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History of the A's |
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A's Go Out With A Whimper |
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After a June 1929 meeting
with O.A.L.A. president A. E. Lyon, the executive of the Athletics
announced that they were withdrawing from the senior league. In a formal
statement, the 0 - 4 Athletics announced that “in view of the fact that
it was considered impossible for the management to carry on and field a
team that would prove up to the standard of efficiency of the twelves that
invariably represented the city, they preferred to withdraw from the
senior series.” The real issue was the precipitous decline in fan support in not only the home of the losing Athletics, but also in most places where the grand old game was played. It was a concern for many in that watershed year of 1929, but the situation really hit home when an old lacrosse hotbed like St. Catharines decides to walk away from the game. And the rest is history. OUT OF SERIES The St. Catharines Standard Thursday June 20, 1929 The Toronto Globe Sporting Editor laments as follows the decision of St. Catharines to drop out of the senior series of the Ontario Lacrosse Association: Torontos, Brampton and Oshawa remain to battle it out for the Ontario Amateur Lacrosse Association senior championship, following the withdrawal of the St. Catharines team. Thus has lacrosse, one of the finest of all sports, fallen on evil days in this land of its birth. For years St. Kitts was a power to be reckoned with in the summer sport, but adversity stepped in, and St. Catharines has tossed in the sponge. The officials in charge probably know their business best, but to neutral observers it seems that St. Catharines might have carried on in the interests of the sport that Canadians love so well. A three-team series will be unwieldy and most unsatisfactory. All entrants could not hope to win the championship. In the lean years as well as in those where fortune smiled, it is thought that duty alone would have conquered. All the world loves a winner, but at the same time respects the unfortunates. Torontos have been hit hard by St. Catharines' decision to retire. There are great difficulties in running a senior lacrosse team in these times, with so many other counter attractions for the public and so many other popular sports in which people indulge. Even these sports attract playing talent. The result is lack of patronage of the game as well as difficulty in finding players to fill their respective roles. It was not like that in the olden days, when nearly every young lad had a lacrosse stick. The financing and outfitting of a senior team is now no light matter. It does look as if the only way St. Catharines will get back on the lacrosse map is to start from the ground up, and the effort made here this year to provide school lads with lacrosse sticks at half cost was most commendable. But there can be no denying the fact that while a good lacrosse match is a pretty picture, one to arouse every sporting instinct, the game has almost reached the stage of decadence. LACROSSE The St. Catharines Standard Friday June 28, 1929 The following editorial from the Ottawa Journal should prove of local interest, following recent comment in this paper on the decadence of lacrosse: That lacrosse has fallen on evil days is again demonstrated by the withdrawal of the St. Catharines team from the senior Ontario Amateur Lacrosse Association. Three teams, Toronto, Brampton and Oshawa, alone remain and the future of the association is not bright. Twenty years ago St. Catharines was one of the leaders in what was then our National Sport. The Garden City raised on her corner lots some of the very finest exponents of the pastime, such men as George Kalls, Billy Fitzgerald and many others, everyone of them "homebrews", who like the representatives of Cornwall, Oshawa, Brampton and other of the lesser cities played for the love of the game and lifted high the banner of clean sport. But despite the beauty of the play and the pride of the citizenry in their own boys, from those days, twenty years ago, lacrosse began to decline and only spasmodic efforts have been made to revive it. Why? There are those who say that lacrosse went down because of the "brutality" of the players. Such a statement can hardly be justified by facts. It is true that owing to the nature of the sport eager contestants who rushed tumultuously into the middle of the fray often emerged with scraped and bleeding arms and legs, from accidental contact with the flying sticks of the players, but whoever heard of serious injuries resulting from the game? As compared with squash racket, or tennis or cricket, lacrosse, perhaps, may have been regarded as rough. It is certainly strenuous, and it was that strenuousity that created so keen an interest and made lacrosse one of the finest outdoor sports in the Dominion. It is to be regretted that other games have taken the place that was once allotted to the Man's game of lacrosse. But the favor of the public is not constant. Lacrosse has had its day. It will not likely come into its own again for another generation. |