- Mike Keller (minor league manager) Coming for First Choice of Nine Cardinal Discards.
- Pitchers To Include Ames, Meadows, Watson, Doak, Niehaus, Steele, North, Horstman and Gardenier
January 7, 1917 Age 26
By Harry F. Pierce The St Louis Star and Times
St. Louis. This will be a busy week for Miller James Huggins, manager of the Cardinals. Huggins’ task for the next four or five days will be to select the players he intends to offer contracts for next season, figure out the salary he believes each athlete should receive, and submit the documents to Mrs. Britton for her approval. When this is accomplished, Mrs. Britton will turn the papers over to Kenneth Mooney, who will mail the original contracts and duplicates to each player Huggins deems worthy of retention.
Quite a few athletes who drew handsome stipends from the Robison Field treasure chest last season will not receive the long gray envelopes they expect the mailman to hand them within the next two weeks. Huggins has decided to discard no less than nine of the season’s warriors. Those who need not anticipate new contracts are infielders Zinn Beck, Artie Butler and Stuffy Stewart, Pitchers Joe Lotz, Reese Williams, Dwight Currie and Jack Warmoth, Outfielder Owen Wilson and Catcher Tony Brottem.
Manager Mike Kelley of the St. Paul A.A. Club is due in St. Louis this week. Kelley is coming here for the purpose of taking some of the Cardinal discards off Huggins’ hands. The Celtic leader of the Apostles has first choice of the athletes to be cast adrift by the Cards, and he intends to close a deal for their services before Milwaukee, Louisville and Montreal begin the anticipated scramble for leftovers.
The players who will receive contracts are: Pitchers Ames, Meadows, Watson, Doak, Niehaus, Steele, North, Horstman and Gardenier, infielders Miller, Betzel, Hornsby, Cohen, De Fate, F. Smith, Jones and Williams. Catchers Gonzales, Livingston, Snyder and Roche, Outfielders J. Smith, Long and Bescher. Thus it appears that Huggins will have one of the smallest squads in the South next month, unless he lands certain players he is after from major and minor league clubs.