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Show SAINTS AND SEALS BATTLE FOR THIRD HONORS THIS WEEK Series Will Decide Which Clu Tails First Division; Di-vision; Los Angeles Has Pennant Cinched and Tigers Are Runners up; Drastic Legisla-tion Legisla-tion Proposed to Render Lopsided Race Impossible in Future. THE twenty-ninth week of the 1916 schedule of the Pacific Coast league will open today. San Francisco will play Salt Lake at Majestic park. Since there are no postponed games with the San Francisco, club on the home grounds, me set will, be at six games only. The series Is an important one for both San Francisco and Salt Lake. The prize for which the two clubs will do battle Is a first-division birth; in other words, third place. Salt Lake la only ten points I behind San Francisco, a matter of two games. Portland is two points ahead of Salt Lake. Portland plays Los Angeles this week and the dope is that the Angeis will take McCredle's boys down, as they have taken every other club down in the last three or four weeks. In the event that the Angels do trim the Beavers, it will be Salt Lake and San Francisco for it. The pennant is practically cinched for Los Angeles and Vernon has a commanding com-manding lead on second place. None of the other clubs can hope to overcome the ' Tigers. From the first it was as much of a certainty as anything in baseball can be a certainty that either Los Angeles or Vernon would win the pennant and one or the other of them would be the contender. con-tender. The other four clubs In the league Salt Lake, Portland,. San Francisco Fran-cisco and Oakland observed as nearly as possible the rule limiting the salary "roll. The multi-mil lion -dollar Los Angeles club and the million-dollar Vernon club did not even begin to observe that rule. Long before the season opened these two clubs hd payrolls directly or indirectly running far beyond the $J50n limit. It was early to bp sepn that the Coast league race of 1916 would be divided into two sections, one section a fight between Los Angeles and Vernon for the pennant and the other a fight among the-four remain-ins remain-ins clubs for third place. And so it worked out. - The first-section fight (s over Los An-Jit An-Jit geles has the pennant cinched and Ver- rS. non has second place cinched. The real tr fight, therefore, lies among Portland. Spit Lake and San Francisco for third place. - Drastic Legislation. It is rumored that when the Coast league directors meet in Salt Lake early m the winter. Salt Lake and Portland, and possibly Oakland, will propose some drastic legislation, the aim of which will be to avert another situation such as has arisen this year. Everyone except Los Angeles and Vernon agree that the lop-v lop-v sided conditions have been bad for the league and for baseball. Bill Bern hard, the Saints new man-auer, man-auer, ended his first week as chief of the band with a flourish of trumpets. Bill didn't blow ihem himself, of course, but a lot of loyal fans did. Bill is not given to blowing trumpets. Under tho guidance guid-ance of Bernbard the Saints won six of ,' the seven games played with Portland. It surely was a good beginning for the new pilot. Four of the games were exciting contests con-tests and three of them were full of thrills. The two games of the closing double-header produced some great baseball. base-ball. The game of Saturday, when for the first timo in its history the club followed fol-lowed out a policy of inside baseball, was the best exhibition of strategy that has ever been seen in Salt Like. The one-sidertness one-sidertness of the score detracted somewhat some-what from the merits of the game, but ; those baseball fans who live in hopes of seeing heady baseball got their money's worth Saturday. The kind of ball shown on that day was certainly a treat and n relief from the swatting, slugging, clouting clout-ing game that has been the custom of the local club in the past. Bunny's Record Grows. Bunny Brief knocked a homer on Sunday, Sun-day, which puis him up to twenty-six home runs for the season, four behind Ping Bodie's league record. Morris Rath cUmhed four points in his hitting and is now batting .rtri. Tommy Quintan and Ruddy Ryan are among the league's six best hitters, each having risen during the week. Bernbard took a look at most of the Salt Lake pitchers during the week. Of the lot. Howard Gregory pitched the best frame, only a misjudged fly ball standing between Gregory and a shutout. Billy Oit. who has been out of the game for a week on account of injuries, returned to his post Sunday. This week's series bids fair to be a kw. miK'h stiffer set than last week's. TVol-i,-, erton's pitchers are in good trim and 4 '' his club Is hitting the ball. The Seals won four games from Vernon last week, which is proof that the San Franciscans are going good. Inasmuch as the Seals urn battling to hold third place and the Saints are battling to oust them, the series, no doubt, will be. bitterly contested. If Salt Lake continues lo play the kind of baseball they showed tast week they should get better than an even break with the Seals. Fans Again Interested. Sunday's attendance indicated n revival of Interest in the national pastime in Salt Lake. U was t he general, opinion that the timo had passed when acrowd could be routed out for a hall game in Salt Ijike tliis season, but Snmdny's gale disproved dis-proved the opinion. Salt I.ake fans were so nauseated after the Los Angeles and Vernon series in Salt Lake and the poor f') wing of the club at Los Angeles that ' I e seemed little hope of rehabilitating tU game this fall. The remarkable ehi- :n of Saturday brought a crowd out oi Sunday, and Sunday's two exciting games seem to insure o reasonably good ticket sale for the Seal series. Next week the Coast league season closes its seven months' schedule. Oakland Oak-land will finish In Salt Lake. Vernon at ios Angeles and Portland at San, Francisco. Fran-cisco. This week Portland plows jit Los Angeles and Vernon against Oaklmid at san Francisco. Some of the leaders in the different deportments de-portments of offense, culled from the complete com-plete records for the Iwentv-elght week1- of the present schedule, follow:' , HOME-RUN HITTERS. Brief, Salt Lake Bodie. San Francisco "' S-hallor, San Fnnn-is. o South won h. Portland ' o Kvan. Sail Lake ". ' j; i.;.r.:ovuy. Los Angeles I . . . . . . . .1 $ THREE- BASE HITTERS. KOerner. Los AntW 1 i M'oher. T...s Angeles j " y- I Bates. Vernon j", i |