This brings into Base Ball one of New York's cleverest and brightest young business men, one who is forging so rapidly to the front in business circles in the big metropolis that many an older head goes to him for advice. Mr. Stevens knows a lot about Base Ball, which is of even greater importance in the game, and is not afraid to swing any venture that will put with fairness a championship team into the big city. He is a son of Harry M. Stevens, whom everybody knows, rich and poor alike. In the American League the death of Mr. Thomas D. Noyes, president of the Washington club, a young man who left behind naught but friends, left a vacancy in the organization which was filled by the selection of Mr. Benjamin S. Minor. The new president of the club has had practical experience in Base Ball and perhaps plenty of it, as almost everybody has had in Washington, but he is a wideawake, progressive and ambitious man, who is of just the type to keep Base Ball going, now that it has struck its gait in the national capital, and the future of the sport looks all the brighter for his connection with it. THE UMPIRES The umpires are always with us, and the umpire problem has been a vexation of Base Ball since the beginning of Base Ball time, yet neither the umpires, the public, the club owners nor the league officials need be discouraged, for it was fully proved in 1912 that umpiring, as a fine art, has advanced a step nearer perfection. We may well doubt that perfection in its every quality shall ever be achieved, but we may all feel sanguine that it is possible to realize better results. It is true that some men make better umpires than others, exactly as some men make better ball players than others, but it is also true that if the men who find it the hardest task to become the most expert umpires would be given a little more encouragement they might be a little more successful. To the staff of umpires of the National League and the American League it is but fair to render a compliment for their work of last season. Some of them made mistakes but the general average of work on the part of the judges of play was excellent. There was less tendency on the part of the umpires to render their decisions without being in a position to follow the play correctly. They were occasionally willing to concede that they might have been wrong when an analysis of the play was brought to their attention and they were firm in asserting discipline without becoming overheated on their own account.