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Players Hopping Mad Over Wage Cut

As the first season following the League’s decision to reduce wages has concluded, an air heavy with anger, frustration and despair hangs over British professional baseballers, and to their detriment if they are not careful.

The very best baseballers have withstood wage cuts approaching forty per cent and merely average players by roughly ten per cent, as numerous clubs had claimed operating losses stemming from reduced turnover, due to dissipating gates over the prior few seasons. Advocated by representatives of a number of small and medium-sized League clubs, chief among them Newton Heath, Manchester City and Burton United, the hope is that by controlling wage bills, greater equality of competition will be encouraged, thus leading to greater interest among paying supporters and ultimately increased gate. It is also assumed that the best players will have no financial motive to move clubs, and thus the gap between rich and poor can be reduced.

Equality of competition is also the goal behind changes regarding the transfer of players, and the board report of Messrs. J. C. Clegg, Charles Crump and C. W. Alcock, made so long ago as September last, was adopted with one unimportant alteration. The desire of the board was that clubs and professionals should be able to make more permanent engagements than is now possible, and that when a player’s term is approaching a close his club should have special facilitates for retaining his services, while, on the other hand, a player should be quite free to join another club. The chief recommendations are :—That no larger fees be demanded than the amounts paid by clubs on acquiring players; that a player may be registered for any period agreed upon; that clubs may not retain professional players without payment, or amateurs unless they play regularly.

None of these changes have exercised baseballers quite so as has the wage cut. Some players have grumbled that the clubs, operating in secrecy, may not have been entirely above board regarding their finances. But that is of little use to their cause, as there is no sense of compulsion among club owners to let their books fly open for the scrutiny of all. British baseballers have few options at their disposal. The only other country in the world with an active professional baseball league is America, where the National League lords over all others, and whilst that league pays quite handsomely in comparison to the League here, the prevailing view from across the sea of even the best players of the British game is not at all charitable.

British baseballers may be incensed and, as one wag is rumoured to have opined, no amount of achievement awards will make up for the reduced wages. But given the choice between the pits and the pitch, it is obvious which even the most stubborn baseballers will choose, and club owners know this quite well. The wage cut is here to stay, and the player will simply have to adapt.