Sport: Baseball: New Season

(See front cover) In 1886, famed "Cap" Anson created a furor by taking his Chicago baseball team (including Evangelist Billy Sunday) to Hot Springs, Ark. to get ready for the opening of the season. Since then, spring training has been a baseball institution. Main purpose of spring training is not to recondition baseballers but to recondition baseball addicts, by reminding them that a new season is about to start, reviving their interest in the game. By last week, baseball addicts had had six weeks of training-camp news to assure them that the 1937 major-league season would start in Boston (Bees v. Phillies) and Washington (Senators v. Athletics) April 19, one day before the other teams start functioning. Meanwhile last week, 16 major-league teams, moving north from their camps in Florida, Cuba, Texas, Louisiana. Mexico and Southern California, were winding up their series of exhibition games while baseball experts, governed by ancient tradition, predicted how the teams would stand when the 1937 season ends Oct. 3.

In Fort Smith, Ark., the New York Giants beat the Cleveland Indians 9-to-2, on expert pitching from veteran Hal Schumacher. In Philadelphia, the American League Athletics and the National League Phillies, both rated as likely tail-enders in their respective leagues, began a three-out-of-five-game series for their city championship. In Tulsa, Okla., the world champion New York Yankees won their 13th straight game, 8-to-3, against the Tulsa Oilers. In Daytona, Fla., the St. Louis Cardinals started north via a miserable record of four victories in 14 exhibition games.

By comparing spring statistics with last year's records, baseball experts, polled by The Sporting News, last week picked the major-league teams to finish the season as follows:

American League National League New York St. Louis Detroit Chicago Cleveland New York Boston Pittsburgh Chicago Cincinnati Washington Boston St. Louis Brooklyn Philadelphia Philadelphia

The New York Yankees were even-money favorites to win the pennant. Odds on the St. Louis Cardinals were 8-to-5.

Main feature of baseball's annual predictions is unvarying from year to year: they are always wrong. Certainties of the forthcoming season last week were exactly two: 1) in 1937 players, managers and umpires will get more money out of the game than they ever have before; 2) in 1937, major-league baseball will furnish the U. S. public with the most extraordinary character it has produced since the War.

Biggest yearly salary ever paid to a baseballer was $80,000, to Babe Ruth in 1930 and 1931. This year's top is Lou Gehrig's $36,000, but baseball's total major-league payroll will be over $3,200,000, an all-time record, like the Yankee payroll of $332,000. Last season was major-league baseball's best since the Depression. This year, even umpires' salaries have been upped.