n I have in the past, and that I am always willing to
match, provided that the game is a fair one, in which I have an even
chance, as, unlike some players that I could name, I am not always
looking for the best of it.

CHAPTER XXXVII. NOT DEAD, BUT SLEEPING.

The proposed New American Base-Ball Association, of which so much was
heard during the fall and winter months of 1899 and 1900, is not dead,
as some people fondly hope, but only sleeping. That the National League
fears the birth of a new rival has been time and again shown, and in my
judgment without good and sufficient reason, for I hold that
"competition is the life of trade," and that with a strong and healthy
competitor in, the field the rivalry would be of benefit to both
organizations.

From personal experience I know that the National Game was never in as
healthy condition as it was when the League had the old American
Association for a rival and when such a thing as syndicate base-ball was
unheard of. The Harts, the Friedmans and the Robisons were not then in
control, and the rule-or-ruin policy that now prevails had at that time
not even been thought of.

Base-ball as at present conducted is a gigantic monopoly, intolerant of
opposition and run on a grab-all-that-there-is-in-sight policy that is
alienating its friends and disgusting the very public that has so long
and cheerfully given to it the support that it has withheld from other
forms of amusement.

It was Abraham Lincoln, I believe, who once remarked that you can fool
some of the people all the time but that you cannot fool all the people
all the time, and yet it is this latter feat that the League magnates
are at the present time trying to perform.

That the new Association did not take the field in 1900 was due to an
unfortunate combination of circumstances, but that it will do so another
season I firmly believe, as many of the men interested in its formation
are still enthusiastic over the project and determined to carry it to a
successful conclusion.

St. Louis may justly be regarded as the birthplace of the newcomer, as
it was there that the idea of a new rival to the worn-out old League
first originated in the brain of Al Spink, who, like the majority of the
game's best friends the country over, had grown sick of syndicate
methods and believed that the time had come when a new association, run
on strictly business principles, would secure the patronage of the
people. Associating w