Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1890 — PREPARING FOR 1890. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PREPARING FOR 1890.

THE CHICAGO BALL CLUB GOES SOUTH FOB PKACTICE. Anson I > i*b«d of His Colts—Prospects of the lor the Coming SeasonPresident Spalding, of the Chicago Club, Interviewed. [CHICAGO CORRESPONDENCE.] A. C. Anson, the fampus first baseman and Captain of the Chicago Base-Ball

Club, started South with his new team, on Tuesday. They go direct to St. Augustine, Fla. When assembled there, thd material Anson will have to work on will be as .follows: Catchers, 'Nagle, Lauer, and Kitiridge; pitchers, Hutch i ns o n, Coughlin, Blair, Sullivan, and Inks:

second baseman, Earle or Garvin; third baseman, Burns; short stop, Cooney; outfielders, Wilmot, Carroll, and Lauer or Earle. The youngsters in charge ol Anson were a stalwart-looking lot of athletes as they clustered about the old man in the Polk Street Station. Every one was trim enough to race for e crown. Cap’n Anson said he was satisfied with his colts, and everybody who saw the old man tramping around the station with his moss-agate eye rolling owlishly believed what h$ said. The Chicagos will remain in Florida for about three weeks and then go to New Orleans and through Texas, fetching up at Hot Springs, where they will take their final practice prior to the opening of the League season. Capt. Anson is very confident that with the promising players he has got together and this pre liminary practice in a warm climate he will present a team to the Chicago public that will put up just as good or better ball than has been done by the Chicagos in the past. President A. G. Spalding, of the Chicago Club, has returned from the recent league meeting in New York, and reports

everything serene in the league camp. He says the present indications are that the circuit will continue as it now stands, and in preparing a schedule to present at the spring meeting he will work on this basis. The reasons given by Judge. O’Brien for refusing to grant a temporary injunction

against Ward, Mr. Spalding says, were no doubt good law, but the Judge’s main reasons for refusing to grant a temporary injunction will not apply, the Chicago President declares, when the case comes up for a final hearing. “Will the Chicago Club commence legal proceedings against its refractory players?” “Well, that is a matter that has not yet been decided. While it is contrary to the policy of the Chicago Club to have any men in its team who object to playing with it, yet there is a disposition to insist on its legal rights, and it firmly believes it has such legal rights under our present contracts with these men, and tiudge O’Brien’s opinion on the reserve clause fortifies us in that opinion. For the future guidance of the club and for the future good of professional base-ball, I should like to have definitely settled once for all what constitutes a base-ball contract. Aside from the effect it may have in preventing oar old players from transferring their services to a rival organization, which they agreed not to do. I think this legal fight will be worth all it costs to determine wherein our present contract is defective, so we may make it in future not only good in base-ball law but in common law as well. “According to Judge O’Brien’s decision the contracts we now hold with Pfeffer, Williamson, Ryan, aad other deserting brotherhood players for 1890 are just as good and binding in law as the new contrats that we have signed with Anßon, Hutchinson, and'Burns. If the courts are going to hold these contracts under which we hav T e worked the past two years invalid it is important that we know it at once, in order that we may in future be governed in our advances to players before the season commences.” “What was the general feeling in the East as to the probable success of the Players’ League?” “That would be difficult to answer. You might ask the same question relative to the world’s fair. Read a New York paper and you would think there was no possible chance of the world’s fair going anywhere but to New York, and Chicago papers are equally sure of its coming to this city. So it is relative to the baseball war. The brotherhood partisan papers in the East continue to dish up the stereotyped arguments of ‘Out for the stuff,’ ‘We, arethe people,’ ‘White slavery,’ and similar ‘convincing’ arguments. Tommy Burns, who covered third base for the Chicago League team with signal

success for so many seasons, was interviewed the other day. Referring to the baseball situation, Burns says he is very wfell satisfied with the stand he took in favor of the League. The latter organization had demonstrated to the public that it was competent to conduct the national

game in a satisfactory and business-like way, and he was willing to take his chances in the future with those who had the management and control of the Chicago League Club. He has nothing to say about his old comrades who ‘had joined the brotherhood. They are supposed to know their business, and it is for them to determine whether they have done the right thing. He does not hesitate to say that he believes that the Brotherhood will eventually wind up just as the Union Association did several .Tears ago. The latter organization started out with an abundance of capital behind it, but the superiof management of the League was soon apparent, and the Union organization fell from its own weight.

A. C. ANSON.

THOS. S. BURNS.

A. G. SPALDING.