aimed from the desk by the
National League. He is Herman Nickerson, formerly sporting editor of the
Boston Journal, who is now the secretary of the Boston National League
club.

"Nick" is known from one end of the National League circuit to the other
as one of the most solid and substantial of the writing force, and also
as one of the most demure and modest. In addition to his great fund of
information on Base Ball topics he is an author, and "The Sword of
Bussy," a book which was published during the winter, is even more
clever than some of the author's best Base Ball yarns, and that is
saying a great deal in behalf of a man wedded to Base Ball.

Another change in the National League was the selection of Frank M.
Stevens of New York, as one of the Board of Directors of the New York
National League club.

This brings into Base Ball one of New York's cleverest and brightest
young business men, one who is forging so rapidly to the front in
business circles in the big metropolis that many an older head goes to
him for advice. Mr. Stevens knows a lot about Base Ball, which is of
even greater importance in the game, and is not afraid to swing any
venture that will put with fairness a championship team into the big
city. He is a son of Harry M. Stevens, whom everybody knows, rich and
poor alike.

In the American League the death of Mr. Thomas D. Noyes, president of
the Washington club, a young man who left behind naught but friends,
left a vacancy in the organization which was filled by the selection of
Mr. Benjamin S. Minor.

The new president of the club has had practical experience in Base Ball
and perhaps plenty of it, as almost everybody has had in Washington, but
he is a wideawake, progressive and ambitious man, who is of just the
type to keep Base Ball going, now that it has struck its gait in the
national capital, and the future of the sport looks all the brighter for
his connection with it.

THE UMPIRES

The umpires are always with us, and the umpire problem has been a
vexation of Base Ball since the beginning of Base Ball time, yet neither
the umpires, the public, the club owners nor the league officials need
be discouraged, for it was fully proved in 1912 that umpiring, as a fine
art, has advanced a step nearer perfection. We may well doubt that
perfection in its every quality shall ever be achieved, but we may all
feel sanguine that it is possible to realize better results.

It is true that some