Clipping:Amateur clubs hire professional batteries
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| Date | Wednesday, June 6, 1888 |
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| Text | [from Chadwick's column] With the pace of modern pitching an amateur's work behind the bat has come to be too arduous and dangerous for the general class of amateurs, and, consequently, it has of late years become a rule with amateur clubs to allow their battery players to be professionals. This rule is one which the Staten Island Cricket Club, the Staten Island Athletic Club and the New Jersey Athletic Club have in their Amateur League; hence their engagement of Carr, Gaunt and Joe Reilly to do the catching in their respective teams. … Mr. De Garmendia, of the Staten Island Athletic Club's nine, asked me to call the attention of the Amateur League to the fact that one of the clubs of that League is violating the spirit of the League rule which admits of the employment of professional players in their amateur ranks. He says that the second baseman and one of the outfielders employed by the New Jersey Athletic Club are professional players of the Monitor Club, of New York, who take part regularly in the Sunday games of that professional club, and thereby are ineligible to play in any position on any of the Amateur League's club teams, except as either pitcher or catcher. The fact that a player takes part in a professional contest regularly in Sunday gate-money games, for which service all are entitled to pay by a salary or a share of the gate money, is prima facie evidence that they are professional players, whether proof of actual payment is lacking or not. Stick to your rules, gentlemen. If you want to engage a professional team to represent your club, well and good; there is nothing against it that I see. But if, on the other hand, you only desire to use professionals as battery players, why, still well and good. But don't engage to place a limited professional nine in the field and then extend the list sub rosa, as in this alleged case. The New Jersey Athletic Club's base ball members certainly have enough good players in their ranks without need to draw upon professionals for either outfield or infield assistance, especially when it can only be done by a violation of League rules. |
| Source | Sporting Life |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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