Clipping:A resume of the Athletics history
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
 |
| Add a Clipping |
| Date | Sunday, February 16, 1868 |
|---|---|
| Text | The Athletic Club has probably done more than any other leading club now in existence to extend the popularity of the game by visiting country-towns year after year, certainly, so far as Pennsylvania and the several adjoining states are concerned. The good it accomplished in this respect, however, was in days gone by, when it was under very different auspices than it has been within the past two or three years. In fact, there is no questioning the truth of the statement that the Athletic Club owes its good name and fame to the energetic and liberal management of its old presiding officer, Col. Thomas Fitzgerald. The Colonel talked a good deal about his pet club, to be sure, when he was running the machine, as others have done since he left; but his successors, unlike him, have done nothing but talk. With him there was liberality and hospitality. He talked big, to be sure, but he acted big. When a club became the guests of the Athletics under the Fitzgerald regime, they were liberally treated; and if a Convention of ballplayers had been held in the Quaker City when he was the controlling power of the club, every delegate in the Convention would not only have returned home impressed with the liberality of the people of the city of Brotherly Love, in general, but especially with the generous hospitality of the Athletics in particular. But the powers that have held sway since the Colonel retired–Fitzgerald, we mean, and no more–have [illegible] the club’s name for liberality; and allowed its nine to become, in a measure, the mere tools of the “ring masters” of the Quaker City. This evil will, however, eventually work its own cure; and we hope this season will see the Athletics, as of old, as noted for playing every game as much to promote the popularity of the sport, as they were for their skill as players. New York Sunday Mercury February 16, 1868 division in the Mutual Club, and the temptations of gate receipts THE MUTUAL CLUB.–This crack playing-club of New York are at present considerably exercised among themselves in regard to the policy to be pursued by the club this coming season. A large number of the oldest and best members of the club are in favor of a return to the good old times when the Mutuals used to play at Hoboken more for sport than anything else; while, on the other hand, a class of the club are in favor of the gate-money policy, bit matches, large crowds, exciting items, plenty of cash receipts at the gate, and precious little fun except to the small minority of the club. Which of the two parties will prevail and govern the club we cannot say; but probably both will have their way, and a division be the result. In regard to the gate-money question, it is not that a club brings discredit upon itself by being the recipient simply of a share of the receipts at the gate, so much as it is that the system offers such temptation for getting up bogus matches, and for losing games for purposes of giving advantage to parties who bet high on a particular club’s winning. Besides, this gate-money system was so worked last yea as to make every club liable to suspicion of unfair play which was known to enter into it largely. If a club were to play the same fair and square games under the gate-money system that they used to do under the old style of tings, it would not matter; but experience has shown that they do no do so as a general thing. For instance, an exciting series of games is arranged between two crack clubs, and one wins the first game, and also have all the chances in their hands to win the second, with the odds in the betting-market largely in their favor. Now just see what temptation lies in their way to induce the winning party to lose the game, either by willful misplay, or by going into a match in a condition almost to insure defeat. The simple fact is, that they gain a heavy amount of stamps by betting against their own club, which has the odds in its favor, and they have another game–and the most exciting contest of the three–to reap a large amount of gate-money from; all of which would be lost if they were to win the second game, and thereby end the match. Of course, the credit of winning counts as nothing when so much money is in the way, and defeat becomes pecuniarily profitable. It is this temptation which is the evil of the gate-money system; and when men are found unscrupulous enough to aid clubs to thus bring discredit upon themselves and the game, by countenancing such arrangements for a share of the profits, it is no wonder that baseball begins to be regarded as [a] disgraceful occupation. That clubs can play on the square, and be the recipients of gate-money, we know for a fact. But others, again, cannot resist the temptations to enter the “Hippodrome” arrangements which the system admits of. Knowing this, many of the best members of the fraternity are beginning to frown upon the system; and, hence the efforts in the Mutual club to get the club back to Hoboken and the good old times of fun, frolic, and exercise which prevailed when gate-money arrangements were unknown. New York Sunday Mercury February 16, 1868 |
| Source | New York Sunday Mercury |
| Tags | |
| Warning | |
| Comment | Edit with form to add a comment |
| Query | Edit with form to add a query |
| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
Comments
<comments voting="Plus" />