Ban Johnson has lost the first inning of the Mays case, as the Evening World’s headline puts it. Justice Robert Wagner of the Supreme Court has granted the Yankees’ motion for an injunction, with costs, restraining Johnson from suspending Carl Mays. The Sun gave it a banner across one of its sports pages yesterday, and says the president of the American League “received a staggering jolt.”

What kind of injunction it is depends on whom you read. The Sun’s banner calls it permanent, and its story says Johnson is permanently enjoined. The opinion it prints ends: “The motion for an injunction pendente lite is therefore granted, with costs”; that is, an injunction until the suit is tried. The Evening World says it was granted pending the trial, and the wire in the Bridgeport Times and the Chicago Tribune calls it a temporary injunction, though the Yankees’ lawyers, the Tribune’s wire says, hold that it is in effect permanent. The Evening World and the Sun put the decision on Saturday; the Bridgeport wire is dated Friday.

The opinion rests on the clubs’ property in their players. “It is undisputed and indeed a matter of common knowledge that the commercialization of baseball is a highly profitable undertaking,” Justice Wagner writes, and the property of the clubs “consists principally of contracts with individual players with reputation for skill and ability in playing the game.” To interfere with one player, he holds, “would confuse and possibly destroy the rights of the respective clubs and their players, for the validity of the games in which Mays participated might be questioned.” The Yankees had spent $75,000 to get Mays from Boston.

The court sets out the facts. At Chicago on July 13 Mays, who had had family trouble and whose home in Pennsylvania had burned with all his baseball trophies, was struck in the head by a ball thrown by the catcher, and left the field. “He was found sitting in the clubhouse with his head between his hands and crying bitterly.” Then he was sold to the Yankees, and Johnson suspended him. “It does not appear necessary to pass on the motives which actuated the president in suspending Mays,” the Justice writes. “His act may possibly have been arbitrary. At the time of the suspension his knowledge and information concerning the real facts were imperfect.” Johnson did not ask whether Boston had disciplined the player, and did not call Mays before him, and so his act “was, to say the least, not fortified with that perfect appreciation of the facts which evinces a desire to do equity to all parties concerned.”

The Sunday papers we have seen carry no word from Johnson, Ruppert, Huston or Frazee, and nothing on what the Commission will now do with the Yankees’ third-place money, still held up on Navin’s protest.

THE TALK ABOUT THE SERIES

Frederick G. Lieb, in the Sun last Monday, gave part of a column on players’ salaries to the talk about the series. “When one takes into consideration that practically every American has played baseball or understands the game,” he wrote, “it is amazing that there have been so many hints, suggestive remarks and shakings of the head in regard to the last world’s series.” He has covered most of the series between the two leagues, and never, he says, has he seen such a lack of confidence in the integrity of one. A man back from the series is asked on every side whether it was really on the level.

Lieb does not believe it. “How could a series like that be fixed and kept quiet?” he asks. “Three hundred of the country’s leading sporting experts saw the series, and not one of them saw the slightest thing that might be regarded with suspicion. And they were men who know baseball.” He traces many of the mean stories to “sore head gamblers who lost heavily on the Sox,” beginning with those who backed Cicotte in the first game and saw him hit hard. The best pitcher, he says, is likely to get a hammering.

Harry Neily’s story from Chicago, which we described last week from Maxwell’s account of it, appeared in full on Monday in the Washington Times. Neily says it sets at rest the rumors that any of the White Sox were fixed: three gamblers, he writes, spread word before the series that seven of the Sox had been bought, and played both ways. He says Gleason went to St. Louis with “Tip” O’Neill, Comiskey’s right-hand man, to confer with friends, and talked with men there who bet on races and ball games. The Chicago wire we printed last week had Gleason deny that the trip had anything to do with the gambling stories. Neily says nobody has come forward to claim Comiskey’s $10,000 (Maxwell had it $20,000), and doubts that anybody ever will.

Collyer’s Eye, the Chicago betting weekly whose banner last week said seven of the Sox were involved, ran a second article on Saturday by the same correspondent, Frank O. Klein. This time it names players, Cicotte, Williams, Felsch and Risberg, and sets its charges down as things “alleged” or “charged.” It tells of a fight in the club house in which, it says, Schalk accused Williams of throwing the game, and it quotes an unnamed bookmaker who says he refused a bet of $2,000 on Cincinnati brought to him, he was told, with Williams’s money. Next week, it says, it will publish the names of the Sox players its inquiry has cleared. We have not seen the story taken up by any other paper.

Eddie Collins says the Reds caught the Sox in a batting slump that began on their last trip East; a Sun writer finds the statement not particularly gallant and thinks Collins’s own slump may have been due to Ring’s fast ball and Eller’s shine ball. I. E. Sanborn of the Chicago Tribune finds a rule broken in the series that, he says, was overlooked. In the seventh game Eddie Collins was called out for blocking Kopf’s throw on a double play, and yet John Collins was allowed to stay on third, and scored on Jackson’s hit. “Under the present code the recent world’s series might have terminated in a wrangle if the White Sox had won out at the finish,” Sanborn writes, “because everybody in the National league except Henry O’Day overlooked a palpable violation of the rules in the seventh game of the series. It gave the Sox a run and they won that game.” He wants protests after the fact barred before next season.

RUTH ASKS $20,000

Babe Ruth has gone to Los Angeles to act in moving pictures, and says he will not come back to Boston at his present salary. “I will not play with the Red Sox unless I get $20,000,” he said in Boston. “I feel that I made a bad move last year when I signed a three years contract to play for $30,000. The Boston club realized much on my value and I think that I am entitled to twice as much as my contract calls for.” The papers do not agree on the contract. The Sun said on Thursday that Frazee had signed him for three years at $12,000 a year; Ruth’s own figure comes to $10,000. The Chicago Tribune says the contract has two years to run, and that he “will not be seen on the diamond again unless a considerable increase is forthcoming.” Frazee was in Boston on Saturday and had nothing to say.

Ruth played in New York before he left. At Dyckman Oval a week ago yesterday he was in left field for Guy Empey’s Treat ’Em Roughs and made two hits in three times at bat, one a double, but Schang’s All Stars won both games, 10 to 3 and 5 to 2.

The Red Sox are not for sale, Frazee says, though Congressman Gallivan says Boston friends of his have made an offer. “The club is not in the market and I cannot understand the basis for the present report.” Lieb reports a newer story, that Lannin, who is still being paid for the club, will take it back if this year’s payment is not made, and he does not think it rings true. Everett Scott says he will not play another season in Boston.

THE COMMISSION AND THE CLUBS

The National Commission has given Waite Hoyt, the former Brooklyn schoolboy pitcher, to the Red Sox for $2,500, though Frazee was willing to pay $4,000. The Commission had ruled that Hoyt belonged to New Orleans and that Boston might buy him at a fair price. Frazee wired an offer of $2,500, New Orleans wired an acceptance, and a storm held up the telegram four days, in which time Frazee had agreed to $4,000. The Commission holds that the acceptance would have closed the deal had it been delivered promptly, but it finds no excuse for Boston’s dealing with Hoyt directly.

President Heydler announces that Roush of Cincinnati, not Hornsby, is the National League’s leading batsman, .320 to .316, Hornsby’s .322 having been a miscount; the Sun says no lower average has ever led a major league. National League owners, Lieb reports, are framing, for the December meeting, a rule against deals between clubs of the league after July 1.

The Giants disbanded for the winter last Monday after a barnstorming trip on which they won twelve of fourteen games. President Fultz of the International League says the end of the draft was one of the greatest blessings that ever came to the minor leagues, and Jack Dunn estimates he made about $50,000 this year by it. The minor leagues meet at Springfield on November 11.

Brooklyn’s testimonial to Jimmy Ring has not been reported; a “Jimmy Ring Day” was set for yesterday at Dexter Park. We have no report of the New Britain banquet to Kopf.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25.—Howard University beat Shaw University on the Howard campus on Saturday, 6 to 0, in the last minutes of play. It was the first meeting of the two in eight years, and the Evening Star says the game “has a direct bearing on the colored championship of the south.” For three quarters the Shaw line held. Then it weakened, and Smith of Howard broke through, blocked a Shaw kick, recovered the ball and ran thirty yards for the touchdown. Howard has now won from Storer, 63 to 0, and from Shaw. The score of the opening game with Virginia Theological Seminary has still not reached this office.

At Rock Island the Independents beat the Davenport A. C., 33 to 0, last Sunday before 6,000, and Marshall, at right end, had a hand in it. The Argus now gives his name: “Young Bobby Marshall was just like a father to both teams. He never missed a chance to help a prostrate player to his feet.” Playing back on defence he broke up many passes, and he caught one over the line for the second touchdown. At New Haven the Sun allows that Martin, the colored halfback of Tufts, gave Yale more than one scare in the first half. Iowa beat Minnesota on Saturday; the despatches that have come here do not say whether Fred Slater played.

NEW YORK, Oct. 26.—Dick Rudolph of the Braves did pitch at Ebbets Field a week ago yesterday, and the International League stars beat the Bacharach Giants twice, 7 to 4 and 6 to 1, with Johnny Enzman in the box for the second game. “Although Rube Marquard of the Brooklyns and Walter Smallwood of the Yankees were on the mound,” the Sun reports, “the Lincoln Giants yesterday twice humbled the All-Leaguers at Olympic Field, each time by a score of 5 to 0.” Williams held the Leaguers to three scattered hits. The Brooklyn Royal Giants beat the Emeralds at the Catholic Protectory, 12 to 10, with six runs in the eighth inning, Ryan pitching and Santop catching.

Yesterday’s games had not reached this office when we closed. The Bacharachs were to meet the Internationals again at Ebbets Field, with Dick Redding named for the second game, and the Lincolns were to meet Empey’s Treat ’Em Roughs at Dyckman Oval in the first of three double-headers for what the papers call the semi-professional championship of Manhattan; Empey has signed Barnes, Doyle and Frisch of the Giants, and Barnes was to pitch against “Cyclone Joe” Williams. Hilldale’s rubber game with Summers’s All-Americans on the 18th has not been reported in any paper we have seen.

KANSAS CITY, Oct. 25.—“Rube” Foster’s Chicago Giants beat the All-Stars at Association Park, 9 to 6, the Kansas City Sun reports. Foster used three pitchers, Donaldson, B. Williams and Davey Brown, to make sure of the victory, and “Ty” Lyons hit a home run with the bases full. The paper calls it the final contest and the Giants’ one victory in three games; its own advertisement on the same page calls the meeting a five-game series, the All-Stars two up, with a double-header yesterday “for championship,” and adds: “Rube swears he has never been beaten a full series.” Yesterday’s result had not come in.

Dave Driscoll opened his Arena A. C. in the Fourth Regiment Armory at Jersey City last Monday night, and the Sun counts 5,000 in the house. Harry Wills of New Orleans, 209 pounds, beat Joe Jeannette, 204, in eight rounds, putting him down for nine in the second and again in the eighth. It was their first meeting in six years. The Sun says Wills took “honors in every round,” and adds: “The mill was so one sided that the crowd repeatedly called upon Referee Harry Lewis to stop it; not that Jeannette was in a bad way at any time, but because the contest bored the spectators.” The Evening World says Wills was inclined to be lenient with the popular Hoboken boxer; the Chattanooga wire says only that he shaded him. On the same card Bill Brennan, 196, beat Dan O’Dowd, 173, in eight rounds. Driscoll lost money on his first show, but expects to get it back on Friday.

TULSA, Okla., Oct. 22.—Sam Langford has the belt, though the referee would not give him the fight. Lem Wallace called his fifteen rounds with Jack Thompson at Convention Hall on Monday night a draw. The Tulsa World says “Langford forced the going throughout and was clearly victor, landing more often and with greater power than Thompson,” and gives him eight rounds to Thompson’s two, with five even. Thompson’s left eye was closed at the finish; Langford was unmarked. The Kansas City Sun calls it “a very unpopular decision,” and says the old master “has lost none of his ’kick.’” (The California Eagle puts the fight on Tuesday night; the home paper says Monday.)

The next night Walker Machen, the promoter, presented the diamond-studded belt to Langford anyway, declaring that Sam had clearly earned it. Langford has agreed to defend it against Harry Wills at Tulsa at an early date, possibly before Thanksgiving, and the winner is to keep the belt. The World writes that Langford is practically as good “as when he was leading contender for the world’s heavyweight crown then worn by Jack Johnson.” It says Wills and Langford have met twice, Wills winning the first time and Langford the second, at St. Louis this summer; the New York Sun, a week ago yesterday, counted a knockout of Langford in seven rounds as Wills’s best credential. Ray Pearson of the Chicago Tribune writes that Langford is now “the colored heavyweight champion of the world.”

The bout between Benny Leonard and Johnny Dundee, announced for Hartford to-night, is written of this week as though it will not be held. The Sun writes of Leonard’s refusal to go fifteen rounds to a referee’s verdict with Dundee there, and Hartford, like New Haven, insists on decisions. Dundee is matched with Willie Jackson at Milwaukee on Friday, and Wisconsin requires boxers to be in the city five days ahead; he is also matched with Tommy Tuohey at Newark on election night. No notice that the Hartford bout is off has reached us.

Dempsey still has no match. The Sun reports that he and Jack Kearns “would prefer to have Beckett and Carpentier come to America for a battle for the world’s championship, but if they refuse the title holder will, on the receipt of proper inducements, go over to Europe and give battle to the Englishman and the Frenchman on their own stamping grounds.” A New Orleans syndicate, through Dominick Tortorich, has offered $150,000: for Dempsey and Beckett, says the Evening World; for Dempsey and the winner of Beckett and Carpentier, says the Sun. Beckett and Carpentier are now fixed for December 4 in London, twenty rounds, and the wire says that, under tentative agreements, the winner is to meet Dempsey in the spring.

Joe Lynch has called off his title bout with Herman at New Orleans. He telegraphed Tortorich: “Can’t see my way clear to accept match with Herman for championship on the terms signed for.” The Sun says he puts the dollar above the title. A Philadelphia despatch of a week ago had the pair signed instead for the Olympia A. A. on November 12. Mike O’Dowd, the middleweight champion, and Mike Gibbons, both of St. Paul, are matched for ten rounds at St. Paul on November 21; they have never fought.

The A. A. U. boxers, Donze, Cassidy and Burke, have been held up once more, by want of passports, the Sun says, and by the marine strike, says the Evening World. They are to sail to-day by the Evening World’s account, though the Sun’s shipping list has the Stavangerfjord leaving for Bergen on Tuesday. They will box in Norway, Denmark and Sweden.

LAUREL, Md., Oct. 25.—E. B. McLean’s The Porter won the Laurel Stakes (the Sun calls it the Laurel Handicap) at a mile on Saturday by eight lengths, on a slow track, with Billy Kelly second and Sun Briar third. Lucullite, the even-money favorite, could not untrack himself in the going; the Racing Form has him fourth, and the Sun has him last of six. On Tuesday The Porter, carrying 125 pounds, set a new track record for the mile. Only three started in that race; Sir Barton, who had been expected, did not.

C. A. Stoneham and John J. McGraw, who control the Giants, have bought a majority of the stock of the Cuba-American Jockey Club, which runs Oriental Park at Havana. A Sun column doubts the other National League owners will look kindly on racing interests in the hands of the men who own the New York club, since baseball, it says, is trying its hardest to kill gambling.

Empire City closed on Saturday before the largest crowd of its year, and with it racing in New York for 1919. A. K. Macomber’s Star Master won the Victory Handicap, and Clarence Kummer took the association’s gold watch as leading rider of the meeting. At Churchill Downs, which opened on Thursday with attendance and betting almost double last year’s, King Gorin won the Falls City Handicap, and on Saturday E. R. Bradley’s Busy Signal ran away from fifteen two-year-olds in the Golden Rod and won by twelve lengths. Be Frank stays for the Louisville Cup on Saturday, the last day of racing in Kentucky this year.

Pimlico opens on Saturday for eleven days, to November 13, with about $130,000 to be distributed. Sir Barton is to start in the Pimlico Autumn Handicap, which the Racing Form puts on November 5 and the Washington Herald on November 6, and will probably carry top weight; Hildreth thinks Mad Hatter, Lord Brighton or Thunderclap can give him one of the battles of his life. Purchase wrenched an ankle at Laurel while being keyed up for a special race with Sir Barton. Man o’ War leads the year’s winners with $83,325, the Racing Form reports, but he is in retirement, and Sir Barton, it says, is so close that he seems certain to pass him before the Maryland meetings end.

Hoppe kept the 18.2 balk-line championship at the Hotel Astor, winning all six of his games and beating young Schaefer on the last night, 400 to 214 by the Sun’s headline and 400 to 211 by its story. Referee Peterson handed him a diamond-studded trophy, which becomes his own if he defends it successfully in the next two annual tournaments. With it go a $2,500 purse and an annual salary of $4,000 from the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company. Cochran made an unfinished run of 265 against Slosson on Friday, which the Sun calls a new world’s record, and the same night beat Schaefer and made the title safe for Hoppe. Cochran and Morningstar divided second and third money.

Fred Faller of the Dorchester Club, winner of the A. E. F. modified marathon in France, took the national ten-mile title from Charlie Pores of the Millrose A. A. at the Brooklyn Athletic Field on Saturday, winning by nearly a lap from Terry Halpine; Pores dropped out in the seventh mile. Willie Plant beat Dick Remer, the holder, in the seven-mile walk.

Pierre A. Proal of Deal won the New York Athletic Club’s golf championship at Fox Hills. Miss Katherine Aiken of Mamaroneck, sixteen and playing in her first tournament, won the girls’ junior Metropolitan tennis title at Forest Hills. Springfield College beat Yale’s soccer team in its opening game, 2 to 1. Walter J. Salmon has been named to the American Olympic Athletic Committee.

THE COLD STANDS OF NOVEMBER. Ulsters of heavy Scotch cloth, $30 to $50. Box coats for town, $35 to $45. BRANDT & ROWE, Clothiers, 1284 Broadway.

THE GRIDIRON BY WIRE. Every Saturday the principal college games, play by play as the operator receives them, on the big board. Harmon Hall, 43d Street near Broadway. Doors open at 2 o’clock. Admission 25 cents, plus war tax.

A HAT FOR THE BIG GAMES. Soft felts in the fall shades, $4 and $5. Derbies, $5. Tweed caps for the open stand, $1.50. KELLER’S, 210 Nassau Street.

BACK NUMBERS. Nos. 1 to 4 of this paper, with the whole of the world’s series, may still be had at this office. Five cents each; by mail, seven.

THE SPORTING CHRONICLES is published every Monday. Subscription, $2.50 a year; single copies five cents. Correspondence on matters of sport is invited, and will be answered in these columns.