Clipping:A proposed corps of professional umpires

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Date Sunday, August 20, 1876
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League umpires will probably be adopted next year. They will be regularly salaried (says the Cincinnati Enquirer), each club contributing an equal share towards it. There will be four or five of them, according as there are eight or ten clubs. The League secretary will send them to different cities when there is a call for them. New York Sunday Mercury August 20, 1876

The necessity of taking steps to secure just, regular and consistent decisions on disputed points in championship games has been often shown. These games have become interesting to a vast number of people who keenly enter into the merits of the contests and ally themselves in feeling to one or other of the contesting nines. To them the winning or losing of a league game by their favorites is a considerable matter of feeling, and sometimes much more so of dollars. Boards of trade select their most reputable and nescient members to fill the positions of presidents and arbitrators, and do not leave their business to Tom, Dick or Harry, as he may come to hand. They select a man for his knowledge of the matter in hand and for ability to expound that knowledge correctly. Again we do not choose a fresh judge in our courts every time a case comes up, but have one always on hand to decide such matters as may from time to time require adjustment. The league and the championship games claim to be run on business principles; why then do they employ the Dicks, Toms and Harrys that may be hanging around a ball ground, instead of having men of their own, paid to do their work properly and consistently? Under the present system one man rules one way and another man rules directly opposite, and one club may get the adverse ruling in both cases. Umpires should be selected at the beginning of the next season, thoroughly instructed by the secretary of the league as to the interpretation of the rules, and bound over under penalties to so interpret them. What is wanted is uniformity of umpiring, and men of undoubted reputation as judges of the game, on the result of which tens of thousands of dollars sometimes change hands. New York Sunday Mercury August 27, 1876

Source New York Sunday Mercury
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Submitted by Richard Hershberger
Origin Initial Hershberger Clippings

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