Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 233, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1914 — TROUBLES OF NATIONAL GAME [ARTICLE]

TROUBLES OF NATIONAL GAME

Federal League and European War Have Caused Big Loss In Gate Receipts This Season. Baseball has been a heavy loser this year because dr its own troubles with the Federal league war, and it is go ing to be a heavier loser because of the European war. How organised baseball will stand the two troubles that have overlapped, will be an interesting and vitally important development that must be awaited by thousands of persons, writes Tom Rice in Brooklyn Eagle. Already many occupations in this country have been seriously affected by the cutting off of imported raw material for manufacturing. The concerns involved will have to dose down because of a lack of work. The water front is already filled with idle men, who have been deprived of their incomes by the tying up of the foreign shipping trade. And so it will go. That the big leagues are in no danger of collapse for this season is almost a certainty, but that some of the minor leagues Will be crippled, or even crushed, is equally certain. One New England town already reported that it has 10.000 men out of work because the importers could not land stuff here from abroad. That sounds like the doom of whatever ball team that town has, and in the smaller leagues the death of a franchise usually means the crumpling of the circuit. The general tightening of money, with the tendency on the part of all hands to hoard, will have a widereaching effect on the club owners, not only for this year, but for next, and the era of excessively high salaries in the pastime will come to an end through no fault of either the players or the magnates.