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Show Sports World Wonders What Fate Awaits Yankees Now That Col. Ruppert Is Dead By LAW TON CARVER International Newa Sport Editor NEW YORK, Jan. 14 (INS) Mourning for Colonel Jacob Ruppert Rup-pert waa not confined today to narrow baseball circles, and' all New York was sincerely sad over the passing of a genteel sportsman who had helped to write baseball history through mors than two decades dec-ades until his death yesterday. Speculation was rife. too. over what would become of the baseball empire that he had created, and the answer seemed to be that it would continue flourishing under a set-up which probably will be guided guid-ed by Ed Barrow, secretary and business manager of the Yankees, who actually ran thing even while "the colonel" was alive. Exactly what program will be followed cannot be determined for several days, until Colonel Ruppert's will -has been read, but because of his thoroughness and attention to minute detail it generally was expected ex-pected that the course to be pursued pur-sued in the operation of the Yankees Yan-kees and five farm clubs will be found mapped out in the will he left. Onetime manager of the Boston Red Sox and president of the present International league when It was the Eastern league, a baseball base-ball man whose acumen Is unquestioned. unques-tioned. Barrow undoubtedly will be charged with the baseball operations, opera-tions, only part of the estate which was built by Colonel Ruppert. Value of the baseball empire Is set at 115,-000,000. 115,-000,000. Besides the Yankees, these holdings Include club at Newark In the International league, Kansas City in the American association, Akron In the Middle Atlantic league, Binghamton In the New York-Pennsylvania league and Norfolk in the Piedmont league. Virtually Sole Owner Colonel Ruppert owned the Yankees Yan-kees virtually outright, holding all 3000 shares of stock In them, except for 10 shares split up among other officials, who made up the directorate. direc-torate. Thus he had the final say in the club's future, and Barrow alone appeared ap-peared to be logical choice for the task of directing the tremendous enterprise which ha come to be known as the outstanding venture in all sports history. The Yankees stand alone. Behind the scenesrh the direction of bajeball's greatest team will be I George Ruppert, Colonel Ruppert's I brother, who Is vice president and secretary of the Ruppert brewery and vice president of th Yankees. Pay Scale Arranged One thing which already ha been attended to is ths salary scale for next season. Barrow discussed contracts con-tracts to be offered the Yankees with Colonel Ruppert some time ago and the documents will be mailed out within a week or 10 days, with Barrow's Judgment prevailing in most cases. He has bossed the team for some time, conferring with Colonel Ruppert only when it was absolutely necessary. Thus finally was an empire en trusted to hands other than those of the founder, but with perpetuation perpetua-tion almost assured. There may never be another 180.000 a year Babe Ruth, such as Colonel Ruppert nurtured, nur-tured, but a payroll headed by Lou Gehrig, currently baseball' highest paid star at 136,000 a year, probably prob-ably will go on and on in th tradition tra-dition established by the kindly, lavish spender whose death removed th outstanding executive In all th long history of th game. Colorful Pair Ha was to th front office what Ruth was to tha ball field, and they complemented each other perfectly to build Jointly prestige still unchallenged un-challenged In base ball. While Colonel Ruppert's body lay in his Fifth avenue horn, where he died, a flood of telegrams from all over tha world poured in, all con-dolencea con-dolencea for the survivors and expressing- a spurts' wurWs- admiration admira-tion for a man who was genuinely admired. Private Funeral Hi funeral on Monday morning will be private, but 50 honorary pallbearers pall-bearers will attend, making up a cross section of business, ths Judiciary, Judi-ciary, sports, politic and all other branches of endeavor. And once again the Babe and Lou Gehrig will he Joined together after their years .of separation ainc the Babe finally wore himself out running run-ning the base on his myriad home runs. He will be there as representative repre-sentative of Yankees of other years; Gehrig In behalf of tha current team. |