BASEBALL JURISPRUDENCE.

BY JOHN W. STAYTON, NEWPORT.

In this day of combinations and consolidations of small enterprises into one corporate body, to the mutual profit of all, it is not surprising to find that the amalgamator of corporations has taken up baseball with a view to both pleasure and profit.

Possibly there is no corporate body, if one may say such of the National Association of Professional Baseball Clubs, with which the public comes into closer and more sympathetic contact, than this association, and it possibly knows less of its inner nature and working machinery than of other bodies which live and move and have their being away from the limelight.

Baseball has been popular for years, not only as a means of physicial development, but as a diversion, and, perhaps, no one present is unfamiliar, if with the game as it is played today, at least with some of the earlier forms from which the present game has been evolved. It has long been a source of large revenue to players and those who promote baseball enterprises.

Prior to ten years ago baseball was played regularly only in the large cities, there being a league, comprising eight or ten clubs, playing in a circuit embracing the larger cities of the North and East, according to a fixed schedule of games, the whole under a single corporate management. The ownership of such clubs had become very valuable at that time, because the games were patronized largely by the public, and the progress of each club, as it advanced or fell behind in its winning, attracted as much attention as if the interests of the National Government were involved. Each city wanted to patronize a winning team, and the demand for skilful players began to exceed the supply The game had caught the public fancy so surely that it only remained for a man to write "Casey at the Bat" to spring overnight into public prominence, and an actor who first recited this poem has been a Broadway star ever since.

Other promoters of baseball enterprises, observing the comfortable profits of the larger clubs, entered the field by this time and formed smaller leagues, designed to cater to that portion of the public which was not in reach of the games played by the larger clubs, and these were scattered all over the country, each independent of the other, operating under rules of their own, and settling or attempting to settle their own disputed games and interdissensions of other nature.

At that time a corporation would be formed to own and operate, say an amusement park in each of four or more cities or towns, each park having a ball team of its own, employed to engage in games one against the other, but such clubs had no assurance that they could keep their players from one season to the other, or that they would not be hired away over night by some rival club just when a player's services were needed most, and thus the investment was on a somewhat precarious basis.

These conditions existed about ten years ago when the amalgamator waved his wand and created what is known as the National Agreement of Professional Baseball Clubs. In 1901 representatives of all the important leagues of the country got together and formed this agreement, which, by resolution, was created for ten years, and which, today, is the means by which every ball team in the country is not only governed, but the personnel thereof is kept together, at the will of the club owner, with an invisible and indissoluble tie that exists, not by the force of any common or statute law, but simply by the mandate of the agreement. Indeed the tie which binds is in the very teeth of the law, and it is in this this that the business of baseball is peculiar.

Other corporate promoters have carefully studied how close they may sail their ventures to the invisible line which binds their efforts into a compact whole and breathes the breath of legal immortality into it; but this amalgamation was conceived in legal sin, as it were, born of a desire to create an artificial body which should govern and control itself by its own decrees, and enforce them without the aid of the law, and answerable to no power outside its own. I do not know the name of the promoter who fathered this enterprise, but certain it is that an infant industry was born in that year, with no bar sinister of tariff pro

tection upon its ancestry, that has waxed hale and hearty since. then, and whose interest in the eyes of the public today is great; it is said, so great as, just recently, even to overshadow the public concern in the greatest of all issues of this Republic, the election of its President.

The object of the National Agreement, as stated therein, is "to perpetuate baseball as the national game of America, and to surround it with such safeguards as to warrent absolute public confidence in its integrity and methods; and to promote and afford protection to such professional baseball leagues and associations as may desire to operate under its provisions."

A governing body called the "National Board of Arbitration" was created, composed of five representatives selected by the National Association of Baseball Leagues, and such other members as might be admitted to membersip on the board thereafter by the board itself.

The board's duty, and it has full and final jurisdiction in such matters, is to "hear and determine all disputes and complaints between associations and clubs, between one club and another, members of the same or different associations; between club and players or managers, and, in addition thereto, all disputes or complaints arising under, and all matters pertaining to and involving the interpretation of the National Agreement, or the disposition of the rights thereunder. It has the power to pass upon any question brought before it by a club member or members of any organization, where unjust discrimination has been made against any club or clubs, and, if, upon a hearing, the board finds that such charges are true, it has the power to impose such fines or penalties as it deems proper, or to forfeit or teminate the privileges of such organization under the agreement, and it also may make assessments upon the members of the organization to pay necessary expenses in performing its duties and enforcing the agree

ment.

An association of baseball clubs, which desires to be protected under the terms of this agreement, must make application in writing stating the name of the league, the cities comprising the circuit or territory embraced therein, the monthly salary limit and a pledge for the maintenace thereof, and the faithful performance of its obligations under the agreement. Having once been

admitted, a club's officers, playing grounds, salary limit, constitution, by-laws, agreements and pledges cannot be changed without the consent of the Board of Arbitration.

The leagues are classified by the board according to the average population of the cities composing the league, Class A, compromising cities of 1,000,000; Class B, 400,000 to 1,000,000; Class C, 200,000 to 400,000, and Class D. up to 200,000, and each club has exclusive control of its own territory, no club from any other league, party to the agreement, being allowed to play a game in any city of the circuit, nor within five miles of such city, without the consent of the home club.

The object of the agreement is to tie the player up with his club so that he shall not be able to play with any other club, except with the consent of his employer. This is acocmplished by giving the board absolute control of the players and the clubs.

Under the form of contract prescribed by the board, and under which all players work, the player agrees for a stated sum per month, to devote his entire time and services, as a ball player, to his club during the period of the contract, and to conform to all the rules and regulations which his club has, or may thereafter, adopt, appertaining to his services. He also agrees not to render such services, during the time of the contract, to any other club without his employer's consent in writting. He also agrees that all the provisions of the National Agreement are a part of his contract and binding upon him, and in consideration of the foregoing, the club agrees to pay him his salary and necessary expenses when away from home.

It is further provided that should the player fail to comply with his agreement, or the provisions of his club, in regard to his services, or if he should be at any time intemperate, immoral, careless, indifferent, or conduct himself in such a manner, whether on or off the field, as to endanger or prejudice the interests of his club, or become ill, or otherwise unfit from any cause, or prove incompetent in the judgment of his employer, then his employer has the right to discipline him, suspend, fine or discharge him in any manner it shall see fit, and is to be the sole judge of the sufficiency of the cause for any such proceeding, and, in case of fine imposed, it may be withheld from his salary as liquidated damages.

At the close of the contract, it is provided that if the player's services should be desired for any periol of time, after the date mentioned in the contract for the expiration of the term thereof, or mentioned in any renewal of said contract, the employer shall have the right to the same, upon paying compensation to the player at the rate of one-thirtieth of the amount therein specified as the monthly salary of the player.

Under the agreement all of these contracts must be filed with the secretary of the Board of Arbitration, who keeps a list of the players so signed, and a club, once having conrtacted with a player, no other club can contract with him that season.

On or before September 25, of each year, the club owner proceeds to get his house in order for the next season's work. If any of the players then working for him seem desirable for the next year, he notifies the secretary of his league of their names, not exceeding fourteen in number, and this list is forwarded the Secretary of the Board of Arbitration, who promulgates it to all the other clubs. In addition to this, a list is sent of the players reserved in any prior annual reserve list, who have refused to contract, as well as a list of all players ineligible. Upon application of these lists by the board, these players are ineligible to contract with any other club, unless their club should be in arrears in salary with them, or unless they fail to present them with a contract for the ensuing season by the first of March, of that year, which contract, of course, contains the reservation clause.

Should a player under reserve contract with or play with any other club, without his employer's written consent, he is disqualified from playing ball with any club, member of the agreement, and all members are barred from playing with or against him. Should he desert his club, he must return to it—he cannot play with any other.

In other respects his freedom of contract is curtailed. A club of a higher class has the right, with the consent of the board and the player, after October 1, in each year, to select or draft players from a lower class, upon payment to the club from which the player is taken, for Class B, $300, for Class C, $200, and for Class D, $100. The period within which the various classes may draft players is so fixed that Class A gets