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Show BRAVES SORE OF I915PENNANT Stalling Players Refuse to Play With Any Other Baseball Base-ball Club. OPPOSE LIMIT RULE Extra Players May Be Cut Off Entirely Unless They Consent Con-sent to Be Traded. I By Mont ) hy York .lan. 23. The popularity of Ueor; Stalling and tlic contl-dence contl-dence nek' b his men that he v, il! repeat his 1914 triumph In the next National league ""nam race have I ngendered a condition unique in j baseball annals. His players feel so sure the Braves w ill win and the world '8 series pie will be cut in Boston that they refuse re-fuse to be parties to trades brother br-other clubs George Whltted, general utility man of the team, has ex-! pressed tho sentiment of his mates! in the ultimatum he has delivered to President Gaffney. "I refuse to play with any team hut the Braves." says Whitted. "unle 1 ran get $3000 more salary from thej other team. 1 figure that will be) about the si.r of my share In the next world's series " That ultimatum forced Gaffney to' call off the arrangement lie had made I to send Whilted to the Phillies as part payment for Outfielder Sherwood Sher-wood Magee Gaffne had planned to turn over Whitted and Tom Hughes the big pitcher from Rochester, to the Phillies. Several other players offered to the Quakers also balked, so Garfney tried to change the terms of the deal to Include Hughes and a bunch of cash. Galfney seemed in a fair wa to put this through, when up rose Hughes and objected, too. Thus it now is probable that the Phil lies will neither have to accept a straight cash payment or call off the Magee deal entirelj Joe Connolly, the slugging outfielder, is another youth Stallings and Gaffney tried to use in a trade, this deal being with the Cincinnati Rds, but Connolly has remonstrated just as vigorously as the others against being sent away. May Rescind Limit Rule. It is great to see loyalty of men 1o their employer and admiration of him which these fellows possess. t0 1 say nothing of their supreme tonfi dence In his powers. But fate has been unkind enough to pi k out the very most possible time for such a thing The coming season will be the 'first In histor .that the National league has had a rule limiting the roster of each elub to a maximum of twehtyone players. There is agitation agita-tion now to rescind that rule, which was adopted only last month, but if it should fail and the rule stands, what will happen to some of thee loyal scions of Stallings about the time the i season begins on April 14? The Braves possess one of the largest larg-est player lists in the major leagues. Altogether, including raw recruits just up from the minors who did not got a chance to wear a Boston uniform uni-form last year, there are nearly fifty men. Thus more than two dozen will have to be let out before the fatal idea of April. Naturally most of these will be youngsters who fail to make good on their first trial or are not ripe foi fast company just yet. Some of the eastoffft, however, will have to be seasoned players, for there arc a dozen more tnan the twenty-one limit of this class alone on the club. Players May Lose Out li would be the irony of fate indeed if some of the players now objecting to a trade would have to be turned adrift in the early April days, or pel bapi sent to the minors Right now they have a chance to get on other weaker clubs that would be certain to retain them If they go. they are sure of major league berths. If they refuse, they take the chance of being railroaded to the bushes Yet they prefer the gamble to the sure thing It it Isn't B true sporting spirit that! ; these boys have developed under Stallings. Stal-lings. then the term sporting spirit ' means little. Where is there a parallel paral-lel to this in the past? There is none George Stallings is th miracle man of baseball. |