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Show POOR CLUB OWNERS II SDR STRAITS President Baum Says Expenses Ex-penses Are Out of Proportion Pro-portion to Income. Chatting with Al Baum the other clay, the Coast league president remarked upon the number of ball players who were out or' jobs tiiis spriug as compared com-pared with a corresponding time three years ago, says the Oakland Tribune. "In 1913," declared Baum, "organize. 1 baseball comprised fifty leagues. Today there are but twenty-five, a clear indication in-dication that the game has suffered for expenditures out of proportion to the income." There is considerable food for reflection in President Baum 's remarks. Tip O'Neill told us the other day that from the standpoint of receipts and patronage, last season had been the greatest in the history of baseball, vet in the same breath he asserted that few clubs had made any money. This is not as paradoxical as it may seem, when one considers that the Co-miskey Co-miskey park constitutes a $500,000 investment in-vestment which remains absolutely idle for 2SS days in the year, admitting that rain does not cut down the season to less than that. The 8ox have seventy-seven, seventy-seven, games at home. We can hardly conceive of a theater costing half a million dollars being permitted per-mitted to remain dark for the same length of time. All Costs Money. With the fans demanding a winner and good ball players demanding a fortune for-tune for their services, the baseball magnate is indeed between the devil and the deep blue sea. Connie Mack would never have broken brok-en up that hundred thousand infield, with which he could have, won several more pennants, if it had not been a ruinous investment. The world's champions would never have been sold this fall if their owners own-ers could have afforded to have retained re-tained them. The Brooklyn club, National league champions, would not be on the block now if Charley Ebbetts figured he could make any money out ot the club. Edddie Maier would not have sold the Vernon club if it had made money for him. J. Cal Ewing would not have had to return to baseball to protect his investment in-vestment in the Oaks had Frank Lea-vitt Lea-vitt and Jack Cook been able to make enough money to buy the club. In the Coast league we have the spectacle spec-tacle of three out of the six clubs on the circuit still owing money to their former owuers, and another club struggling strug-gling to pay off a pretty hefty mortgage mort-gage to a bank. Neither the Los Angeles, San Francisco Fran-cisco nor Vernon clubs would have changed hands had thev been making the money which public and players seem to think they were making. Expenses Enormous. The money is coming in all right, but the trouble is that it is all going out, too. There is a bigger leak in'base-ball in'base-ball finances than is to be found in high finance, and it will have to be plugged or disaster is sure to follow. The truth of it is that we are in an age of extravagance in which men are doing that which they really cannot afford af-ford to do counting on next week 's ray day to meet this week 's debt. Thrift has been thrown to the winds, and the poor man demands the luxuries which only the rich can afford. The minor league fan demands major league baseball, base-ball, and the minor leaguer wants a major ma-jor league salary, while the club owner, own-er, fearing to be regarded as "cheap," sets a pace for his rivals which neither he nor they can afford. The resulting pack of cards comes down when the winds get to blowing too strong. The day of retrenchment is at hand. Sound business methods must be injected inject-ed into baseball and level-headed business busi-ness men must be put in charge of the financial end of the game or it is doomed. |