OCR Text |
Show ifflomei7 PLK CARD Salt Lake Fans Expected Again to Fare Well in Assignment of Holiday Holi-day Dates. . FOUR-BUSHER RULE . ON ITS DEATHBED Magnates May Take Up the Maier Charges; Los Angeles An-geles and Vernon Arrange Ar-range Big Deal. This week should be a lively period in ('oast league circles. On Tuesday the league d i roc tors are to moot at. Sad Francisco for the avowed purpose oi adopting a, playing schedule for the 1017 urn son. Indications arc that tho meeting meet-ing will not he confined to Behedulo talk u holly, because there arc other knotty problems for the magnates to untie, if; I hoy can. j iSo far as tho schedule making is con- corned, it in likely tlrat the HUT programme pro-gramme will be. quickly disposed of. As is h is custom, Judge V. W. AleCrodie of Portland will submit, uue or two schedules. sched-ules. Tho judge has a penchant for schedule malting, and "usually his cards lire, with minor changes, adopted, it is understood that .lack Cook, who is tu be the new business manager of the StiintH, has also a schedule ready lor consideration, and President John F. Powers of the Angela is also said to have dabbled in dales a little. When t.ho directors met In Salt Lake in I Voeuiber they talked about the pii hoduie, und President Alan Baum brought out his checker board and prepared pre-pared a teutntivo assignment of dates. Thin schedule was submitted to the vari-undubs, vari-undubs, with tho request for sugges- The only thing known about the ?P17 nason thus far is that tho season will vpen on Tuesday, April JI. Portland ms at Salt Lake, Oakland at Los Ss and Vernon at Wan Frau.ei.3c0. Holiday Dates The principal thing upon which the schedule makers must decide this week U the matter of holiday assignments. Naturally Los Angeles and San Fran-! eiseo, by reason of their size, will drawl every holiday, either for the home club or flir the ekih that makes its homo in the suburbs. Thus Portland and Salt Lake are left to light it out for holiday dates. Last year Suit Lake was given both the Memorial dny and Independence' day dates, while Portland got Labor day. In addition to this Suit 'Lake drew Pioneer Pio-neer 'lay, which is exclusively a Utah holiday. Admission day in California is the equivalent of Pioneer day in I'tah. Neither Pioneer day nor Admin-sion Admin-sion day gate receipts are pooled. Memorial Me-morial day, Independence day and Labor day gates nre divided among all the clubs, share and share alike. Quito likely Portland will ask for eit her M emoi'ial day or the Fourth of July t hU year, but. there is reason to Ndievo that Salt Lake will get them both again. The reason is money. Last y e;ir Salt Lake fa us turned out in big numbers for both the forenoon and afternoon aft-ernoon games on those holidays, and the lea git r directors are not yet through smacking their lips over the resultant collection of coin. Portland is said to be hopeless for forenoon games, so far a. attendance goes, so that Salt Lake stands a good chance of landing both plums again in 1017, Four-lSusher Rule. The four-busher rulo will come in for attention at tho league meeting. Since the national commission ruling slew the four-busher rtiie in t his league, wavs .wll have to be devised to meet the is-v is-v The national commission said in 7' .in;; rule of the kind was a species of blacklisting of ball players, an invasiou of the rights guaranteed them under the national agreement, and altogether wrong. rf has been suggested that the rule might be evaded by adopting a regulation regula-tion fixing tho player limit, at fourteen men and passing a supplemental agreement agree-ment that every clnb should carry four bushers. It is doubtful if that Lind of transparent trans-parent evainn of the rule would erve. because the national commission almost certainly would declare, it a violation of the spirit of the commission's Tilling, if not of the letter, and it- does not seem posib!e that the men who compose the roust league directorate would resort to so petty a de ice. Managers in Quandary. There is yet another reason for believing be-lieving that the four-busher nile will :'ind its fiual resting place this week. It is known that the rale was adopted in the fir?t place at. the urgent pleading of J. Cal Kwing of the OaV.and club. 'Ostensibly 'Os-tensibly thing's scheme was to get yean .7 blood into the league bv hypodermic hypo-dermic inicctin". so that all clubs should suffer fli.e. Fuvee it develops that the Oakland list of bushers is one of ...formidable leugih and that most of ihem were signed lonr before the meeting meet-ing of the league magnates. Being thus weU heeled for burners hiaiself. Lwing craftilv sought to foist the rule upon the other magnates, who had rot been o forehanded in the matter of raking ;he brush. Smiico the various managers have been trying to gather clubs uf sufficient strength to make a bid for the pennant. hy ye every turn encountered the S '"shers. If a nianager, Vhtne.had his lineup Vened out, it would following Page.) rt COASTERS WILL ARRANGE 1917 SCHEDULE TUESDAY (Continued From Preceding Page.) Mulrlonly occur to him that he had only Ihree huehers instead of tlte rcijuireil four, n ml 1 hat discovery necessitated the firing or' an experienced and valuable val-uable bull player in order that Kwiug miLjht be satisfied. Owners Feel Effect. The troubles of the managers naturally natu-rally were communicated to the owners, with the result that the f our-busher rule has fallen into disfavor during the last month. Tt has become apparent that it is much easier to adopt a rule in a steam-heated hotel room than it is j to build a ball club around four inexperienced inex-perienced plavers. ! ;o doubt the magnates will take some j action iu regard to the matter. Perhaps it would serve to adopt a resolution to; the effect that the magnates were fairly ! cray about young blood and that it i was their sentiments and the sense of the meeting that every club use as many bushers. as possible. This would be an easy "out"' for the directors and would be perfectly harmless. All around, therefore, it looks as if the busher rule were doomed. Walter Mc.Credie of the Beavers, who is a pretty pret-ty straight thin kin man when it comes to baseball, characterised the rule in the first place as a joke and added that if it were wiped otf the records it would "make one less rule for the other clubs to break. The Maier Squabble. There is a possibility that tbe league directors will take up the matter of Ed Ma.ier's attack, delivered with force upon the occasion of his retirement from ( oast league baseball. Maier, who was the owner of the Vernon club before selling out to T. .1 . "Darmody. accused h's fellow owners of double-crossing his club, saying that the cards werc so stacked that Vernon could never win a oennant even if it remained in the leaaue a thousand wars. Meier went back as far as "10 1 . when the Timers were nosed out by the Oaks, making the accusation that a l.os Angeles pitcher pitch-er had been approached to throw a game to the Oaks so that Vernon could not win. Meier said be had three witnesses to substantiate that charge. In many other instances, most of them general, but some of them specific, Maier jumped on the Ooast league magnate? with hobnailed hob-nailed shoes- So far as SaH T.ake is concerned, f he s.r.'.abble bet ween Ma ier and tie league' moguls is of little moment, since s;i; t. Lake'was not in the league at the time when Mater's chief cause of complaint com-plaint developed. Salt Lake Impartial. 1 ast year Salt Lake lc-t consiMently to both" Les Ance.es and Vernon, and was r.o factor at all m deciding the race between t;: two l.os Aneies hilw. The Saint? dropped twenty-five panics to each club. T'ucv won twelve from Los Angeles and fourteen from Vernon, so that there no chance for a crv of favoritism against- Sal; Lake, The thief arc.!, indeed, the o'ih interest in-terest Salt L.ike fans have in the Maier row lie.- in watciu:' the tactic? ,of ac'cise purged by the o;hcr owners, :i a defense is dee me 1 ne'-es-ary. As a mailer of fa-t. it is not probable 'hat anv creat amount nf rr.n'udTv will i"e cri'en the of '-ma-'arc- ci"n- crn in cr t his v a tier. No don ht Pre si -dent f-au:a wi;l lie in-iru.rcd to tc'J : '--.e news r.a :ie v men that i :ie manor wasn't bro'.:cc.r t:p at a'!, in whw'i even; we will wa it vni next .Tune or d uly for somebody to -rill wli.r really did take place. (u the v,rvb it i- a tiling of no importan.-e ii: Salt Lae. Coincident w:th ti e meeting of sched ule makers, the managers of the various clubs also will hold a convention. The meeting of managers was provided for at the" session ot the league directors in Salt Lake. Just what is sought to be accomplished by getting the managers man-agers together is not quite clear, the idea no doubt being that if the managers man-agers held a jollification meeting before be-fore the season of warfare they would be less likely to fly at one another's throats on th'e diamond. May Get Harmon. The best bit of news for Salt La.ke last week was the announcement la The Tribune that the Saints were in a fair way to acquiring Bob Harmon of the Pittsburg Pirates. Negotiations were progressing favorably when President Presi-dent Murphv and Manager Bernhard left, for the coast on Thursday, but definite defi-nite news will not be available regarding regard-ing Harmon until their return. With Harmon and Dubuc as the club's leading lead-ing risrht-handers. the pitching staff of the Salt Lake club looks better than it has at any time since the town entered the league. Both Dubuc and Harmon have been wonderfully effective pitchers pitch-ers in the big leagues, Dubuc carrying the Detroit club single-handed for "several "sev-eral weeks at a stretch and being the Tigers' mainstay during three years. The same can be said of Harmon and the Pirates. Harmon had a fair year in 1916, working iu thirty games and allowing '2.66 earned runs per nine-inning game. He ranked thirty-first in a list of fifty-nine Xational league pitchers. pitch-ers. Dubuc was less effective last season sea-son than he had been since joining the Tigers, but still he was good enough tc be "used regularly. In the Coast league both Dubuc and Harmon should be win-niug win-niug f lingers. PorterviHe Selected. The matter of finally deciding upon PorterviHe, Cal., as the Saints' training train-ing camp was brought to a close yesterday, yes-terday, when -President Murphy and Manager Bernhard gave Porterviile the o. o. in persou and decided that it would do. Having brought this important question to a successful issue, the movement move-ment on PorterviHe may be looked for about February 2o. The biggest deal in Coast league playing play-ing circles that has bobbed up for 'a long while was the swap made Thursday Thurs-day by Managers Frank t. hance and George stovail of the Angels and Tigers Ti-gers respectively. The deal gives the A'gcls the services of Gus Gleichmann. the wonderful fielding first baseman of the Bengals, in exchange for Third Baseman dim Galloway and Second i Baseman Polly McLarry of the Seraphs, The acquisition of Gleichmann gives Chance a first baseman in piaee of" Phil Koerner. wr.o. for some reason nor quite apparent, did not please Chance iast year, although Fhil was .lack Kyan s prim ipa! abettor in winning a. pennant pen-nant for the Angels. Gleichmann no doubt is a much better fielder than Koerner. but Luis is not t rw swatsma u that PI! is. Gives Tigers an Ir.field. By the alli'ion of McLarrv and Ga loway. Stoall has made long stride; Towards ecmrdeting h;s infield. Before the deal Callahan was the only infield on the Tiger roster n.-ide f-oru Gieich maun. Cailahan is something of a short -to;, but lie v.as not m r"gul:-!r last vcar Wirh M"ail himself playing first base hi- infield is fairly well -liaped hp. ! t3 a i i r i i n e Phil Koerner would b a mighty good man for somebody to grab Koerner is a catrher and an outfieldej of ability, as well as being a first sack I er, and he is a valuable man on any bal i club. Since the Oaks say they are" look ing for a first baseman to succeed Ma Barry, who is not. desirous of returning to the coast, Howard would find himself him-self well hooked up by getting Koerner. The acceptance of Jaek Cook of Salt Lake's offer of the business agency of the Saints was officially received early in the week. There never was any doubt about his acceptance. He is expected ex-pected to take charge of the .business end on February lo. Meantime President Presi-dent Murphy will have a conference with Cook at San Francisco, during which conference several details yet incomplete in-complete will be taken up. Cook announces an-nounces his intention of selling his home at Oakland and moving his familv to Salt Lake. Beavers Enterprising. The Portland club has definitely decided de-cided to go to Honolulu for training purposes that is, some eighteen players will be taken to the Hawaiian islands, and the remainder, including; the recruits, re-cruits, will be sent to Stockton to be put into condition by Nick Williams, manager of the Spokane club of the Northwestern league, who will also train bis Indians at Stockton. In connection with the decision of the McCredies to take their chief band to the Pacific islands, some of the other managers in the circuit express doubt as to the wisdom of the move. They point out that a division of the squad is likely to be fraught with some danger, dan-ger, and also call attention to the fact that the voyagers, after training at Honolulu, may lose all the benefit derived de-rived therefrom on the return trip .because .be-cause of inaction aboard ship. Possibly there may be something in the questioning attitude of the other managers, but from this distance it looks like a case of sour grapes. The McCredies are entitled to congratulations congratula-tions upon their enterprising step. They will lose money bv the undertaking, but they expect to offset that bv the good will which will follow on the part of their players. It is estimated that the . trip will cost about $3500, of which sum Honolulu interests have guaranteed the repayment of $4000. The deficit of $1500 will be further increased by the cost of traiuing their rooks at Stockton. |