Clipping:Multi-year League contracts and the reserve; gate split
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| Date | Sunday, December 8, 1889 |
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| Text | It looks as if the National League club operators had little confidence in the reserve rule upon which they declare they rest their legal case against the ball players who have gone away from them. A number of the men who have left the brotherhood and gone back to the league clubs have signed contracts for a term of years, and more men who have not broken away have been offered contracts for more than one season. The fact is that the reserve rule has outlived its usefulness if it ever had any. It has been a delusion and a snare from its inception. The excuse behind its false front was that it enabled a small town to hold part of or a full team when it could not do so in an open market with the larger cities as bidders. When the rule was passed in 1880 but five players could be reserved. Gradually the number has been increased to fourteen. The scheme behind it was to enable the large cities to get a team at small city salaries and create large and steady profits at the expense of the player. Side by side with the reserve rule went the percentage system of dividing the gate receipts. This percentage was never more than 33 1/3, in 1887 it was abolished altogether, and now is, 40. Both the reserve rule and small percentage plan favored the larger cities, and by a combine they have been able to make steady profits and keep the game going by means of new recruits from the smaller towns attracted by ambition, hope, promises, and base-ball “fanism.” There was a natural way to operate base ball. It required no reserve rule, but would have meant smaller profits for the big clubs, an open labor market, and an equal division of the gate receipts. As it is, the big clubs have had all the benefits and none of the hardships of base-ball. They have set the financial pace on salaries and, by drawing the lion's share of the profits, forced the smaller clubs to extra expense with far less than even chances to make extra earnings. This is a succinct history of the inception and operation of the reserve rule, which as late as three years ago was never held to be binding outside of a league. The national agreement could not change the meaning of the term, though it did increase the number of people bound by it. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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