Query: "ground-rent man" (baseball, 1908)

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:40 PM -0400 6/29/02, James A. Landau wrote:
>In a message dated 06/29/2002 2:52:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>gcohen at UMR.EDU writes:
>
>>  >    April 4, 1913, p.20/3; 'Birthday Extra.  Congratulations To Tris
>>   >Speaker'; 'He became a professional ball player in 1906, when he
>>   >joined the Cleburne, Tex., team.  In 1907 he played with the Houston
>>   >team.  At the close of the season he was purchased by [the] Boston
>>   >[Red Sox] and turned over to Little Rock the following spring as
>>   >ground-rent man, the Red Sox having trained on the Little Rock
>>   >grounds.'
>
>The meaning seems clear to me.  Tris Speaker was turned over to the Little
>Rock franchise as payment to Little Rock for letting the Red Sox train on
>their grounds.    However invented the phrase "ground-rent man" was probably
>not a real estate agent and used the term "ground-rent" under the impression
>it meant "rent for using the grounds" as opposed to rent for an apartment,
>lease payments for equipment, etc.
>
>I bet the Red Sox are still kicking themselves for, uh, selling Mr. Speaker
>down the river.
>
Nah.  Speaker did play 7 full seasons (including some excellent ones)
with the Sawx from 1909 through 1915 before being moved to Cleveland,
which--though an obvious (little) rockhead move in retrospect, given
his superb subsequent years for the Indians, was completely
overshadowed by the matter of that other little contract transfer a
couple of years later. The legacy of the Curse of the Bambino (the
sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920 to enable owner Harry Frazee
for 100K to finance the musical No No Nanette--please don't tell me
it's an urban legend) is the one from which the Olde Towne team has
not yet recovered.  Perhaps this is the year?   Naaaah.

larry