Clipping:Athletic Club finances 8
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| Date | Saturday, September 20, 1890 |
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| Text | Secretary Whittaker stated that the club's total indebtedness is $17,000. Of this $2650 is due players, $8000 is due to the officers and the balance is made up of various outstanding debts, such as unpaid advertising bills due the local papers, unpaid interest on the $9000 worth of bonds outstanding, unpaid accounts for material furnished last year by A. J. Reach & Co., and a large sum due Spalding Bros. for uniforms and other goods received this year; $8000 of the amount is said to be due the officers of the club for salaries and money advanced. Mr. Whittaker further said that the players were paid in full up to Sept. 1, when only about $2650 was due them. The players, however, tell a different story, claiming that the following sums are due them:-- Seward, $377; Robinson, $550; Purcell, $390; Welch, $600; Shafer, $400; O'Brien, $400; Lyons, $300; Kappel, $300, and Conroy, $300. Catcher Robinson, fielder Shafer and pitcher Seward have suits pending against the club for salaries due, and on the outcome of these legal proceeding will depend the future action of the other players. According to one of the Athletic Club's stockholders, the profits last season reached $30,000, and if any dividend was paid he heard nothing of it. What, then, became of the money? Up to July of this year the club certainly made some money. Where did it go? With a reserve of $30,000 (these were President Pennypacker's figures) and the profits that must have accrued from the early games this year, the club should have been able to withstand the present trouble. But it didn't. When told that a rumor was current to the effect that the officers had voted themselves large salaries, thus eating up all the profits of the club, Mr. Whitaker said:-- “As true as I stand here the monthly salaries of the officers of this club all put together only about equals Eddie Seward's monthly salary of $428.57. That is a fact, and Mr. Pennypacker and Mr. Sharsig will substantiate me in the statement. “That is right,” said Mr. Pennypacker, “but our salaries are for twelves months in the year.” But probably the explanation may be found in the story told by another stockholder, who declares that the club would not be in its present straits but for the fact that Messrs. Whittaker and Pennypacker, imitating the illustrious Boston triumvirate, had voted themselves large, comfortable salaries for their services as treasurer and president respectively. This was not known until the meeting before that of Monday, and it is claimed that their action was decidedly irregular, and may lead to troublesome complications. President Pennypacker doesn't like to talk about the financial aspect of the muddle, but when pushed falls back upon his old chestnut “that the failure is due to the Brotherhood movement and unfair treatment on the part of the newspapers.” The Sporting Life September 20, 1890 [N.B. Pennypacker denied the $30K figure in the following issue of TSL.] |
| Source | The Sporting Life |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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