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Show COAST MOGULS TO ; GATHER. IN FORCE FOR BIG MEETING Important Questions Will Be Considered by League Directors at Annual Session, Which Begins This Evening; Salary and Player Limits of Interest to Fans; Status of Ed Maier; Bar Against Exhibition Exhi-bition Games. TTTE neict two days will be Ailed with excitement for basoballers of Pacific Pa-cific Coast league faith. Tonight, at the Hotel Utah, the first session ses-sion of the annual meeting of the Coast league directors will be held. It Is expected that at least two sessions will be held tomorrow, and there is a possibility possi-bility that nn evening- session on Thurs- day will also be necessary in order to complete thd business in hand. Some vital questions will be discussed at the meeting. Naturally, the most .vital questions are the questions which 1 the magnates keep carefully concoaled un-drtr un-drtr their knobs. The rest of the vital questions the ordinary and annual vital or.eg have been aired from time to time ' and fans are mv or less familiar, with them. The most Important so far as fandom is concerned Is the proposition to Increase In-crease the salary limit and the player limit. If both are increased, fans are certain to get baseball precisely so much better as the ratio of Increase warrants. Increase the Limit. The present salary limit is $4500 a month. The kind of baseball Coast league fans are accustomed to at least, the kind which they are entitled to cannot be produced for $4500 a month. Last year only a couple of the eluos in the league or.-erved the salary limit, and no penalty wan Imposed on those which diiln't, possibly pos-sibly because there wasn't any regular way to prove it, or because It was too : much trouble to prove it. or because the ; other club owners didn't want to prove it. ! An additional $1000 tacked onto the present limit would give the club man- ' agers a chance to keep a couple of play- j ers handy In case of injury. Since in-j in-j Juries are common in a long1 season of thirty weeks, additional players are nec-essary. nec-essary. Six thousand dollars would be even better. - The present lS-man limit should be ex-' ex-' tended to twenty, the same reasons which ' apply to the salary limit increase being '; applicable to the player limit increase. It is said that "Walter McCredie of the : Portland club is in favor of a reduction of the salary limit from $4500 to $3500. It is not likely that Mr. McCredie's idea will carry much weight. Besides. Waller Is not the league director from the Portland Port-land club, Judge W. "W. McCredie holding that office. The matter of continuing Portland in the league or dropping the City of Roses Is also due for consideration, according to advance gossip. It is Hue that .the rainy weather in the eaiiv part of the season and again in the latter part cf It is against profitable baseball in Pordand, and It is also true that the Portland fans do not pack the pnrk to the bursting point even when it doesn't rain. Nevertheless, Never-theless, Portland is needed in the league, and Judge McCredie is especially needed. Xo satisfactory substitute for Portland can be suggested. Some have talked about Sacramento and others about Fresno. Coast league clubs In either place would have to have financial support from the league, which Portland has not vet required. re-quired. It Is not at all likely that Portland Port-land will be drooped, and it is extrc-melv doubtful if the matter is brought up at a'i. Portland Question Again. The question of opening the Coast league pn.rks to major league clubs for slicing exhibition frames ie another subject sub-ject slated for the annual meeting. At present there is a rule against exhibition sames in Coast league parks. The proposition propo-sition to open the parka next spring originated at Los Angeles and was prompted by the announcement that the Chicago Cubs would train at Pasadena. It looks as though the parks will be kept closed. There are reasons why exhibition games should be barred. From the magnates' point of view, tr-e theory is that exhibition games detract from the interest that centers- In the opening games jf the season. From the manager's standpoint and this is the really important Item exhibition games are an evil institution because of the liability to Injury of players not vet seasoned and only partially in condition for real baseball playing. Naturally a Coast leaguer pitted against a major leaguer will do his level best to beat that major leaguer, often with the result that he springs a cholly hoss from which he does not recover for months; or else he spikes himself or Is spiked by somebodv else; or he throws his arm out, or meets up with injury in a number of wavs known only to ball players in the tender1 and mellow days of spring training. It is probable that the parks will be kept ; closed. j Much hag been said about a "come-! "come-! back" by Ed. R. Maier, owner of the Vernon Ver-non club. Mr. Maier was ejected from the Coast league directorate during the last season because, it was asserted, he was indifferent to the league interests, but more likely on account of an accumulation accu-mulation of grievances which the other magnates had against Maier. Unless the feeling regarding Maier has undergone a decided change within the last few weeks, he will remain outside the pale. Tom Darmody is the league director for the Vernon club and he also holds an option for the purchase of the Tigers. E wine's Busher Idea. C:-t Ewing of Oakland will spring a proposition that each club carry four bushers during the season, the aforesaid bushers being limited to those who have never labored in leagues above class B rating. It does not seem possihle that this suggestion will be taken seriously. It is hard enough to get baseball out of real j ball players, and certainly it would be practically impossible to get It at all if four of a club's regulars were specifically limited to inexperienced youngsters. These are a few of the more prominent ! Items which are to be discussed by the magnates. There will, of course, be others. As soon as the convention is over President Presi-dent Eaum and Cal lowing will hasten etist to attend the meetings of the Na- i tional and American leagues. Ewing is on the committee of minor leaguers to pre- ! sent to the major leaguers a plan for the ; establishment of a board of appeals, a i body which would handle disputes and ot her business between minors and majors. ma-jors. It would be distinct from the national na-tional commission and from the National association, the organizations which now handle, respectively, major league and minor league affairs. Baum is on the committee to present the plan for the elimination of the draft from class A A leagues. The two also will have other business with the majors. Thursdav evening the magnates and their wives will be guests f the Salt Lake club at a box party at the Orpheum, reservations for which were made yesterday yes-terday by W. J. O'Connor, business manager man-ager of th local club. There wilt be dinners din-ners and other social entertainment features fea-tures in connection with the league meeting. The following are expected to attend: I.rs Angelas, John F. Powers; San Fran-r?o. Fran-r?o. Henry YV. Berry; Oakland. J. Cal Kwing and J. P. Cook; Portland. Judge YV. YV. McCredie: Vernon. T. J. Parmodv; PMt Lake, F. S. Murphy. It is likely that Managers Frank Chance of the Angels and Walter McCredie of the Beavers will also be hf-re. The mooiirigs will be presided over by A. T. Bauin, president of the league. PORTLAND MAGNATE GIVES BEAVERS' SIDE rORTLNT. Or.. Pf. R. "Whenever th- b"Vs ilnwn south can't think of any nlhcr wnv to hrf-al; Into print, thev roast th.- I'ortVtnd ball Hub and the Portbind f:t i.f." sa hi J in Mel rrd If. as he swung (Continued on Following Page.) Coast League's Prexy, Who Will Sit at Head of Table ALLAN T. EAUM. Lew? ' t z&m Ay. ? ,k COAST MOGULS TO ' GATHER II FORCE (Continued from Preceding Fage. aboard the enstbound train today for Salt Lake to attend the annual meeting. "It gets pretty tiresome to hear that Los Angeles An-geles bunch roasting Portland. Why, Los Angeles, with nearly twice the population of Portland, is the poorest town in the league. That may seem surprising, but. their books will show it. I can't understand under-stand why Tom Darmody wants to kn'k Portland out of the league. It is a matter mat-ter of fact that if we put Los Angeles out and took in Seattle we would have a fine 1 ea g u e . "In proportion to population. Portland is the best town in the league, except Salt Lake. The revenue at Portland, in proportion to population, is better than that of San Francisco. It is better as to revenue than Los Angeles, on an equal basis, leaving proportionate population out of it. ' "Frank Chance made a terrific yelp about running into rain in Portland. Weil, he did run into rain, but we ran into worse at Los 'Angeleswe ran into fine weather and no crowds. They say they can ju.st pay the hotel and traveling expenses ex-penses here. We can do no more down there. "Portland can't be farmed ( to the Northwestern league for a couple of years, as Da rm od y s uggest s. If t h ey wan t to take Sacramento in, and are sincere about it. why, I'll vote with them. Portland is necessary for the Coast league, but it would make the Northwestern league the best class A league in the game, with a salary roll of $3500 and 1, 000,000 peopla, to draw from." Judge McCredie was suffering from a bad cold when he left, but the meeting is an important one and the ex-jurist did not feel like missing it. He will arrive In Salt Lake just in time for the meeting tomorrow night. |