht. or ten. On other occasions the total has been two or three. At any rate, tho average aver-age is not beyond six per game. At $ 1 .25 each, that means the nmgnls would lose f per day on baseball? an item so insignificant in comparison with the other expenses of a ball club that it hardly would be noticed. lr is our opinion that the magnates would mil suffer a dend loss of $p per dav if they did permit the fans to retain re-tain the balls ba; ted into the si and s. A chance of getting a souvenir baseball wo:dd draw at least a dozen extra fans a day. Six base! in lis di ided among ."inCMl ' to oeo fans doesn "t give anyone any-one pers'on a real birr chance. But the fans, as a rule, nre willing to gamble on their individual chance of getting one of tho,-e six halls. The magnate who fi-st adopts such a rule will be a popnla r person. Tiie f:iu -inr'-n 't like mi-( r!ii:es and he dec- li'e iljer:ilii y : and n show of good fellowship. le will whorifi 'er up for 'lie firt magnate who tells him he. can keen those balls. And the magnate will become a small-sized hero. |