The big tragedy in baseball is that the amateur spirit has gone out of it to a large extent.

Larry MacPhail

Categorized in : Big Spirit Baseball Tragedy

When I was a kid in Michigan, I used to play ball with a town team on Sunday. Of course, I'd go to church first. Played the church organ, as a matter of fact.

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I should contribute generously to the war chest of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. But, I do not contribute at all.

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I decided that I wanted a farm back in 1940 when I was with the Dodgers. I tried to find one within commuting distance of New York.

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It had been my idea that a combination of purebred cattle and horses could be successful from an economic standpoint - in Maryland. Maryland is not a cattle state. To raise beef cattle successfully, you've got to be able to raise cheap feed.

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The only way you can obtain brood mares on a basis you can afford is to buy two or three yearling fillies every year and race them. The good ones, the ones that show potentialities, you keep, and the others you get rid of. In that way, you have a chance to build up a good brood mare band.

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The danger in a brood mare band is that your mares become antiquated, and you wake up some day and realize that the average age of your band is 15 or 16 and that in another year they won't be producing offspring. I think the ideal average age for a brood mare band is about 10.

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Day baseball is now dead for all practical purposes. Sooner or later, the game will be played in its entirety at night, and as I've said before, then baseball will be squarely in the amusement, the entertainment business along with wrestling, midget auto racing and the trotting tracks.

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