Clipping:An editorial on player sales
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| Date | Monday, October 3, 1887 |
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| Text | [editorial matter] Base ball law is as intricate as it is curious. The League and the Association, the two great base ball organizations, practically control all the players in the land. They are bound by the same rules. These rules allow each club at the end of the playing season to reserve a certain number of men and these men have absolutely no choice in the matter. They must play as they are ordered or the blacklist is the result. They may desire to go to other clubs at higher salaries but are prohibited. Any club, however, can sell a man outright to another club, as Chicago a few months ago sold a player to Boston for $10,000. The player has absolutely no rights in the matter whatever. He may have a home of his own and a family to support, but if ordered to do so must pull up stakes for another city or quit playing ball. In other words, the moment he becomes a member of a base ball club, he is no longer master of himself, but is subjected to a slavery such as no corporation, however powerful, would dare enforce. He must sign a contract to play–a contract so one-sided that while he can never protest, his employers can break it at a moment’s notice. The Philadelphia Times October 3, 1887 arbitrary power in some clauses of the standard contract [from the Baltimore correspondent's column] Undoubtedly there are some clauses in the form of contract that should be obliterated entirely, others that should be modified, and the document could be made more perfect and beneficial to both manager and player by adding some new features. Wise employers like Mr. Rogers and Mr. Phelps admit that there are some features of the form of contract that are there to merely provide for a sort of an emergency; that they are seldom enforced, and but as a kind of safety valve to restrain the player from carrying too much steam. They are understood to admit that these clauses clothe one party to the contract with unusual—and it may be said—almost unlimited arbitrary power, but that this peculiar authority is recognized as such and is safe from abuse by the managers. If all the managers were but duplicates in intelligence, judgment and wise kindness, of Messrs. Phelps and Rogers, these gigantic and despotic powers might be safely lodged with them, but, unfortunately, some managers are ignorant creatures of impulse and passion, governed by likes and dislikes, swayed one moment to thoughtless indulgences, alternated by foolish, tyrannical behavior, easily moved to malice, with blunted ideas of justice; by native ability or education unfit and by accident of fortune an arbiter over the destinies of a small body of human beings. These, in common with the wise managers, have this awful power. The Sporting Life October 5, 1887 |
| Source | Philadelphia Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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