|
Transition?
Boston Post, December 9, 1916
This past season's results should serve notice to the management of the Boston American League baseball club that perhaps it is time to make some changes, with an eye to the future of the club.
The core of the outstanding teams that won pennant after pennant as the current decade opened is not growing any younger. The pitching staff, especially, is aging, while a number of promising young twirlers are relegated to mop-up duty or languish in the minor leagues.
As wonderful as Christy Mathewson has been over the course of his distinguished career, at thirty-six years of age, is he now able to perform as well as a man a decade younger, such as Carl Mays? Other younger pitchers, such as Hugh Bedient, "Hooks" Dauss, and "Dutch" Leonard, are quite possibly ready to pitch effectively at the major league level. It would do no harm to give any of these men an extended trial.
The batsmen, too, are beginning to show signs of age, and perhaps some of them should be dealt to other clubs while their value is still high. Ideally, they would fetch promising young players in return, who would keep the Red Sox at the top of the standings for a decade more.
Among the current roster, only a few men should be considered untouchable. Tris Speaker, Joe Wood, and Pat O'Farrell are all at the peaks of their careers, and should remain to form the foundation of the club as younger talent is placed around them. Perhaps Bill Carrigan belongs in this category as well; he and O'Farrell are so wildly popular with the thousands of rooters of Irish extraction that to trade either of them would be seen as treason.
However, Manager Collins and the others whose decisions shape the fate of the Red Sox would do well to consider the place of any other player on the roster during this off-season. Perhaps it is time to dismantle this club so an even stronger one may be constructed in its place.
|