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SIGNAL-GUN boomed in St. Louis on a rainy afternoon last September and set the town to rioting. Cowbells and klaxons blasted endlessly for tramping masqueraders who celebrated the winning of the first modern baseball pennant for the city. When the Cardinals came home a few days later, mother left her stove, father shut down business, and children straddled the hoods of broken-down motor-cars while the heroes rode through confetti lane.

The Yankees also won a pennant. One thin line wrinkled the bland face of the metropolis. There was some agitation about ticket-scalping; but otherwise New York applauded the hero, scorned the villain, and chuckled with the comedian, regardless of the uniform he wore.

The contrast runs through baseball, once a sport but now a department of the theatrical business. St. Louis was the last frontier. The romantic soul of the national game expired during that aimless dancing. The pioneer artist, colorful but impractical, made the inevitable resignation to the college man, the "pageturner" whom he once despised, hazed, and isolated.

When the present season began, there were 107 men, representing 79 colleges, in the major leagues. They held one-third of the regular positions and included many of the brightest stars. More than half of the raw material is now culled from the campus, and the minor leagues are well populated with collegians who are in training for major-league jobs. Within five years the collegians will have a clear majority in the big leagues; and their numbers will increase; baseball is a new and lucrative profession.

Although the theory of the game itself has been constant, the influx of college men has caused radical changes in the atmosphere, background, and personnel of baseball. Lured by the rich rewards in the game, they have remained to elevate it to a profession with standards of respectability which compare favorably with the more conservative professions and contrast strongly with the Bowery period in the history of the sport. In the words of Connie Mack, veteran manager of the Athletics, the collegian has taken the play away from the roughneck and the fighter. Moreover, he has dominated the game until the sand-lot product is emulating the collegian in dress and habits and, as far as possible, in education.

"In the old days," Mack says, “it was easy to distinguish the collegian; now it is impossible. Every man is trying to improve his position."

Colonel Jacob Ruppert, owner of the Yankees, explains the gold-rush to the diamond.

"In what other profession can a college man earn $6,000 or more in his first year and $100,000 in ten years if he becomes a regular? He is still a young man when he is through with the game and has capital enough to step into his more serious work.”

George Davis, now with Reading in the International League, but the property of the Yankees, is applying the current idea most strongly. He graduated from New York University in 1926, joined the Yankees, and was married—all in his twenty-first year. He plays ball from March to October, and from October to March practises his profession of accounting in New York City and studies law at N. Y. U.

"I will get my law degree in six years

and believe it will be an ideal battery mate for accounting. I love baseball and will play it as long as it is profitable; whenever I am ready to quit I will have my law practice built up."

Baseball is a profession for college athletes, but a secondary profession which they use to help them on their way to their serious work. The non-college men have copied the idea until almost all of the baseball class doubles during the winter in some other occupation which they are building for the day when they will no longer command a major-league salary. They utilize the cash and capitalize the fame of the national game and are generally shrewd, sensible young fellows intent upon getting somewhere in a hurry and with little time for the foibles and dissipations of those earlier heroes who regarded the summer as one grand lark and the winter as a period of basking in hero-worship.

Your ancient baseball man looked upon a big-league scout as a divine messenger and thankfully accepted whatever salary was offered for the privilege of enjoying himself. He travelled cheaply from town to town, rode to the ball parks in buses drawn by horses decked with gaudy blankets, dodged cabbages, and returned epithets hurled by irate fans, was something of a Don Juan, drank beer, played poker, spiced his life with suitable tales and practical jokes, and generally conducted himself as a stout man should. His winters were apt to be idle; if he worked at all, it was as a hotel clerk, bartender, or some such public office where he was assured of an audience of satellites.

"When you approach a man now," said Paul Kritchell, head scout of the Yankees, "he wants to know how much bonus you will pay for signing, and is apt to hold you off while he considers other offers. We used to go on the sand-lots and pick up ready-made players as bargains; now we have to pay for the privilege of training them. They don't have business courses in the colleges for nothing."

The modern player spends six weeks in Florida, California, Texas, or Louisiana as the guest of the club, is conducted to and from his hotels by a solicitous travelling secretary, rides taxicabs, special

trains, and motor-buses, and, if he is a regular, is never asked to ride an upper berth. During the last world series the writer made three trips between New York and St. Louis on special trains equipped with barbers, stenographers, and maids for the wives of the players.

The contemporary baseball-player has his motor-car, plays golf and bridge, wears correct clothes, and generally looks more prosperous and debonair than the average millionaire. He is usually married and unusually faithful to his marriage vows, although he will flirt to pass an idle hour. He practises the social graces, observes the proprieties, and is seldom aggressive or rude with women. Having other interests, he does not play the game off the field as his predecessor did, but is apt to forget it unless it threatens his personal fortunes. He is not bookish; but on any major-league baseball club you will find some man capable of discussing your hobby or business.

On the field the old-time player gave of himself without reserve. The rewards were not great and he played the game because he enjoyed it. He was out to win at any cost and gave no quarter. He abused the umpire vocally and physically, walked upon his feet with spiked shoes, or spat tobacco juice upon him. He would cut down a baseman without apology, trip a fielder, laugh at a broken finger of an opponent, fight a teammate in the club-house for losing a game, haze the rookies, isolate a young fellow who might take his job, and abuse a weakling until he quit the club. But after the game he forgot his animosities, bought a drink for the man he had spiked, and kept an eye open the next afternoon for reprisals.

The modern player, although he usually likes the game, plays it primarily as a business, and conserves his strength to prolong his earning power. He sees no use in getting excited enough to injure an opponent, and he evades feuds which might shorten his career or worry him into the discard. He wants to be a friend to his fellows, including the umpire, whose power has increased tremendously since those barbaric days when his very life was in danger.

So we have the era of the athlete who greets his friends on the opposing club

and apologizes for bumping them on the base-lines-the hand-shaker so abhorred by John McGraw, who declares that the player of to-day is too friendly and too wealthy to give his best to his club. To such criticism the hand-shaker listens abstractly with his tongue in his cheek and then goes about his-business. He is not a physical coward. He can fight and swear or cut a man down as in the old days, but he reserves these spasms until good business requires them. This is why a world-series contest is so much more interesting than the humdrum games of the regular season. The players give all of themselves on every action. Money drips from every pitched ball; for real money your modern will hustle and fight. In the previous era the crowd took a more intimate part in the pastime. Stands were smaller, the character of players welcomed intimacy, and the savage type of game stirred the fans as it did the men on the field. There was considerable civic jealousy, and this was vented upon the club which represented the other city and upon the umpire when he did not favor the home team. The spectator had as much personal interest in a major-league baseball game as the undergraduate of a college now has in his football eleven. Consequently Mr. Fan suffered, shouted, swore, and wanted to kill the umpire. His baseball was as important as his religion, lodge, and job, because it bit so deeply. That spirit still lives in the smaller minor leagues but disappears as the towns grow larger. In the major leagues the rabid rooters are frankly regarded as "nuts."

To the average big-league spectator baseball is now a species of the theatre, and the player is as remote and impersonal as the actor on Broadway. The chief difference is that the stage play is "framed." Roxie Hart is acquitted eight times each week in "Chicago," but you can never tell about a ball game until the last man is out. Al Jolson will give you a Mammy song at each and every appearance, but you cannot rely upon Babe Ruth hitting his homer.

The man who yells in the ball park today is jeering or cheering reactions, not men. These reactions are more pleasant if the home team wins, and to that extent

he is a local rooter; but civic pride expressed in terms of a professional baseballteam is a joke to him. Ruth, Hornsby, or Alexander are approved or disapproved according to the rôles they play. The players know this and return the compliment. Your modern athlete has little illusion about applause. I rode recently in a taxicab with one of the brightest of the stars. He returned salutes with an enthusiasm which no doubt sent many men boasting to their offices. Luckily they could not hear his comment-particularly those feminine worshippers who haunt hotel lobbies in search of celebrated smiles.

The personal bond between player and spectator has disappeared, partly because of the sophistication of the college player, partly because the massive stadia make actors of the athletes, but principally because the sound economics of the business men, abetted by the serious young men from the campus, has developed the care-free national sport into an efficient machine which permits commercial sentiment only. The following table, checked by John McGraw, reveals the growth of baseball as a business:

The period from 1876, when the National League was organized, to 1903, when the first world series was played (the American League was formed in 1900), was the era of the pioneer, who probably never recovered from his amazement at being paid for playing the game he loved. There was no player value and few stands of any consequence. The year 1903 also marked the first complete season in which John McGraw managed the New York Giants. The veteran manager tells the story of the business advance during the romantic age from 1903 until 1920, when the game felt the double impetus of the bat of Babe Ruth and the reaction from the World War:

"There was little value to a franchise

from the players, because we just picked them up, usually; but in 1908 I paid $11,000 to Indianapolis for Rube Marquard, and the era of big prices for minorleague stars was on. The next year Pittsburgh built the first of the modern stadia. In 1913 the Federal League invasion of our ranks sent our salary bills up, and these were boosted again shortly after the war, when we gave the money to the players rather than to government taxes. Then Ruth started the era of the big hitters. He brought people to baseball games who would never have come otherwise, and his influence on the sport has been tremendous."

The type of player of the first period continued until late in the second, although he had become accustomed to being paid, and took complete advantage of the situations created by the purchase of Marquard and the Federal League. Baseball was a recognized business, but a loose one, in which the good fellow was king. He still had appetites to gratify and emotions to satisfy and was now provided with plenty of money for both. The manner in which he spent created excellent copy for the sporting pages, and there was as yet little of business efficiency or restraining culture to cramp the style of individualists like Rube Waddell, Ossie Shreck, Heinie Zimmerman, Bugs Raymond, Phil Douglass, and their cousins in temperament. The growth of the game to financial importance also tempted the baseball crooks, who had their brief opportunity just before the period ended.

In 1920 Colonel Jacob Ruppert, a wealthy New Yorker who had taken up baseball as a hobby, put up $475,000 to bring Babe Ruth from Boston to New York. Of this figure, $125,000 was the purchase price and $350,000 a loan on the Red Sox park. Colonel Ruppert watched the country make a king of his slugger during 1921, when Ruth established his record of 59 home runs. Soon the King had a palace worthy of him-the tripledecked Yankee Stadium, which is baseball's most imposing monument.

In the seven years he has been with the Yankees, Ruth has been largely responsible for the doubling of salaries during that short time for all players. The

testimony of McGraw is typical of the magnates. The players support Ruth in all of his salary fights. "We depend upon men like Ruth to increase our salaries all along the line," one of his team-mates told me while the big Bambino was negotiating for his three-year contract at $70,000 each season.

This, then, is the era of Ruth; and it is fitting indeed that the reigning monarch of baseball's golden age should be so frankly of the type of man who founded the game. Babe is of the old school. He plays the game because he loves it and is a true amateur at heart. He has appetites and emotions which give way to no glad spirit of diamond antiquity. But he is the last of the old school. The collegians are here. Gehrig and Waner await.

There were a few in the old days. Cap. Anson, first of the immortals, attended Notre Dame University in the seventies. He dominated the era of the pioneers as truly as Christy Mathewson did that of the age of romance. Matty of Bucknell, however, was only the precursor of the hordes who have changed the game from a sport to a business. College men who drifted into baseball before 1916, when the playing days of Big Six ended, were treated none too kindly. They were regarded as outsiders, scorned as "page-turners" whose path often led through hazing, insults, and isolation. But their numbers increased with the salary boosts, and when Ruth opened the present rich vein the rush was on.

Most of them are willing to serve apprenticeship in the minor leagues, as the property of big-league clubs, and because of this the smaller organizations also have a large college population; but few will go back to the "sticks" after they have definitely failed in the majors. Some refuse to waste even a year in a minor league. Johnny Mohardt, a baseball and football star at Notre Dame, joined the Detroit Tigers after graduation in 1922. After a short trial he was sent to the International League, but never reported. Instead, he enrolled at the medical school of Northwestern University, played semiprofessional baseball and professional football while studying, and graduated in 1926. He is now serving his interneship, and plans to study abroad.

"I figured I would be further ahead after five years than fooling around the minors; it has not been so pleasant or exciting nor so comfortable," he told me last fall, "but my real value as a surgeon will begin just about when I would have been through as a ball-player."

Moe Berg, of Princeton, Columbia, and the White Sox, is now specializing in foreign languages. Hub Pruett, of Missouri and the Phillies, studies medicine at the University of Chicago during the off

season.

Impatient and ambitious young men of this type present considerably more of a problem to the manager than the oldtimer, who was apt to be penniless and dependent upon the will of his manager when the season began. The task of handling this type of player, with money invested and an alternative profession beckoning, requires practical psychology rather than a whip.

"You can't satisfy them," Connie Mack states. "If you offer them $6,000, they want $7,000; and if you don't handle them carefully they threaten to quit you altogether." He credits part of this independence, however, to the war, which, in his opinion, has made all young men more daring in financial matters.

McGraw, who has been famous for his iron hand, finds the collegian an easier pupil than the sand-lotter. "You can reason with a college player better than the others, and he is more apt to grasp your ideas quickly.

"But he does not come to you with as much baseball knowledge, because he has participated in several sports at school, while the sand-lotter usually confines his efforts to baseball. It has been my experience that it is human nature for all men to stray now and then, and you have to check them with respect to their temperaments."

Rogers Hornsby, energetic young captain of the Giants, who brought St. Louis its world series last year before being traded-because he could not agree with his owner on his contract figures-is not a college man. His attitude is simple:

"I don't care where they come from or what they do all I want them to do is to hustle out there for me.”

And there you are. Most baseball men,

old and young, new school and old, agree that baseball is softer, more effeminate, more luxurious, than of yore; but that it is cleaner, more creditable, and more profitable, and on the whole much more to be approved than the original model of the pioneer or the gay pastime of the romancer. The distinction between collegian and sand-lotter does not exist in practice. The campus product has the situation well in hand, but he does not repay the hazing or isolation of other days. It is just one business man to another. They give the public a square deal, get as much as they can while working, but never forget that baseball is their business. The energy which the men of '76 put into baseball, the men of '27 now throw into golf.

The public finds baseball more and more entertaining but seeks boxing and football for the contact stuff. The national game has lost its vital thrill. Students of history may find something in that.

The percentage of collegians in each of the major leagues is almost equal, as the National has 54 and the American 53. They have been furnished almost entirely by the East, South, and Middle West. In the East, 30 schools have sent up 40 players; in the South, 22 colleges have produced 31 major-leaguers; 20 schools in the Middle West have given 28 men. Eight Pacific-coast players come from 7 schools. Alabama and Holy Cross lead with 4; Columbia, Missouri, Austin College, and Ohio State have 3 each.

The Giants lead with 11 college men. The White Sox, owned by Charles Comisky, one of the pioneers of forty-five years ago, follow with 10. The Yankees have 9 and the World's Champion Cardinals, the Reds, and Indians each have 8. The Giants had 16 collegians at training-camp last spring.

The collegians on big-league rosters during the season follow:

NATIONAL LEAGUE St. Louis Cardinals: Bill McKechnie, coach, Washington and Jefferson; Frank Frisch, Fordham; Art Reinhart, Iowa U.; Taylor Douthit, U. of California; Flint Rhem, Clemson A. and M.; Roscoe Holm, Iowa U.; Charles Littlejohn, Austin College; Victor Keen, University of Maryland.