Clipping:Junior and exempt members
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| Date | Thursday, January 23, 1868 |
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| Text | [pseudonymous commentary, the pseudonym illegible:] The matter I allude to is that of the rule in the Constitution [of the New York state association] making it imperative for each player in a match game to be a voting member of the club he represents before he can legally take part in a match. It appears to me that this clause in our State Association Constitution is an arbitrary interference with the private business of clubs, not warranted either by a regard for the welfare of the Association, or by a desire to promote the best interests of the game. Its operation is to interfere with the private regulations of two of our principal clubs, viz., the Excelsior of Brooklyn and the Union of Morrisania. As regards the former, it has compelled the club–in their desire to abide by all regularly authorized laws and enactments while they remain on the statute books of the Association with which they are connected–to admit their junior members to vote; and its effect on the latter has been to the same purpose, in giving their exempt class of members a right to vote on the disposition of the funds they have in no direct way contributed to place in the treasurer’s hands. ... ... One of the most potent arguments against [this rule] likes in its injurious effects on the interests of junior players. We are all fully aware how necessary it is to the welfare and permanence of base ball that the junior players should be encouraged, and in no way can this object be so thoroughly attained as by organized junior nines of senior clubs. Junior organizations are advantageous in their way, but, unfortunately, they are too liable to be affected by the injurious influences of older parties, who have special axes to grind; beside which, they will ever find it difficult to keep up a regular organization. On the other hand, if they exist as a class under the fostering care of a well established senior organization, they have not only incentives for improvement as player, arising from opportunities afforded to enter the nines of the senior class, but the pecuniary liabilities cease to trouble them, and they also enjoy, as a class, all the facilities of a large club for playing purposes, without any of the attendant expenses. This should always be the status of the junior class of a senior club, and this is the position of those in one club I know of. Now, under these circumstances of non-liability for expenses, and of free access to the advantages of field exercise, I certainly think that the privilege of voting, which takes with it the power to dispose of the funds in the treasury of a club, should be confined to those members of a club who contribute their yearly amounts to the treasury as regular members of the club; and I also consider that these paying members of a club have a perfect right to elect players into the club and grant them any special privileges, without the impertinent interference–for that is what it amounts to–of either the National or State Association. If this law should be continued in effect, the result would be that clubs–like the Excelsior, for instance–would be deprived of the power to organize and encourage junior players, and other clubs, like the Union Club of Morrisania, would be deprived of affording good ball players opportunities to indulge in their favorite game, who have not the means to contribute to the funds of the club, except through their services as players. |
| Source | American Chronicle of Sports and Pastimes |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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