Clipping:A justification of the reserve in the majors but not the minors
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| Date | Wednesday, December 22, 1886 |
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| Text | [from the editorial column] the only privilege withheld from the minor leagues is the reserve privilege. That they should not have. If every organization in the country should have the right to hold its players indefinitely base ball would stagnate. There would be no improvement possible; no further incentive for the players, who could not advance in their profession; no club could strengthen itself; the big clubs could draw no supply of fresh blood from the minor leagues; the minor leagues could draw no fresh supply from each other, and everything would dwindle to a dead level of monotonous sameness which would soon kill the game. Under such a system a champion club would remain so indefinitely, as the other clubs could get no new material to strengthen with. It would also be a rank injustice to minor league players to permit them to be reserved in these smaller organizations. They would be cut off from all chance of promotion and increased salary. Every player of any ability or ambition looks forward to a place in the higher leagues; for that he works and strives to perfect himself; that is the goal of his ambition. Of course he must commence in a minor league; now, what folly it would be to permit that minor league to put the fetters of the reserve rule upon the ambition of the young player, and chain him to a place where no higher honors are possible. The injustice of it must strike all sensible persons at a glance. Reserve is necessary in the highest class, and, with the exception of some few individual cases, cannot be regarded as a hardship to the players. They can get no higher, therefore their reserve does not check ambition; all possible glory having been attained, the player has but the financial reward of his work to consider, and it is sole to prevent ruinous competition here that the reserve rule was instituted, and under these circumstances has proven a wise measure, and to some extend the savior of the National game. None of these conditions exist, however, in the minor Leagues, and therefore the power to reserve would not only be superfluous, but positively detrimental to the game at large and the minor leagues themselves in particular. These bodies now have so little to complain of that all talk of “war” becomes positively childish. Let us hear no more of it. |
| Source | Sporting Life |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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