BASE BALL.
"_And the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play._"
Exodus xxxii, 6.
Base ball may be made a very pleasant amusement, wholly unobjectionable
either in regard to health or morals. Many of our readers well remember
how it used to be played by the village school-boys. Two of the best
players volunteered, or were elected by acclamation, to organize the two
"sides." The leaders tossed up a bat, with a mark on one side of it, to
determine the first choice. The winner looked around the circle of boys
and made his selection; then the other leader named a boy for his side,
and so it went on, by alternate selections, till all were enrolled. The
bat was again tossed up, to determine who should be "in" first, and then
the play began. How they knocked the ball, and ran and threw the ball at
each other, and fell down in their eagerness to avoid being hit, and
laughed and shouted, and grew hot, and red, and finally weary! No crowd
of excited spectators were there to applaud special acts of skill, and
thus spoil the sport; no "scorer" noted down in his book the number of
"runs" or of "fly-catches;" no representative of the public press was
there, to prepare an extended and eloquent report, confounding simple
readers with his vocabulary of new terms; no body inquired which side
was victorious, and all were happy.
And in these later days, if a score of young men or older men would
provide a basket of refreshments, and go out into the fields by
themselves and play two or three hours, in the ancient and honorable
way, carelessly, hilariously, not even noticing who makes the most
"runs," they would all feel the better the next day; and the wit and
humor elicited on the occasion would echo in twenty home circles for
weeks to come.
But since it attained the dignity of being our "national game," base
ball has become a ponderous and elaborate affair. Rules as rigid as
those which govern the proceedings of the Congress of the United States
are fixed, by general councils of men learned in the art, and goodly
volumes are published discussing the size, shape, and weight of balls
and bats, and determining the proper distances between the bases.
Associations are formed, who assume a name, devise a uniform, and have
initiation fees and monthly dues. The formation of the club, the
selection of the members, is a very serious business, involving, as it
does, the fortunes of the fame of the association in its future contests
for championships and newspaper honors. Young men are in demand who are
willing to devote their whole time and mental energies to the
acquisition of dexterity in throwing a ball or catching it. Professional
players are found, who are recruited from that idle, shiftless, and yet
ambitious class of mortals who are ready to work with the energy of
giants one day in the week at any useless task, provided they have the
privilege of lounging about the other six days, boasting of their feats
and basking in the admiration of all the little boys in the
neighborhood. These professionals train as carefully as prize-fighters,
and are, in fact, the same style of men drawn mild. In some cases they
hire themselves to the club for a single exhibition game; in others,
they engage for the season. Their pay is ridiculously high, considering
the service rendered. We hear of a club that secured one player for a
thousand dollars for the season. Another player was induced to change
his residence from one city to another, and was set up by his employers
in a store, with a stock costing fifteen hundred dollars, by way of
securing his valuable aid on great occasions.
When the club is organized, there must be daily practice for the
benefit of the novices. This is done often to the neglect of every thing
else, to the sore annoyance of parents and employers, and when a good
degree of skill is supposed to be gained another club, fifty or five
hundred miles away, is invited to meet in friendly contest. The
newspapers announce that the Exotics have challenged the Cupids, name
the time and the place, and express an ardent hope that the weather will
be propitious. The eventful day arrives; "play is called," and the
contest proceeds with all spirit and vigor. They pitch, they bat, they
run, they pant, they grow red in the face, they perspire, they strain
their muscles and rend their garments in superhuman effort. The scorers
set down their marks, the reporters of the public press scratch away at
their notes, the spectators applaud. Intense excitement characterizes
the entire performance. There is no brain power to spare on
pleasantries, no surplus breath to waste in laughter. Awkward episodes
occur. A head is broken by an erring bat, or a finger by a ball, or two
players, running with upturned faces and outstretched hands to catch the
same descending ball, rush together with a fearful thump, and fall
backward in collapse. Perhaps proceedings are still further diversified
by the occurrence of a little fight.
The game in due time ends, and one party or the other is declared
victors by so many "runs," and the winners and the losers adjourn to a
hotel and refresh themselves with a supper, of which wine-bibbing
generally forms a prominent feature. Speeches, too, are made by the
talking members of each club, expressive of the most intense admiration
of each other's prowess, and breathing unutterable friendship. The
reporter, who has been presented with a complimentary ticket for this
very purpose, takes notes of what is said and done, and the next morning
the newspaper lays before an admiring world the important intelligence
that "the pitching of the Cupids was superb, the batting of the Exotics
was magnificent, the fielding of Jones and Smith elicited universal
applause, the supper was all that an epicure could desire, and the wit
and eloquence of Mr. Brown's speech were equaled only by the beauty and
pathos of Mr. Jenkins' reply." While an agitated world is laboring with
this startling announcement, the principal performers stay at home and
rest, or limp wearily out to the apothecary's to make investments in
pain-killers and strengthening plasters.
And this, forsooth, is the great National Game. It has scarce a single
feature of real recreation. The overwrought excitement, the excessive
physical exertion, the absence of mental ease and conversational freedom
condemn it. The publicity of the performance destroys all the good that
might otherwise result from it, and, instead of play, makes it a mere
exhibition, whose aim is not rest but notoriety, and whose effect upon
the performer is not physical renewal but exhaustion. The game itself is
not in fault. In its simple forms, pursued in moderation, with right
associations, as a recreation, and not as an ambitious show, it can be
heartily recommended to young men who need some active outdoor
amusement. It may thus be made a very pleasant and not unprofitable
thing. In its preposterous form, inflated into a "great national game,"
it is very laborious, very expensive in time and money, and not
altogether safe for soul or body. It is then not an amusement, but a
pretentious and useless display, whose highest reward is the shallow
applause of the idle and the vain.
It may be hazardous to one's reputation for sagacity to predict the
downfall of any fashionable thing on the ground that it lacks the basis
of good sense; still, I will say that the modern bubble has been blown
so big, that it seems to me that it must collapse before long. If I
mistake not, there are already signs of decay. Many young men, whose
names are on the roll decline to play, and are active members of the
club only at the supper-table. They pay their share of the expense of
public games, and attend, but find it pleasant and politic to perch
themselves daintily on the fence, to smoke and applaud in the shade,
while their hired substitutes do the hard work in the hot sun. In due
time the novelty of the whole thing will be gone, and then comes the
end.
But if its having become an overgrown piece of folly were the only
charge which may be made against it, base ball, even as cultivated by
the clubs, might survive for a time. The expense is not in its favor. We
know of a club where the regular annual dues are twelve dollars for each
member. Besides this there is an initiation fee to be paid by beginners,
and I presume extra expenses for extra occasions. The club has a hundred
and fifty members, and the aggregate of regular dues can not be less
than two thousand dollars a year. No doubt there are clubs whose annual
expenditure amounts to three times the sum named. This certainly is a
liberal price to pay for all the good gained.
There is, however, a much worse objection to base ball than the waste
of money. The vices which cluster about the race-course begin to haunt
the ball-ground. Thievish men find that bets can be made, and money lost
and won, at a ball match as well as at a horse-race, and the same frauds
and stratagems are employed. Sometimes money to the amount of fifty or
even a hundred thousand dollars is staked on the result of a single
match. Men do not need to bet large sums many times before they are
ready for any trick, however infamous, which will enable them to win. We
have seen, in a former chapter, how a horse-race is sometimes secretly
sold beforehand, the parties to the fraud betting accordingly, and
winning every thing. The same thing is not unknown, I am told, among the
ball clubs. A match is in contemplation. A club of "champions" challenge
another champion club, and all possible appliances and devices are
employed to attract attention, draw a crowd, and create an excitement.
While the rivals are apparently burning with intense desire for victory,
and determined to contend for it with heroic energy, a few members of
the clubs, without the consent or knowledge of the rest, agree so to
manage that the victory shall go in a certain direction, and for a share
of the spoils thus surrender the one side to premeditated defeat, and
crown the other with false laurels. I have heard of one case, where a
match game was played and many bets were pending, and interested parties
secured a given result by paying the moderate sum of three hundred
dollars.
In fact, so many vices are beginning to gather about the "great national
game," as some foolishly term it, that every one connected with it seems
to be regarded with a degree of suspicion. Merchants and others, who
employ numbers of young men, are doubtful about members of ball clubs,
and reject candidates who are connected with them. This looks a little
hard, but we must remember that business men want reliable, trustworthy
clerks, salesmen, and book-keepers. When we are trying to learn the
character of a stranger every hint is of value, and a thing about which
so many things cluster can not be a recommendation.
[Illustration: decorative]
[Illustration: decorative]