España vs. Suiza EN VIVO: sigue MINUTO A MINUTO el duelo por la Liga de Naciones

11 min readNov 14, 2020

Last week I offered in this space John M. Ward’s “Is the Base-Ball Player a Chattel?” (https://bit.ly/2U7utP6). It remains an essential document in the game’s long struggle between management and labor. Here is a lighter story by Ward, an evocative reminiscence of the 1880s by the former captain and manager of the Giants and now — i.e., July 1914 — business manager of the Brooklyn Tip-Tops of the Federal League; from Vanity Fair.

One day in the winter of 1889–90 “Ned” Hanlon and I sat on the edge of the now famous Coogan’s Bluff and gazed down upon a wide stretch of frozen swamp land. A large “fill,” running through the center of it was evidently intended to suggest the line of a street at some future time.

We were looking for a ball field for the New York Club of the Players’ League, then being organized, and had searched Manhattan Island, up to that time in vain, for a suitable site. It was a sorry looking spot we saw before us, but a few days later, lacking a more substantial angel, I put my name to a contract of lease for ten years at $10,000 per year. That lease covered the site of the Polo Grounds, the present magnificent home of the Giants.

The NL Giants of 1889 played at Manhattan Field (“B”); Brotherhood Park (“A”) after 1890 became their famed Polo Grounds

The New York Club considers itself fortunate to-day in having a long lease, with the Lynch estate, of that same plot at $40,000 per year. For the partial use of it by the Yankees the New York Club receives $55,000 per year. In other words, the New York Club has an apparent profit of $15,000 a year. It must be remembered, however, that they have invested in this property, for the stadium, grounds, etc., etc., approximately half a million dollars. Their apparent profit of $15,000 nearly pays the interest charges on their total investment, but notwithstanding all this, there is a well defined rumor that the New York Club may next year [i.e., 1915 — jt] refuse to renew the arrangement with the Yankees, profitable and desirable as it seems.

Our Players’ League Club built a stand and bleachers that cost about $50,000, while the present Brush stadium represents an outlay of $500,000.

A salary list of $40,000 was then considered the limit of extravagance, while in 1914 the Brooklyn Federal League Club will hand out, to its players alone, close to $100,000 and the other expenses of equipment and operation have increased in like proportion. Railroad fares, sleepers, hotels, taxicabs, training trips, trainers, and extra players, all add to the total; until today it requires $200,000 to operate a major league ball club, as against $50,000 in the old days.

Providence champions of 1879, John M. Ward (bottom), pitcher

In one season, when I pitched sixty-seven full games for the Providence Club, led the league in base-running, and helped win the National League Championship, I received $1,200 salary, and felt just a little ashamed to take so much money. This spring Speaker refused an offer of $15,000 from the Brooklyn Federals; and we would have gone higher if he had not run away.

These figures convey some idea of the remarkable growth of the business expenses of baseball in the last twenty-five years. And when we recall that there are about fifty minor leagues employing more than five thousand players, to whom they pay $700,000 monthly in salaries, one can get an inkling of the present popularity of the game.

Has there been a corresponding growth in the quality of the ball played? I doubt if anyone will claim as much. The play has undoubtedly improved, but by no means in a corresponding degree. It is a dangerous subject, this comparing the game of today with that of former years, and it is sure to get one into trouble. Yet it is the very thing an old-timer is most often asked to do.

First of all, the morale of the players is much improved. Your player of today looks upon his occupation as one in which he hopes and expects to spend many years. It is his calling in life, out of which he must earn and save the wherewithal for after years; and so he regards it much more seriously than we were wont to do when leagues and associations came and went and the profession of ball-playing had little in it of assurance for the future. The major league player of today takes excellent care of himself, both on and off the field; goes about his work seriously and thereby lasts longer; he saves more money but he has a whole lot less fun and excitement than we did in the good old rollicking days of the late eighties.

A John Ward fan for the bleacher set

Then, too, several changes in the rules have made the game at least look faster. Most important of these was bringing the catcher up under the bat all through the game instead of, as formerly, only when the runners were on the bases.

The greatest change in baseball has come about through the use of the big mitt, or glove. Some of the most startling and electrifying plays are now made with the gloved hand that were simply impossible before its use. This fancy, one-hand work is the real and most noticeable improvement in the play. It makes the entire game faster and has added much to its beauty. We now see stops and catches that seem actually to invade the field of legerdemain.

On the other hand, so far as I have had an opportunity to judge, team play has not improved. Indeed, it has been neglected. Under the old masters, Harry and George Wright, Morrill, Hanlon, Comiskey, Selee, and Anson, team play was the principal consideration. Today it is comparatively absent, except under McGraw, Mack, Jennings, and a few others, all of them men who are graduates of the old school.

Radbourn, the nonpareil

And now as to the individual players. There are, of course, many more stars now than then. But think of “King” Kelly! Is anybody better today? I cannot see it. “Matty,” for example, is a wonderful pitcher and, considering his length of service, probably has a shade on anyone. But Clarkson and Keefe and Sweeney and Nichols were also artists in their day. Walter Johnson may have more speed than anybody living; but those of us who have faced Amos Rusie, once of Indianapolis, later of New York, and “Grasshopper” Jim Whitney and Ferguson, will wonder if there is much to choose between them and Johnson. And the greatest of them all was Radbourne, whose record has never been approached by any other boxman. In one season he pitched thirty-eight successive games, and won thirty-four of them; and out of a total of seventy-one games pitched by him that same year, he won fifty-seven, lost twelve and tied two. Talk about your iron men! [This figure was subsequently updated to 60, then 59, and today 60 again. — jt]

Buck Ewing

As for catchers, ask any fair-minded fan who saw “Buck” Ewing in his palmy days, if there is anyone now in his class. And he was a great hitter, as well, a splendid base-runner and “inside” player.

The game has its heroes to-day, but so had it then, and of all the popular idols none was ever more unusually loved than “Mike” Kelly, once a member of the Chicago club and bought from them by Boston, for $10,000. He was known affectionately as “King” Kelly and was one of the greatest players the game has known in every department of play. His sunny disposition and lovable personal qualities made warm friends for him wherever he went.

But, after all, where have we arrived? Back where we started. Time softens and hallows. As we sit in the grandstand today and in retrospection skim the green diamond or circle the bases, we too often forget the rough spots of the days gone by. The memory of the dear old times drifts in upon us and, like an incense, soothes our senses, blots out the recollection of the errors that were, and unfits us to judge of them fairly. And so will it be a quarter of a century hence. Some players of our time will try vainly then to compare the game he knows now and the game he will see then.

España vs. Suiza EN VIVO: sigue MINUTO A MINUTO el duelo por la Liga de Naciones

Written by Islamriyad