World Series

(See front cover) In Chicago and in Philadelphia this week one of the many enterprises of William Wrigley, Jr. blossomed out into a fruitful and profitable success. For in these two cities two baseball teams were meeting and struggling for what was somewhat grandiloquently referred to as the world's baseball championship.* One team was the Philadelphia Athletics, representing the American League. The other was the Chicago Cubs, representing the National League. As everyone knows, Mr. Wrigley is Cub owner. The millions of U. S. citizens who, through radio and newspaper, hung upon the flash of every ball, the crack of every bat, probably did not much concern themselves with the corporate aspects of the entertainment provided them. Nor, in justice to Mr. Wrigley, could it be said that his connection with baseball was sordidly commercial. The Chicago baseball franchise was no pearl of great price when Mr. Wrigley purchased it, and as recently as 1925 the club finished last in the league race. Then astute Mr. Wrigley got able Joseph McCarthy to manage his team. The Cubs finished fourth in 1926 and 1927, third in 1928 and this year won by so wide a margin that the last month of the schedule was an empty formality. Now baseball teams make or lose money according to whether they win or lose games. It is safe to say that for the last three years the Chicago team has shown a profit. This year, playing to 1,500,000 patrons in Chicago alone, the team must have been returning a profit on its investment at which General Motors or Standard Oil would probably turn enviously green. When his team made certain of winning the pennant, Mr. Wrigley told all the players to have a big evening at his expense; adding that he would not honor any expense account for less than $50. Quieter in manner, taller and thinner in figure, less pretentious but nonetheless admired is Philadelphia's manager and part owner, Cornelius ("Connie Mack") McGillicuddy. He has gained fame through baseball --and baseball alone. He attends every game his Athletics play, invariably sits in the same place in the dugout, seldom raises his voice to command or correct. He last brought an American League pennant to Philadelphia in 1914, has since then watched his team fluctuate between the cellar and the next-to-top story. Meanwhile the masticating jaws of the fans in the ball park and of others all over the world never stopped supplying Mr. Wrigley with a vast income. During the first six months of this year the Wrigley Co. (chewing gum) had net earnings of $5,211,990, more than $300,000 more than the net income of the first six months of 1928 when the total annual net earnings were $11,068,618 or $6.15 a share. His business, still increasing, has tripled since 1920. He spends an average of $4,000,000 dollars a year on advertising. Red-cheeked, dewlapped and genial, given to exercise, to backslapping, to the indulgence of strange whims that usually turn out to be investments, and fond of uttering pungent aphorisms on salesmanship, of gravely handing new acquaintances packages of his gum, a supply of which he carries around with him at all times, William Wrigley Jr. is at 68 well-equipped to enjoy his amazing prosperity. In the conventional fashion of rich men who believe it is time for them to have some fun, he has become Chairman of the Board of directors of his company and made his son Philip K., president. For Philip K. he named a gum, "P. K's.," to share the fame of other Wrigley products, "Spearmint," "Doublemint," "Juicy Fruit." He still keeps in close touch with his business and when in Chicago eats lunch in the restaurant on the main floor of the white Wrigley Building which towers like a huge birthday cake beside an oily curve of the Chicago river. Snobbish Chicagoans who see him eating there are impressed with what they call the democracy of this great millionaire who was once a soap crutcher. In modern times soap is crutched or mixed by a machine but in the soap factory of William Wrigley Sr., opposite Wayne Junction, Philadelphia, the soap crutcher stood beside a vat of boiling soap and stirred it with a paddle. When Wrigley Jr.--young Wrigley then--tired of developing his muscles in this way he persuaded his father to let him sell scouring soap on the road and before long was driving through the high-grass towns of Pennsylvania, New York, and New England in a four horse team with bells on the harness. He was a good salesman. When other manufacturers cut under his father's prices he raised Wrigley scouring soap to retail at 10-c- instead of 3-c- and gave dealers an umbrella with every box they bought. He added baking powder to his line, and threw in a cook book or a box of chewing gum with every can. Finding that the gum went better than the baking powder he concentrated on that and gave away with it cash-registers, cheese-cutters, scales and desks. Often his premiums wiped out his profits and he never made much money until he started to advertise, first in small town papers and store windows, then on billboards and in city papers. When he had $100,000 he spent it all on an advertising campaign in Manhattan, got no returns. He saved up $100,000 more, spent that the same way, then $250,000 that brought back his losses and put him way ahead. "I'm strong for honest ballyhoo, but you can't treat them all alike. Don't let them lose you and don't let them rile you. I know--I was a full-fledged long-pants travelling salesman when I was thirteen." A few years ago he bought a summer house to spend the winter in at Pasadena but got bored there, heard Santa Catalina Island was for sale and bought the whole place for $3,000,000.

* Because other countries (except Japan) play baseball hardly at all and world competition is conspicuously absent.