Teams Will Probably Have to Limit Itinerants to Fifteen or Sixteen During Coming Season
March 5, 1918 Age 27
The Pittsburgh Press
New York, March 5. Not only must a. majority of the big-league ball players accept reduced salaries this year, but also they will be deprived of several expensive luxuries at the instance of Uncle Sam. The club-owners already have learned that railroad accommodations will be curtailed in such a manner that it will be impossible to obtain concessions of any kind. The government will not permit the ball clubs to charter special trains or Pullman sleepers for the exclusive use of the players.
The club-owners and their teams must take their chances on slow trains between western and eastern cities. The low and high-salaried players must run the risk of sleeping in upper berths, once considered a terrible hardship.
Limited meals in dining cars and way station lunchrooms will put an end to overeating, a practice in which many famous diamond experts have indulged with no regard for their physical condition.
In addition to this unpleasant outlook, the players of nearly all of the major league teams will have to put up with cheaper hotel accomodations. There will be no taxicab rides to and from ball parks and no trunks in which uniforms, bats, masks, gloves and other paraphernalia can be packed. The players must ride in trolley cars and carry their own baggage.
Uncle Sam, therefore, is prepared to make each player do his bit, and also is getting ready to draft many of the tossers into the national army. All of this means that the magnates will be compelled to reduce expenses, whether they like it or not. The railroad restrictions will force the club-owners and managers to meet new conditions by carrying the smallest possible number of players on the trips away from home.
In order to avoid confusion and delays, the magnates are figuring on about 15 or 16 players for each club on the road. It may be necessary to further reduce the number in order to make proper connections.
Already one of the American league managers says that when his team visits other cities he will limit the party to two catchers, four pitchers, four infielders, three outfielders, a trainer and a business manager, 16 in all. If a regular is injured, his place will be filled by one of the catchers or pitchers until a substitute can be called from the home city. It Is believed that this policy will prevail in both circuits before the coming season is a month old.
Meanwhile, lots of new fashions for the ladies in 1918….
