OCR Text |
Show illlllllllllllIIIIIIIMIIIllllllMIMIIIIIIIIH By ROBERT McSHANE f Relatd by Weileen Nwipaper Union 1 1 J m 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 r m 1 1 1 1 ti 1 1 1 1 c 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 r DROOF of James J. Dykes' wide- spread popularity came not long ago when the fiery manager of the Chicago White Sox was cooped up In the American league doghouse for bulldozing umpires and using high pressure language on the playing field. President Will Harridge of the American league placed Dykes in baseball's St. Helena when Jimmy took slightly profane exception to an umpire's ruling during a game with Cleveland. Jimmy, who refuses to hide his sincere dislike of the boys in blue, drew an "indefinite" suspension sus-pension for his brash outbreak. His exile lasted one week. Shortly after Harridge announced the suspension of Dykes, a Chicago newspaper conducted a survey to determine whether or not Jimmy is "offensive" to fans and owners around the American league circuit. At least two club presidents and six out of seven topnotch baseball writers writ-ers declared themselves sympathetic sympathet-ic with James. The seventh writer admitted that Jimmy was popular, but remarked that his protests do get a bit tiresome, largely because of their frequency. As you've probably forgotten, Har ridge's suspension statement read: "For his conduct and use of obscene ob-scene and abusive language to Umpire Um-pire Steve Basil in the game played in Chicago . . . while protesting the decision of Umpire Harry Geisel on a fly ball hit to right field in the ninth inning, Manager Dykes has been indefinitely suspended. 'Very Offensive9 "... Bis tactics in delaying our games, attempting to bulldoze and browbeat umpires while riling protests pro-tests which have no basis in fact or justification in the rules, has become be-come very offensive, not only to the spectators in other cities throughout the circuit, but to our entire organization." organi-zation." ' Harridge also stated that Dykes would remain suspended until he can satisfy the league office that in tt JIMMY DYKES the future he will fall in line with the seven other managers of our league in conducting himself and his ball club on the field." In our opinion the incident was far from well handled. Dykes is an aggressive, peppery manager, always al-ways willing to hght for a cause he considers just. He packs more color than any other manager in the league. His players like him. White Sox officials including Mrs. Comis-key Comis-key back him up all the way, and Chicago's south side fans swear by him. In short, Jimmy is not only the best manager in the American league but he has done as much or more than any other person to keep the league on its toes. When Harridge lifted the suspen-j suspen-j sion, he remarked: : "Our office has always praised Jim's handling of players. We credit him with doing wonders for ballplayers ball-players other people have given up on. But the American league will eliminate rowdyism and abusive language. lan-guage. Once in a while we have to step on somebody's toes in this regard, re-gard, but that's just too bad. We've got to do it." There should be no argument on one particular the elimination oi abusive language. Profanity is objectionable ob-jectionable to the fans and particularly particu-larly offensive to women patrons. Umpires, contrary to Dykes, are human hu-man and deserve at least a minimum mini-mum of civility. Roivdyism But "rowdyism" is too general a term. One player, guilty of an offense, of-fense, might be considered a rowdy while another, committing the same act, might be termed colorful. Where is the dividing line? It's exceedingly ex-ceedingly trite, but circumstances do alter cases. Then, too, baseball isn't a parlor game. Players are more than automatons, autom-atons, trained to obey a stated set of rules. A good ball player or manager is one who docs his best to win ball games. He does everything he can, without forfeiting sportsmanship, sports-manship, to beat an opponent Officials are smart enough to realize real-ize that color is an indispensable part of baseball. Without it the game would be little more than a mechanical mechan-ical exhibition of ability. And paying pay-ing customers would become as rare as British tourists in Berlin. |