Clipping:Ward on baseball law; labor and capital
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
 |
| Add a Clipping |
| Date | Wednesday, November 30, 1887 |
|---|---|
| Text | [from Harry Palmer's column][from an interview of Ward] The organization of the Brotherhood...was due almost entirely to a feeling which existed among some of us, who had given the subject much thought, that base ball had grown into too huge an amusement enterprise to exist under and be controlled by base ball law. The contract which clubs were each year asking their men to sign were not legal instruments. A club or a player could have at any time appealed to the law and have set aside the provisions of that contract. Under such circumstances one or two powerful League clubs could at any time have found a means of making such a code subservient to their ends. This was not in accordance with the rapid and remarkable growth of the game as a business enterprise. It protected neither club nor the player. It was practically a useless instrument—this contract. I, together with others, felt that no change in the existing condition of things could be affected by individual effort. Whatever was accomplished must be the result of concerted action, and to this end the Brotherhood was organized. Almost immediately after our organization was effected, sensational newspaper writers—self-constituted champions of our cause—placed the objects of our Brotherhood upon 'a labor and capital' contest basis, and began to lace words in the mouths of myself and other members which told what our organization would do if the League did not accede to our demands. Now, there was no spirit of 'demand' or coercion in the breast of any official connected with the Brotherhood. Our desire was simply to meet the League in friendly conference to the end of bringing about the existence of relations which would prove mutually beneficial—and beneficial to the game itself as to club stockholders and to players. To be sure, there was a desire upon the part of the Brotherhood for official recognition at the hands of the League. We did not deserve it through any spirit of bombast or shallow conceit, but because we believed it would exert an elevating influence in the direction of our profession. And it has done so. The circumstance of that meting and its results has lifted the game and the professional ball player to a point in public esteem which neither ever before occupied. |
| Source | Sporting Life |
| Tags | |
| Warning | |
| Comment | Edit with form to add a comment |
| Query | Edit with form to add a query |
| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
Comments
<comments voting="Plus" />