“How could he help it?” replied Mabel. “His contract with the Giants has two years yet to run.”
“My dear young lady,” said Braxton, “don’t you know that a baseball contract isn’t as binding as the ordinary kind? In the first place, it’s one-sided, and that itself makes it worthless.”
“In what way is it so one-sided?” asked Mabel.
“Well, just to take one instance,” replied Braxton. “A baseball club may engage a man for a year and yet if it gets tired of its bargain, it can let him go on ten days’ notice. That doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“No-o, it doesn’t,” admitted Mabel slowly.
“It would be all right,” continued Braxton, “if the player also could leave his club by giving ten days’ notice. But he can’t. That’s what makes it unfair. The club can do to the player what the player can’t do to the club. So the supposed contract is only a bit of paper. It’s no contract at all.”
“Not in the legal sense, perhaps,” said Reggie, dubiously.
“Well, if not in the legal sense, then in no sense at all,” persisted Braxton. “The law is supposed to be based on justice, isn’t it, and to do what is right?
“Of course,” he went on, “it’s none of my 169 business; but if I were in Mr. Matson’s place, I shouldn’t hesitate a moment in going where my services were in the most demand.”
Mabel felt there was sophistry somewhere in the argument, but could hardly point out where it was.