Show ell W E ARE ae letting the grass ra roots of baseball die sam breadon owner and president of the world champion cardinals remarked to me recently 1 I am referring to the millions of 0 kids from rom 12 to 16 years old who would like to play baseball but who get no help or encouragement coura gement this is true even in the big southwest from the ozarks to texas the cottonwood trail that Gramil andRice gave gage baseball such men as tris speaker rogers horns oy dizzy and paul dean carl hubbell pepper martin I 1 could a hundred others including bill dickey from arkansas and lonnie warneke the tobacco chewing champion from mt ida soft ball football and other ports have started replacing baseball 0 11 as a recreation tor for the young aiters i 1 ers they like baseball and would rather play it if they only had thie the chance this will be the big job of any ny new commissioner we might name lie ile must offer and work out i plan plain that will give youngsters all ver the he country this chance we have been hammering with what punches we had bad left along these same lines receiving no support except from pittsburgh and detoll and a few individuals like eke jack coombs the old colby carbine baseball coach at duke neglect schoolboys baseball year after year has gone to sleep in this important development v elop ment and this includes baseballs big three these three have run the game ably in other respects but they have all fallen down on building up and bringing baseball to the ki kids d s from the ages of 12 to 16 many many thousands of whom would rather play baseball than any other game but rarely get we the chance crowded cities lack of space lack ck of a any ny help or cooperation on the part of baseball leaders these have all figured in the decay of the games so called grass roots 11 they have either forgotten all about abort the kids or else they have been too shortsighted to face the major problem ot of the game the new ew commissioner must be one who can rebuild baseball for the kids and that will be his most important job it will be a job no one in baseball has even approached barring the few places I 1 have mentioned there are millions of at kids wh who 0 would like to play baseball a who never have the chance and anyone with a hatt half grain of intelligence knows that if a kid from 12 to 15 years old have the chance to play baseball he will never get anywhere in the game football Is different you can take a husky adusky young fellow around 18 or 19 who never saw a football and turn him into a great tackle or a great guard especially if he be Is big and fast yu you cant do that with a baseball p player la er or a golfer the great baseball players come up as kids who played the game the great golfers came up as caddies hagen Saraz cn nelson regain hogan chick evans goodman johnny farrell harry cooper must start early baseball and golf are games you must learn in early youth football can be picked up later on golf has been given a big break baseball I 1 dont care whether the new commissioner Is jim farley edgar hoover or ford frick or some one else who has the respect of the ballplayers and the spectators all ali I 1 know is that his first job will be to organize a new you youth t h movement tor for baseball 1 1 which c h outside of pittsburgh detroit and in in certain locations where the american legion has been an active sponsor has been almost completely overlooked although the two big leagues have each contributed to this fund certainly there has been no help from the two major leagues outside of this contribution and little help from any of the minors in many big cities it must be admitted there is little room left where the kids can play except along cobblestone streets or those haunted by automobiles but there Is still span enough left in the united states to id give boys from 12 to 16 a chance to play baseball it la Is still a national crime that out ol of 18 year old boys called to the draft over are turned back as physically unfit but it is a difficult matter to get anyone interested in this problem army and navy say they are too busy trying to win a war to bother about the situation and this group Is too young tor for sport promoters to use as money makers i besides breadon only larry macphail bail and horace stoneham seem to think that part of the duty ot of the new commissioner should be that of trying to rebuild the waning enthusiasm for the game in the high schools and the colleges and even they cant agree as to how that should be worked out |