Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 147, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1918 — NEW INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT A VETERAN [ARTICLE]

NEW INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT A VETERAN

"Sage of Auburn” Has Been Connected With Game Many Years. Served Long and Faithfully as Secre* tary of National Association of Professional Baseball Clubo— Has Wide Scope. John H. Farrell, the new president of the International league, is something of a baseball genius. The “Sage of Auburn” is a real vet eran in the game, for he has been connected with baseball for many years and there isn’t an angle of the pastime which is unfamiliar to him. As secretary of the National Association of Professional Baseball Clubs. Farrell has served long and faithfully. Many a time his sage advice has served as a prop to a tottering mlnoi league, and with Mike Sexton, the venerable president of the minor league body, Farrell has been a godsend to the minors. When the club owners of the disrupted International league decided to reorganize their circuit this spring the first important thing they set out to do was to find a man capable of taking charge of affairs for them. They did not look far, but when the berth was tendered to Farrell it was done so with a foreboding that he would not accept. His decision to take over the affairs of the league as its president put new life into the war-weary club owners and the International league was saved to baseball. By merging the International with the New York State league, of which Farrell was president, the circuit was made more compact than ever before and the best paying cities in both leagues now make up the new organization. Farrell now has a wider scope to display his baseball ability. That he will pull the new league through and eventually put it on a firm basis is a practical certainty, for Farrell doesn’t know what the word “can’t” means. No man in the pastime knows more ball players than Farrell. He has the name of every ball player in the minor leagues at his finger tips, and he knows all about every man jack of them. As president of the New York State league he dug up many promising players for his club owners. His league produced such stars as Eddie Murphy, Wallie Plpp, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Frank Schulte, Helnie Zimmerman, Leon Cadore, Jack Graney, John Evers, Fred Coumbe, Leon Ames, Bill Hinchman and Steve O’NeilL