players for their records merely and not for their ability in doing team
work and in playing harmoniously together, is continued. Especially,
too, is the plan of engaging players whose daily habits of life are at
war with their ability to do first-class work in the field. Year after
year are drinking offenses condoned by the club officials who run the
club, and old time drunkards re-engaged for the coming season, while
steady, sober players are left out in the cold. Besides this blunder,
there is that of engaging half worn out stars in the place of rising
young players ambitious of distinguishing themselves in the League
arena. This mistake in team management was as conspicuous in 1894 as it
was in 1893.

A feature of the professional base ball season of 1894 was the almost
phenomenal success of the clubs--alike of the minor leagues as of the
great major league itself--in battling against the serious drawback of
the "hard times" of the year, which prevailed throughout the entire
season. Experience shows that in the sports in vogue which have innate
attractions for public patronage in times of great financial
difficulties in the commercial centres of the union, the national game
stands conspicuous; and the past season in this respect presented a most
notable record, no such crowds of spectators ever having been seen at
the leading contests of the season as in 1894.

Another feature of the past season was the interest taken in the college
club contests of the spring and early summer campaign, the leading club
teams giving a superior exhibition of team work play in the field to
that of 1893. In fact, the national game flourished as a whole
throughout the entire country in 1894 as it never had done before in the
history of the game.