Sport: Baseball and/or Total War

As millions of U.S. eyes & ears focus on the approaching World Series, the plaguey question is: Will there be baseball next year? After six more grinding winter months of war, will ball parks bloom in the spring again?

The Optimists. A TIME poll of major-league bigwigs revealed brave optimism. Big-league clubs are hopefully arranging for spring training, for exhibition games and hotel accommodations.

That most major-leaguers are married men with children may help save big-league baseball for 1943. But the small minor leagues—where players are young, most games are played at night, and bus transportation is the mainstay—have little hope of survival. If the bush leagues fold, big-league clubs will be forced to let their farm systems go to seed, ending the annual harvest of young players. But, conscious of their obligation to “civilian morale and the boys overseas” (as well as to their own investments), club owners intend to go ahead until the Government says “Stop.”

The Pessimists. Only holdout is the Detroit Baseball Club. Says General Manager Jack Zeller: “As things are right at this minute, we could carry on major-league baseball next year. However, the Government may decide to clamp down . . . to such an extent that baseball would be out. . . .”

Another who faces into the fog is Sportswriter Charles P. Ward of the Detroit Free Press. “The truth is,” he says, “that they [the club owners] are worried and uncertain about the future. The calling off of the annual meeting of the minor leagues at the Government’s suggestion is taken as an indication of the trend. The minor-league convention was one of the most important in baseball, for that is the session at which most big trades are made. The big-league session may be next

“But even if the Government makes no formal request of the baseball men to close up their businesses for the duration, General Lewis B. Hershey and his aides may make a formal request unnecessary. They may accomplish the same end by drafting not only the players but the officials and spectators as well.”