Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 196, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1917 — COSTLY EXPERIMENTS WITH BAH PLAYERS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

COSTLY EXPERIMENTS WITH BAH PLAYERS

When the ball players begin to talk about the enormous profits made by the magnates and demand a larger cut of these profits than they may happen to be getting at the m.oment, they overlook one very Important item. This is the enormous amount that must be charged to depression each season. There probably is no other business in which this item is propdrtionately so large, unless perhaps it is the munitions-maklng game, in w-hlch an explosion is likely to blow the plant right off the map at atiy moment. Must Keep Building. It is, of course, among the players that the depreciation takes place. On the buildings and grounds the rate Is just about normal, but the athletes have to be renewed often and hardly one comes into possession of a big league club without considerable expense being involved in his acquisition. Just to cite an example of how fast a ball club’s personnel charges, take the roster of the Tigers at the beginning of the 1915 season. There is a picture hanging in President Navin’s Office that was, taken opening day, two years ago. Twenty-eight men are in the group. Manager Jennings and Coach Jimmy Burke may be listed as noncombatants, which leaves only 26 active players.

Of this number only 12 remain on the Detroit muster rolls. Counting Hughey and Jimmy, the squad now boasts only half of those 28 men that it had in the spring of 1915. List of Missing. Here is the list of those who have gone: Dubuc, Baker, Peters, Ledbetter, Jacobson, Cavet, Boehler, Smithson, Reynolds, Karr, Oldham, Moriarity, Kavanagh and Fuller. Of this number only three really earned their full salaries as Tigers. Dubuc rendered several seasons of good service and Moriarity was a valued member of the club from 1909 to 1915. Kavanagh put in two seasons in which he did good work and part of another in which he did nothing worth while. Baker was carried for some time and caught a few good games, but when the club comes to balance up with him it will,, be found that he received enormous pay—According to the piece scale —for everything he ever did. Peters, Ledbetter, Jacobson, Smithson and Karr were practically of no value to the Tigers, although each cost money "TiTbuyr to say nothing of expenses incurred on a training trip. Jacobson was carried a whole season so that Jennings could always have a reliable man on the bench when he wanted somebody to go up and strike out.

THREE TIGERS WHO EARNED THEIR SALARIES.