Show 0 = = I MAJOR LEAGUE I CLUBS COSTLY EXPENSE OF RUNNING TEAMS IS BECOMING QUITE A SERIOUS PROPOSITION FAT WALLET IS NECESSARY Practically All of Clubs Return Good Interest on Investment If They Are Winners Washington Is Always Ready to Stand for a Loser Champions Cham-pions Essential In New York Major league baseball is a serious problem With an annual expenditure of over 100000 the clubs must do good business to come out ahead on tho investment Take the city of New York for example For tho first month of the season tho Highlanders were playing winning ball and drawing fine crowds while tho giants wore playing to empty benches at tho Polo grounds as the result of weak ball playing It was fast growing to be a serious proposition for John T Brush as the expenses of running the game at tho polo grounds must reach at least 120 000 a year This means a good average attendance at homo and good business an the road to win out To make It worse a club that cannot draw at homo will prove a poor attraction on the road and lose both ways The Highlanders looked like winners win-ners to a number of clever critics and Frank Farrell stood a chance to make 1 lot of money with even a fair break of luck But there was no good luck for him New York must have a winner Recently Re-cently tho visiting teams have played to a handful of people at the highland rounds while tho giants were practically practi-cally turning people away at tho polo grounds reversing tho conditions of ho first visit of tho Boston club toNe to-Ne York when the Highlanders were lending t the procession and the giants tralllne Brooklyn which has been accus homed to have a losing club was draw ng finely until Donovans boys slumped when the attendance dwln lied to a handful and Charley Ebbetts ommenced to figure how ho could get out with a whole skin Even tho Quaker city that hotbed of baseball displayed tho signal of distress dis-tress after the return of the Athletics from n disastrous western trip Ben Shlbo worried about the thought of putting his fortune into a new baseball base-ball plant But a few winning games revived the Quaker population and tho crowds commenced to win until Connlo Macks smile returned and I Shlbo was ablo to sleep nights Billy Murray had the Phillies showing show-Ing rare form on the last western trip Many could seo the youngsters walkIng walk-Ing right through the bunch to tho top but as usual with colts they went Into tho air and before Murray could get them to earth they were in sixth place and the Quaker fans disgusted with the team picked out only a few weeks beforo as world beaters Tho question of gate money must now worry wor-ry tho Quaker stockholders With Sunday ball almost any city can live and with a winner make big money out of the business St Louis Is a fair Illustration It has never been the misfortune of the Chicago clubs to have weak teams since Comlskoy went to that city and It Is hard to say what would be the result re-sult of a weak team at Comlskeys park Washington Is the one city that will stand for a loser first last nnd always and perhaps this Is ono reason that tho capital city Is constantly favored with the target bearer Boston will turn out to see the visiting visit-ing clubs Irrespective of what kind of a game tho homo team is putting up Yet let Boston get into the running and the parks there would not accommodate accom-modate tho fans This Is interesting from the fact that Boston has won moro championships than any other three cities and didnt know what a tallendor was until two years ago Just two years after landing the championship cham-pionship of tho world The Boston public loves the sport and can see others play good ball without knocking the homo players Tho responsibility of running a major ma-jor league club with 100000 outlay each season makes It a serious business busi-ness to enter unless fortified with a big bank roll |