“Lay off on that ‘poor, down-trodden slave’ talk, Nick,” said Joe earnestly. “You know as well as I do that there are mighty few fellows who get as well paid for six months’ work as we ball players do. But, leave that out of the question for a minute—don’t you suppose the backers of this new league are just as eager to make money 43 out of us as anybody else? Do you think they’re in the game for the sport of it? And don’t you know that the coming of a new league just now is likely to wreck the game? You know how it was in the old Brotherhood days—they did the same crooked work then that they’re trying to do now—bribing men to jump their contracts by offers of big money. The game got a blow then that it took years to recover from, and there wasn’t a single major league player that in the long run, didn’t suffer from it. Pla. . . Read More