Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 192, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1911 — CHANGE IN PLAYER’S WORTH [ARTICLE]

CHANGE IN PLAYER’S WORTH

One Year He May look Like a Million Dollars to Owner and Foflowing Season Prove Failure.

Star ball players are certainly a mighty risky commodity. One year a player may show’ to advantage, look like a million dollars, cause his owner to turn down all kinds of fabulous offers for his services, and the following year, proves a big failure. While every club owner is In the baseball business to get the money, still it’s the one ambition of every owner and manager to win pennants, otherwise there would be much more trading and selling of players among the various clubs of, the majors and minors. Civic pride often keeps an owner from selling 6ne of his stars for a big sum, V;;: Four years ago George Stone of the St Louis club led the American league In batting. Stone and his big stick was feared by every pitcher in the Johnsonian circuit. Every club owner would have been delighted to buy Stone at most any old price, while the St. Louis fans simply Idolized their batting king. All kinds of offers were made Owner Hedges, but he turned a deaf ear to them. Stone was expected to be the big noise the following year, but he proved a rank disappointment Trouble over salary caused him to get a late start Injuries set hint back several times just as be was getting Into his stride and all in all he had a bad year. One of the injuries to his ankle slowed him up considerably and since then a number of hits that be used to beat out go in the putout column. Three years ago Stone would have brought down something like SIO,OOO. A few years ago Manager McGraw of the New York Giants offered the St. Louis Nationals SIO,OOO for Pitcher Karger and was willing to throjr in a couple of young pitchers to boot. Owner Robinson of the Cardinals wanted to give the fans a winner and turned down the offer without even hesitating. Karger failed to show the next year, was traded to Cincinnati and then turned loose to a minor league club- He is now with the Boston Americans, but Is nothing like the pitcher he was a few years ago. Not so many years ago Elmer Flick, Jack Powell, Lou Criger, Terry Turner, Herman Schaefer, Lee Tannehlll, Bill Bradley, Bill Donovan and a host of other stars would have brought fancy prices were they placed on the auction block of baseball. While quite a few of the boys are still valuable to have around, there wouldn’t be any riot should they be offered for sale, and they wouldn't bring one-fifth the price they would have commanded five years ago. Good players are players who take long chances. Players who take unusual risks are, of course, very liable to injury, and slight injuries often ruin star players. Yes, indeed, star ball players are more delicate than the daintiest bits of bric-a-brac.