The principal fact of congratulation lies in the safeguards and provisions which have been thrown around the players of the minor leagues and in the equitable and just measures which have been agreed upon to provide for their future.
As a general rule it may be taken for granted that the players of the major leagues can take care of themselves. That is to say, their positions, if they are expert in their calling, and conscientious in their deportment, really take care of them.
No club owner, unless he is maliciously or foolishly inclined, will jeopardize the interests of his team by acting in a wilfully unjust manner toward a player who is cheerfully and uprightly offering his services. We may hear of occasional exceptions to this condition of things, but if these occasional exceptions chance to arise, it is inevitably certain that the owner in the long run will suffer to a greater degree than the player with whom he deals unfairly.
It is the history of Base Ball that more inequitable treatment has arisen by fifty per cent in the minor leagues than has had its origin in the major leagues. The reason for this existed almost wholly in the inability of Base Ball as a whole to bring the minor league owners to a realization of the injury that they might be doing and to extend such punishment and insist upon such regulation as were necessary to change this undesirable condition.
By the organization of the National Association of Base Ball clubs the minor leagues, for the first time in their history, placed themselves in a position where they could demand proper enforcement of regulations for the government of the sport, and by their alliance with the major league clubs, under the articles of the National Agreement, a general working basis was effected whereby compliance with rules could be insisted upon.
The result of this admirable condition of affairs is that wisdom and equity now rule where there once existed chaos and at times something akin to anarchy in sport.
At no time in the history of the game, which is so dear to the hearts of the American people, has the general legislative and executive body been so well equipped by the adoption of pertinent and virile laws to insist upon justice to all concerned as at the present moment.
The new National Agreement is an improvement upon the old and the old was a long, long step in advance of anything which had preceded it. The mere fact that club owners and leagues were so willing to adopt a system better than its predecessor wholly confutes the absurd assertions of the radical element that there is no consideration shown for the player.
To the contrary, every consideration has been shown to the player, but the latter must not confound with the consideration shown to him the idea that his interests are the only interests at stake in Base Ball. The man who is willing to furnish the sinews of war has as good standing in court as the player who furnishes the base hits and the phenomenal catches.
So perfect is the system which is being attempted to be set in force by the new National Agreement that the young man who now essays to play professional Base Ball may be assured of steady advancement in this profession and a generally improving condition if he will be as honest by his employer as he expects his employer to be honest by him.