The National Game

“ BASEBALLING,” writes Mr. Hashimura Togo, “ is National Sport. Walk some distance to suburbs of trolley,when, all of a suddenly, you will notice a sound. It is a very congregational lynch-law sound of numberous voices doing it all at once. Silence punctuates this. Then more of.”

Addressing himself to a policeman, Mr. Togo solicits enlightenment: “ Why all this yell about, unless of mania ? ”

“ Three men have got home,” explains the officer.

“ So happy to welcome travelers! Have them gentlemans been long absent for such public banzai ? ”

Thus we perceive that Mr. Togo is as yet no “ fan,” or, instead of walking to “ suburbs of trolley,” he would have added himself to the burden of some ancient and doddering electric car, which, languishing else in oblivion, is fetched forth to trundle “ red-blooded ” citizens toward yon blessed inclosure. A jocund air has that trolley. Though meriting the pathetic grandeur of the Grand Army of the Republic, it goes caroling, “As Young as I Used to Be.” Yet the throng aboard, clinging fly-fashion, and jammed gayly man on man, breathes no prankish spirit. Theirs is a calm mood and a dignified. They are buttressing the nation by upholding the national game, and a certain stateliness is permitted to patriots.

Mr. Togo, in his heathen blindness, may question the essential Americanism of baseball. Until recently the game originated in the English schoolboy sport of rounders. To abate that scandal, an œcumenical council of baseball hierarchs has defined the true faith. By order of the Special Commission, it shall have been “ indigenous.” Its American origin, then, resembles the infallibility of the Pope, which, as a Catholic savant once remarked to me, is “ a dogma we unfortunately have to believe.”

But, despite its alien lineage, the game has become as characteristically American as bull-fighting is characteristically Spanish, or pelote characteristically Basque, or heresy-hunting characteristically Scotch. Not that our national sport stays pent within our traditional frontiers; it follows the flag, and westward, of course, the umpire takes his way. He is revered in Luzon, as is also the valiant batsman. Persons reluctant to canonize our Philippine policy should observe how five thousand natives will pour down upon the diamond to felicitate the author of a three-bagger, and continue his apotheosis for a solid hour. Meanwhile, baseball has annexed Canada — leaving only the sordid political details to be adjusted — and captured Cuba. “ No tiene descripcion el entusiasmo! ” cries the Cuban press. “ El publico en masa se desborda lienando el immenso campo, dando Vivas! Hurrahs! ” Yet it is in the United States especially that the game thrives and grows and keeps on growing, till now it cheerfully meets an annual cost of $5,500,000, supports more than thirty leagues, major and minor, sells its 25,000,000 tickets a year, and evolves a treasurer’s report that reads like a mathematical pæan. Already it stands among our notable industries. Erelong its capitalization will reach the figure of $20,000,000, the price we paid Spain for a second-hand war.

This glittering phenomenon, so grateful to all who love their country, though to Mr. Togo a stumbling-block and to the trolley conductor foolishness, invites philosophy. How comes it about? Because the “ grandest of nations ” must instinctively espouse “ the grandest of games ” ? Doubtless man might have made a better sport, but doubtless man never did. Man made cricket, enabling it to proceed with the languid tread of a Chinese tragedy, while from time to time some hot-head might arise and exclaim, “Played, sir! Played indeed!” Man made football, endowing it with benign carnage but giving it a season all too brief. Man made golf, wherein the ruminative derive satisfaction from a comparison of records. Man made tennis, a pleasant pastime, yet not for heroes. Man at his best and highest made baseball, which gallops gloriously to its sublime culmination, holds a nation spellbound from snow to snow, provides always the clash of player against player, and calls for the combined exercise of muscle, brain, skill, and manly daring.

Besides, it appeals sweetly to sentiment. Every American has played baseball in his boyhood, learning the ecstasy of triumph, the unforgetable anguish of defeat. Sings Mme. Calvé: —

But she would be less confident of the supreme pathos of her theme had she been walloped, anciently, by the Cedarvilles, and slunk supperless to bed.

The child is father of the “ fan,” and the middle-aged — the aged, even — renew their youth while “rooting ” on the bleachers. And yet in such reflections, however exhilarating, we find no adequate interpretation of the paramountcy achieved by this vociferous amusement. Though the game existed in the forties, it promised small delirium; it lacked import; it was team against team, — mere parochial imbroglios, — and not an entire people struggling mightily all summer toward a golden bourn. Then arose that Moses of the diamond, “Father ” Henry Chadwick, who began his career as law-giver a few years before the Civil War, which was a conflict deeply to be regretted, since it deflected the national mind from the pursuit of the national sport, and devoutly to be praised, since it preserved a nation wherein that sport might disport itself.

After the war came Reconstruction, which gathered up the fragments of a shattered commonwealth, and set them upon the firm foundation of baseball. The country had now a purpose. Henceforth it could develop into a nation of “ rooters,” the loudest and maddest on earth. For “ Father ” Chadwick had codified the rules, thus enabling New York to give battle to Philadelphia, Boston to Detroit, Cleveland to St. Louis, while affording the mythopoetic faculty an opportunity not surpassed in our era. No Secretary of Baseball sits in the President’s cabinet; it is not by manhood suffrage that municipalities elect their ball-nines; nor do the champions receive the pennant from the secretary’s hand with a mediaeval accolade and gain dukedoms as rewards for high service; yet in the “fan’s” thoughts it might almost be so, despite his knowledge that organized baseball is a business — a business controlled by a trust; that the “ clubs ” are stock-companies; that the players are rarely sons of the cities whose names they wear over their hearts; and that the progressive series of shows has been adroitly devised to keep him dangling betwixt hope and despair throughout the season, and get his money. So it is no trivial, isolated, ineffectual fray that assembles yonder multitude this afternoon.

As Pisa fought Venice and Venice fought Florence, so the town dearest to our pride is to take up arms against a loathed and hated rival; only, in our case, consider how incomparably more grave the issue! Our city, if victorious, will advance one stage further toward the championship of its league. If it wins that championship, it will meet the champions of the other major league, and battle for the championship of the world. If triumphant then, it will reign in a moral splendor surpassing the sublimity of Nineveh, Carthage, or Imperial Rome, until — perish the thought! — the arbitrament of next year’s campaign snatches the sceptre from its grasp. In the light of so much glory, one grieves to recall how misguided warriors fought and bled on Italian soil for a mere petty, backyard sovereignty, little worth the fuss, and one sighs for a greater Dante to sing this grander warfare. Still, there is song in the souls of “ fans.” Said Emerson: “ The people fancy they hate poetry, and they are all poets and mystics.”

Arriving at the gates of glee — gates piercing an otherwise impervious boardfence, cruelly devoid of those cracks and knot-holes which afford solace to impecunious urchinhood — our bards undergo a self-imposed classification. The frivolous, the detached, the shallow — fabricators of “ society verse,” let us say — purchase tickets for the grandstand ; those a shade or two less artificial prefer the fifty-eent bleachers; but the true runic singers, they of the flaming heart and awesome howl, humble themselves to be bleached for a quarter.

Though “Casey at the Bat” has been attributed to all known poets from Homer to Theodosia Garrison, and though its authorship is claimed by a wool merchant named Thayer, it is clear that the ballad reached his pen by a process of metempsychosis, having enjoyed a previous existence in the brain of some twenty-five-cent “ rooter.” Accordingly, we shall find the uncrowned laureates of baseball among its lowliest devotees. While Mr. Reginald Van Brunt will yell with a fervor conscious of its absurdity and relish this release from convention, Mr. Micky O’Hooligan will yell with impassioned earnestness. Between these gentlemen, however similar their vocal outbursts, you note the same difference as between the carnival Indian and the wild Comanche. Mr. Van Brunt harbors a suspicion that the national game is perhaps a trifle less important than the national destiny. Not so the honest Micky.

Him let us follow. Through the joyous portals, then, with care to retain our rainchecks. In these read the first intimation of contrast between professional baseball and its collegiate compeer. The powers of the air might spoil a college game and cheat the spectators. Here, if the heavens drip before the middle of the fifth inning, we may go in free at some subsequent game. Thus the management emboldens the over-weatherwise, who, when clouds look ominous, may perchance obtain more baseball, instead of less, for their money. Inside the gate, contrasts not less pronounced. Instead of the modest grandstand, a huge, many-canopied pavilion, over which float ensigns inscribed with the name of our city and that of the despicable municipality for whose destruction we yearn. Instead of the strings of carriages, those vast, austere tribunes, the bleachers. Instead of multitudinous gay hats and gowns, only an occasional dash of color, and that only in the grandstand. Instead of the pennant of our Alma Mater, the nation’s flag, fluttering a bit sadly, as if conscious of its subservience to business. Instead of a distant prospect of academic spires and cupolas beyond the meadows, a background composed of bill-boards, where advertisements of whiskey, beer, and heinous cigars almost crowd out the score-board, while above them loom the chimneys of factories. Everywhere an atmosphere bespeaking capitalized enterprise, speculation, commercialism. Upon the ear fall raucous cries: “ Hot roasted peanuts, five a bag,” “ Ice-cold moxie,” “ Fresh pop-corn ” — uttered by savage brats in white coats and white caps. Ministering angels actually, these young persons wear an expression of cruelty, having caught thus early the aggressive spirit of the diamond.

On the bleachers, however, there is much the same talk as among collegians, though mouthed less gently, and absolutely the same belief in the cosmic importance of sport. Have not vanquished football braves been known to weep? Once, when a victorious eleven were shedding their moleskins amid profane exultings, their trainer burst into the dressing-room, lifted a reverent hand, and cried, “ Silence, boys! Now everybody sing, ‘ Praise God from whom all blessings flow! ’ ” — which they did, in perfect solemnity. When such excesses occur among seekers after wisdom, why scorn poor Micky for calling baseball the most serious occupation of a serious people? His microcosmos refuses admittance to larger interests. The players now at practice down below — they are lions, heroes, sublime demigods, in Micky’s eyes. Pity him, then, for his failure to identify them; “ beneath the cupola,” Paris is equally at a loss to identify its Forty Immortals; as Monsieur Ie Ministre appeals to Madame la Maréchale, so Micky appeals to ’Rastus Jones, and ’Rastus to a truckman, who in turn invites elucidation from a freckled office-boy. There are loud assertions, louder contradictions, as is scarcely surprising, so extraordinary is the family resemblance that pervades the profession. Always the lithe, nimble figure; always the shaven face; always the bold nose and assertive chin. Later, when the game is on, we shall know the artists by reference to the score-card.

For artists they are — sensitive as violinists, “ temperamental ” as painters, emotional as divas. A little detraction will “ get their goat,” a little adulation prepare them to walk upon pink clouds. As the Presbyterian said of the Methodists, they are “ up attic or down cellar all the while.” They cherish their dignity, riding only in Pullmans, sleeping only in the hotel’s most luxurious apartments. They exact from their manager a consideration as delicate as that displayed toward his mariners by the gallant captain of the Pinafore. They demand dazzling emoluments; Corot died rich, Paderewski carries home a fortune every year, yet how insignificant their services to humanity compared with those of a baseball player! Meanwhile the fraternity resents imputations of mere commercialism. Speak not of “ Hessians.” If you insist upon a military allusion, call them Swiss, to whom may one day be carven a Lion of Lucerne.

Happy is their lot, since their craftsmanship, unlike that of other artists, wins the most exuberant admiration from those that comprehend it least. Hence their rank as popular idols. The physiological psychologist, who can hardly be said to abound, admires the precision with which the muscular sense judges the whereabouts of a moving object by the tug of tiny muscles as the eyes converge upon it; he admires the accuracy with which the muscles of eye and arm adjudicate and direct the effort required to hurl a missile to its goal after the muscles around and inside the eye have determined the range; he knows that in that solemnest of ball-games, an artillery engagement, ranges must be found mechanically. There, with some incidental enthusiasm over the diligence expended in training the muscular sense to such superb efficiency, his admiration ends. To Micky, however, the skill of a star ball-player savors less of the magnificently natural than of the out-and-out miraculous. And our world consists mainly of Mickys. Ages ago, when it contained no other folk, such wonderworking would have qualified the “ wizard ” to teach spiritual truth. In our own day, it has enabled a baseball hero to become a popular evangelist.

But see, the game is about to begin! Quick, your score-card! At last it is settled that Murphy, not O’Toole, is to pitch, O’Toole having doubtless a temporary “ glass arm; ” also that Kelley, though spiked a week ago by a furious base-runner, is again to mount guard over yonder hypertrophied pincushion; who’s who, we now know, so far as concerns “ our boys,” and as for the enemy, seated in a cross-legged, red-legged row on the bench, the score-card will make them out for us as obligingly as the programme that names the actors “in the order of their first appearance on the stage.” All is clear, save perhaps to some wretched Togo.

Billiards the Japanese intellect can fathom: “ two sticks, three balls, two men. One says ‘ Damn! ’ The other says, ‘Hard lines!’” But baseball is more intricate. It is billiards in three dimensions (and a fourth, sometimes, namely the umpire), with an uneven field for a table, the ball shot through air and deflected by wind, and the play executed with chain-lightning rapidity, while always nine men are pitted against one. So you will bear with Mr. Togo if his account errs through excess of impressionism. Says he, “ One strong-arm gentleman called a Pitch is hired to throw. Another gentleman called a Stop is responsible for whatever that Hon. Pitch throw to him, so he protect himself from wounding by sofa-pillows which he wear on hands. Another gentleman called a Striker stand in front of that Stop and hold up club to fright off that Hon. Pitch from angry rage of throwing things. Hon. Pitch in hand hold one baseball of an unripe condition of hardness. He raise that arm lofty — then twist — O sudden !! He shoot them bullet-ball straight to breast of Hon. Stop. Hon. Striker swing club for vain effort. It is a miss and them deathly ball shoot Hon. Stop in gloves. ‘Struck once! ’ decry Hon. Umperor, a person who is there to gossip about it in loud voice.”

Despite traces of inaccuracy, we have here a transcription from reality. Such titanic efforts, such lifting of huge hopes, such scant fruition! They hurl the ball, but not canonically. They hurl the ball canonically, but the batsman cowers. They hurl the ball canonically, and the batsman smites it, but erroneously. They hurl the ball canonically, the batsman smites it righteously, and then some fellow catches it. This process, varied with the scampering of certain gentlemen in haste, who at best reach only the point they started from, continues through nine innings, while the majority of the eighteen demigods stand beside bags or guard distant outposts, chewing, chewing, or sit all a-row and drink water out of a pail. Upon what boresome doings, then, hangs the destiny of our cities! How justly has Mr. Steffens celebrated their shame!

To the “ fan,” this very uneventfulness is in itself an event. One recalls the ardor of the shopkeeper in a college town, who had feared that a football defeat might impoverish the gamesters who owed him money; hearing that it had yielded a score of nothing to nothing, he cried, “ Blessed be nothing! ” So here. The red-blooded look not kindly upon the “ hippodrome ” and the “ batfest.” They desire that skill shall match skill in “ an even break.” What the performance lacks of melodrama it makes up in show of technique, so that, as Mr. Togo phrases it, “ all America persons is settled in state of very hoarse condition.” Nor can even he suppress a spasm of admiration for that central luminary, the twirler. “ Hon. Pitch prepare to enjoy some deathly agony. He hold that ball outside of twisted arm, turn one half beside himself, throw elbows away, give whirling salute of head, caress ankle with calf of leg, then up-air — quickly shoot!! ”

Mr. O’Hooligan, steeped in the lore of the “ spitball,” the drop curve, the high in-ball, the out-curve, and the “ fadeaway,” and aware that the finger-tips, as the “ pill ” leaves the hand, endow it with its rotary genius, pays this wizard the homage of a somewhat more enlightened reverence. He will speak of the “ cushion of air ” that produces the curve, yet gilds his science with gleams of the supernatural. Those enchanted missiles — lo! trailing clouds of glory do they come! And the twirler — what charmer of political conventions, serpents, or railroad stocks commands a higher magic ? Behold, for instance, the necromantic spitball, how it drops from the batter’s hips to his knees in two feet of forward motion, or “floats up like a chunk of lead till it gets close to the swatting station and then ducks around the corner like a subpoena-dodger!” The mere expectation of a spitball unnerves the doughtiest “ sons of swat! ”

Physicist, though mystic, Mr. O’Hooligan dabbles also in psychology. To him —and to us, for that matter—the pitcher is a “ deep thinker,” fathoming the batsman’s heart, discerning his aversions, and uprooting his courage by proffering what he most detests at the least grateful juncture. To “deep thinking” our twirier adds moral hardihood. It takes character to face a whole dynasty of cudgel-kings, one after another, and not “ go up in the air,” especially when bayed at the while by a maniacal public.

Likewise it takes character to bat; for the batter views eight allied foes, one of whom prepares to slay him with a look, if not with the “ pellet.” I recall a portly batsman whose person protruded in a sort of oriel; though slow of foot, he possessed a talent for knocking phenomenally evasive flies. Knowing this, the pitcher smote him with the ball in the region of the watch-chain, and, when rather severely criticised by his victim, remarked, “ Perfectly fair ball! Right over the plate! ” Just so; but after that this batsman could never face its author with any pleasure. Invariably he “fanned out.” And even the slim run some risk. Nevertheless, such is their devotion to country that, when necessity requires, they will defy the rule that forbids selfmartyrdom, and deliberately offer their bodies to be hit. Sometimes I wonder if it hurts. I have seen a batter receive a resounding crack on the funny bone, and make for first base with a radiant countenance, limping jocosely all the way. Indeed, one is tempted, while surveying the moral pinnacle attained by cudgelers, to forget those equally lofty artistic summits which loom less splendid because more remote. Not only must the ash meet the horsehide, however fantastic its course; the clash must be so timid, ideally, that the ball will come down in precisely the spot intended — an unguarded region of the “ front yard,” let us say — or perchance some defenseless section of “ left garden.” Wielding what the violinist calls a perfect instrument, the man with the round club must juggle with angles of incidence and reflection, complicated by the manifold eccentricities of an inspired gyroscope, and instantly determine what speed to give his bat as it describes with its tip the arc of a circle, since the hundredth part of a second, whether too soon or too late, will vitiate the entire calculation. Saw you ever a task that called louder for “ all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy ? ”

Time — what a factor in battles! One hates to descend to the trivial, but it was time that decided Waterloo, and here every infinitesimal moment is treasured, as befits the gravity of the issue. Fans understand this, and bear it in mind when appraising the performance. They know why the management has selected a “ south-paw” to man first base; the left-handed player has the advantage of being already in a position to throw to second when the ball comes to him from the catcher. They know why base-runners should slide feet first. Says Mr. Togo, “ All spectacles in grandstand decry ‘ O make sliding, Hon. Sir! ’ ” —and “ Hon. Striker is sliding to base by the seat of his stummick.” Bad policy, think the fans. Not only do basemen cherish a distaste for spiked shoes and a fluttering of the heart on their approach sole out, so that the feet-first onslaught will meet the milder discouragement; the main point is to arrive ready to pick yourself up in an instant and resume your career. Games are lost and won in fractions of a second.

It is time, again, that determines the brilliancy of fielding. When the ball whizzes just above the ground, and a man runs in for it and takes it at his shoelacings, Micky’s whole soul rises up to bless him. When the ball soars across the blue, and the “ gardener ” turns his back on it, darts into the remote distance, and wiles it from over his shoulder into his mitt, Micky relights his pipe. Why this frantic approval of a feat by no means showy, this indifference to a feat amazingly spectacular ? Because time, by its brevity, glorified the one, whereas time, by its prolixity, cheapened the other. Only instantaneous perception and judgment and action can stop the white-hot liner. The very sensationalism of the arching path that a long fly follows will afford time to decide where the ball must alight, time to transfer one’s activities to the appointed spot, time composedly to welcome in that fly with gently smiling jaws. As well solicit applause for keeping a tryst with an express train!

Thus it appears that Mr. O’Hooligan appreciates, equally with alacrity of body, alacrity of mind. He would redouble his enthusiasm could he hear astronomers discourse of the “ personal equation,” how it qualifies an observer to note with greater or lesser precision the moment when the star crosses the hair-line and to press with greater or lesser promptitude the instrument that records its transit. Eminence as a baseball-player presupposes a personal equation any astronomer might envy, and this endowment accounts for the profusion of Kelleys and Caseys, of O’s and Mac’s on the nation’s diamond. The nimble-witted, the quicktempered, the recklessly daring — in a word, a race given to bulls, half-bricks, and brilliancy on the firing-line — possess the required rapidity of perception and intellection, the required rapidity of nervous reactions. Women, but for those limitations to which humorists attribute the survival of the hen, should play astounding baseball; as regards the personal equation, every woman is an Irishman.

Nowhere a keener demand for such celerity than behind the bat, where the catcher acts as a collector and conservator of twisted thunderbolts and as steersman of the sloop of destiny. Alone able to scan the whole battle, he must shape its strategy in moments of peril. Yet while there exists a code of signals between pitcher and catcher, and while extraneous counsel from coachers mitigates the consternation with which men on bases are so richly furnished, still further hints and persuasions proceed from the manager. He signs in esoteric symbols, unknown to the foe, though legible to his vassals, so that he who reads may run. Sometimes, to ward off suspicion, he deputes the “ signing ” to a henchman, but there’s risk in that. Once Sweeney, bidden to slide when Lauterbach crossed his feet, beheld the sign and slid, thereby losing the game; Lauterbach, crazed with excitement, had crossed his feet unconsciously. The manager could nevertheless rejoice in the perfection of his discipline, as when, on another occasion, Bad Bill rejoined his comrades at breakfast, saw the horrified manager stroke his beard, and instantly dived under the table. As a posse of waiters were ejecting him, Bill expostulated, “ What yous puttin’ me out fer? Didn’t me manager sign to slide ? ” His not to reason why, his but to do and die.

Now Micky, despite his knowledge of wireless communications, boards of strategy, and the team-play that alone captures pennants, proffers advice of his own, instructing the players, even the manager; and hereby hangs psychology. A lordly egotist is Micky. He looms vast within his personal universe because that universe is itself so small. Besides, he is a part of all that he sees. He assists the progress of a blood-and-thunder play with cries of “ Sick ’em! ” and “ Cheese it! ” On the bleachers he not only comments aloud upon every incident, gasping, “ He’s out! ” or “ He’s safe; ” he relieves a burning heart by howling, “ Come on, Pat! ” or “ Slide, Kelley — slide! ” It is not in the initial stages of civilization that humanity acquires the art of thinking with its mouth shut. Meanwhile, his shrewdness enables him to admire a player for disregarding his suggestions. When the man on third, whose whole soul is chanting “ Home, Dearie, Home,” displays a masterly inactivity, all fans approve with their intellects, while demurring with their emotions.

Conscious of a power within himself making for victory, since his yearnings readily translate themselves into volitions, Micky regards his whoops and yells as by no means impotent. Nor are they always. At a crisis, “ Hi! Hi! Hi! ” may unnerve a batsman or “ rattle ” the most stoical of pitchers. The “ rooting ” of his allies, on the other hand, may calm the quiverings of a distraught spirit and convince a player that the stars in their courses are fighting for him. All the which goes to show that Mr. O’Hooligan has still very much to learn concerning the ethics of sport; yes, and concerning its æsthetics. Both on moral and artistic grounds, good sportsmen denounced the college glee club that serenaded a visiting ball-nine throughout the night preceding a game. On similar grounds, they condemned the half-back who entered into his closet and prayed for victory. It is the theory of clean sport that its participants should conduct their manoeuvres without interference, earthly or celestial, malignant or beneficent. Consequently the higher priesthood of baseball have set their faces sternly against “ rooting ” and hope to do it away.

Already they have at least partially extinguished a more crying abuse. Writes Hashimura Togo, “ Occasionally that large German intelligence what set next to me would say with voice, ‘ Kill that umperor! ’ I wait for very large hour to see death of this Hon. Umperor, but it did not occur as I seen. Too bad! I had very good seat to see from! ” To umpire is human, to forgive divine; and fans are progressing, however slowly, toward that commendable altitude of morality. Instead of tying tin-cans to his coat-tails, chasing him up trees, bedecking him with tar and feathers, or forcing him to seek asylum in the town jail, they now harry this martyr with rhetoric — accusations of perjury, piracy, and grand larceny, for the most part, with now and then a promise of annihilation. Gradually they have come to understand his modest plea for tolerance.

“ The umpire may make mistakes as well as any other mortal,” says the renowned Sheridan, “ and if he does, it does n’t follow that he should hang for it. Here are people seated in a semicircle around the grounds. On almost every play some of them will be better witnesses than he, yet they imagine he ought to see it exactly as they do; and if he does n’t, what a chorus of yells and howls! ” Good lack,you would say so! “ Robber! ” bawl the fans. “ Liar! Thief! Kill him!” — till the uproar “ has feeding time at the zoo faded to a whisper.” And remember, the umpire is the most sensitive of all the beasts of the field. Hence the humiliation with which patriots reflect that this comparative immunity results less from a softening of the heart on the part of fans than from a drastic severity on the management’s part toward the players. For the bleachers take their cues from the diamond, and heavy fines have taught players to beware how they unchain the passions of the mob. Left to themselves, our fans bestow upon their salaried arbiter only such abuse as authors, if they had the pluck, would extend to his prototype, the editor.

Happily, you may attribute this vocal umpire-baiting in some measure to mere love of din. To many, his crime is the occasion, rather than the cause, of pandemonium. Not so those thrilling incidents that elicit the wild and terrible “ E-e-e-eyah,” the long drawn “ h’ra-a-a-ay,” the ear-splitting “ Hoo-oo-oo-wow! ” “More yells of shouts in head,” cries Hashimura. “ I am an enthusiasm. Such sound of hates! Port Arthur was took with less noise! ” Considering the yelps, roars, and growls in which our four-footed ancestors expressed themselves, such reversion to type need hardly perplex us. The marvel is not that the bleachers lie so near the jungle, but that they are separated from it by so vast an interval. The whooping and bawling reflect intelligence, intelligence finer and higher than we are wont to believe the proletarians possessed of.

How comes it that they command sufficient range of consciousness to grasp simultaneously all the phases of a dazzling play or the nimbleness to foresee all its consequences ? May we not conjecture that Micky sees one facet of greatness, ’Rastus another, the office-boy a third; that each acclaims what he himself comprehends; and that, by a felicitous contagion, the excitement of each redoubles the excitement of the rest ? A false hypothesis. For the game is not particularly complicated, as games go; it is quick — so quick that successive impressions make a palimpsest of the untutored mind (the mind of the philosopher, let us say, to whom a ball-game is a rare indulgence), whereas no palimpsest is inscribed upon Mr. O’Hooligan. Having played baseball, watched baseball, talked baseball, read baseball, dreamed baseball, and devoted little earnest cogitation to anything but baseball ever since he was able to lift a bat, he takes in each new move as swiftly as it occurs, and knows by lifelong experience what it portends. I once passed an evening at a resort peopled exclusively by “ greatest living authorities.” Were they brilliant, these masters of infinitesimal specialties? They were dull. The same process that makes Micky O’Hooligan an adept in baseball had made them retentive reservoirs of erudition. Micky, had he devoted equal assiduity to mycology, the evolution of the aorist, or the histology of the potato-bug, might have won honorary degrees, I doubt not, and a paragraph in “ Who’s Who.”

Spare the sigh! This scholar craves no laurels. Born a democrat, he adores the simplicity of “ rooters’ row.” Not even in the smoking-car, where hod-carriers hold converse with bankers, does democracy blossom more superbly. Here to every fellow it is permitted to exhibit frightful suspenders, smoke infamous cigars, wield a palm-leaf fan, swear horribly, advance the most unpleasant opinions, and punch the heads of malefactors — that is, those who intercept their neighbors’ peanuts, as the boy tosses up the bag from down below, and those who wantonly stand while the congregation is seated. Fortunately, the congregation boasts a sheeplike suggestibility; in general, when one stands, the rest stand also; otherwise nothing short of legislation analogous to that against the theatre hat could defend the bleacher!tes against mutual annihilation.

Thus we follow the game in quite tolerable misery. Hot? It was never so hot. Pitilessly the sun beats down from a sky broken only by the fleecy white clouds that the players call “angels,” because they afford so benevolent a background for the batted ball. Though sunstroke seems inevitable, inning succeeds inning, with nine men walking away slowly, nine others coming up on the run, till the ultimate inning is now nearly completed. Jubilant moments there have been — jubilant moments and moments glum; awful suspense, too, and at this the eleventh hour the score stands three to two against us. Amid terrific cheers, great Murphy strikes an attitude as of the Colossus of Rhodes, fire in his eye, desperate determination in his heart. His cudgel menaces the pitcher. Two men on bases dance nervously sidewise, ablaze with excitement. There are cries from the coachers, mingling oddly with “Ice-cold moxie!” and “Fresh popcorn, five a bag!” The pitcher holds the ball meditatively beneath his chin and glares defiance. He coils himself up “like a dissolute bed-spring,” lets loose, and then — oh, mad instant! The ring of a bat, flying forms that fling themselves feet-first along the ground in clouds of dust, other forms with heads thrown back and faces upturned, one horror-stricken figure moving across the far, far background, his posture that of anguish hoping against hope — and victory is ours! We howl.

Then a metamorphosis. Patriots become mere sordid seekers after slabs of striped ice-cream, to be purchased out of carts beyond the gates. At first, one would rebuke those carts; they seem a profanation. Then comes a saner understanding, which crowns them with all the honor due to the Red Cross. And their patrons — well, is not the triumph won, our city’s star again in a bright ascendant, the moral order of the universe again vindicated ? To die now, with striped ice-cream within reach — why indulge in such ex post facto fanaticism ? Besides, the nation itself boasts as its chief aim the well-being of its citizens. Without citizens, what would become of the nation, and of its noblest product, the national game?

It now remains to see what the press will say. What, forsooth, can it say? That our team has “ lashed another victim to its victorious chariot”? That our boys “ look good for the rag ” ? Precisely. But the journalistic passion for truth will not long content itself with such inadequate phrasing. Presently we shall read how men died on bases; how batsmen took bites out of the pea; how Stivetts blew up in a jiffy, because Schreck had his kidding clothes on; how Sharky poked a bingle; how Murphy and McCabe were wedded to bags; how Schults was buffaloed by Killian and popped to Coughlin; and how Pfeister tried his hoodoo snake on Crawford and had the hard hitter tied in a knot. This is something like, and we live the battle over again, though the unrighteous affect perplexity. Nonsense! How, save by a gorgeous symbolism, shall language body forth these jumping wonders ? How, save by employing a special argot, shall even symbolism do them justice? As men invent vocables wherewith to adorn a ballad or to give splendor to a legend, or to establish communication with a baby, so men shape a new and marvelous verbiage for baseball. Thus only can the heart’s deepest emotion find a voice. What if we call the adored ball a “pill,” a “pellet,” and a “globule;” what if we speak of the home plate as the “pan”? Browning addressed Mrs. Browning as “dear Ba.” Besides,remember that basebull reports must be penned while the game rages and that they cannot but reflect the noble frenzies of their authors.

Yet think not to-day’s game dies with to-day’s “extras.” In two baseball weeklies it will reëcho; perhaps also in the Baseball Magazine; certainly in that sacred history or fan’s bible, Spalding’s Guide ; and fans there are who will talk of it years hence, to the joy of men folks, the despair of women folks. For heavy is the burden laid upon the gentler sex by our national game. To the maid, it means being dragged by some amiable though misguided cavalier through what should have been the “ time of your life, Nellie,” and was boresome beyond words: to the wife, it means a husband tied to the Sporting Page — silent or cryptically ebullient; and, as old age arrives, and the third generation of fans vibrates between the sand-lots and the bleachers, it means mortal peril; —

Mr. John T. McCutcheon fixes the average daily baseball mortality among grandmothers at seven thousand.

To the bleacherite, however, it means fullness of life — not sport merely, but learning, hero-worship, moral uplift, and a wellspring of national consciousness. He amasses an erudition worthy the Five Academies. What biologist speaks more confidently of Tigers, Cubs, Bisons, Doves, and Orioles ? What ethnologist more knowingly of Colonels, Pirates, Red Sox, Quakers, and Cardinals? Was ever manipulator of logarithms and the calculus more ready than the fans with averages and percentages ? And there are pretentious enough climatologists who can’t explain why the pennant shuns seaboard cities; there are specialists in folk-lore who remain uninformed touching the baleful phenomena that must ensue if a cat walks across the diamond; there are historians — think of it! who have never traced the evolution of the ball from the “Bounding Rock” (well named) to its latest inspired successor; and who to save their necks can’t tell who was purchased when, or at what price, or in which of the major, bush or outlaw leagues; or that it was Arthur Cummings, and not the Discobolus, who accidentally invented the curve.

Worse, there are historians who, though learned in the chronology of antiquity, attach no importance to the most significant dates our world has experienced — 1845, when the first baseball club was founded; 1859, when the Excelsiors and the Atlantics undertook a missionary tour of England, vainly hoping to convert the benighted and hard-hearted islanders; and 1876, when patriots organized the National League. But for one’s reluctance further to humiliate our chroniclers, one might add still other dates, all of which have been mastered by the fan. Happily, they are modern, very modern, these dates, and therefore comparatively few. They leave the baseball sage somewhat in the position of those mediæval schoolmen to whom, since little had occurred or been found out before their day, encyclopaedic sapiency was not impossible. Nor is a Micky O’Hooligan less proud in his wisdom than a Duns Scotus. To know all about something, to know that he knows it, and to know that all other information is sheer froth and vanity — what a solace to the ignoramus!

And in Micky’s idolatrous reverence for the players there is solace for his wellwishers. Note the Greek symmetry of those athletes’ development, as compared with the “strong man’s” musclebound exaggerations. Observe the clearness of their minds, their quickness, their level-headedness under affliction. Consider their moral qualities — their grit, their self-control, their abstemiousness (at least during the season), their readiness to sacrifice individual glory for the glory of the team, and especially the asceticism with which, to conserve their eyesight, they forswear the luxury of night-time study! Then ask yourself if, on the whole, Micky — being Micky — could bestow his admiration on a type likelier to influence him favorably.

For encomiums upon the influences of the game itself, consult its now quite voluminous literature. There you will find it belauded for that virtue which is next to godliness. Gambling pollutes the turf and the prize-ring; save in sporadic and insignificant cases of individual betting, it never pollutes the diamond. It can’t. Organized gambling, as at the race-track and around the roped arena, presupposes certainties, not chances; a jockey or a pugilist is “fixed.” But how are you going to fix eighteen men at once, to say nothing of managers and umpires ? Indeed, it is the very certainty that no such roguery can be practiced that makes a ball game so popular. Mr. O’Hooligan is convinced that every player is doing his best, for ever so little listlessness may exchange the St. Cloud of the diamond for the St. Helena of a cigar store, and your baseball Napoleon “would hate awfully to have to go to work.” I quote a famous player. Let me also quote, in order to exhibit the ethical perfections that prevail throughout this sport, the remarks of one of its chief sages concerning the purity of its judiciary. “Woe betide the player who falls from grace!” writes that charming philosopher. “Baseball law has Federal law chased clear under the table when it comes to dealing out justice, and no skinny shrimp of a lawyer can protect a crook by objecting to evidence because it is against the letter of the law and contrary to precedent. When they find a crook in baseball, they chase him out so blamed fast his feet get hot hitting the grit!”

So, when “all-America persons is settled in state of very hoarse condition,” blending their voices in “a very congregational lynch-law sound,” Mr. Hashimura Togo may be assured that those “yells of shouts” proceed from emotions sanctified by moral enthusiasm, and that they promote a sense of national solidarity. The bawling and braying — mayhap, had we a notation sufficiently spiritual to record their meaning, they might gain acceptance as an American “Wacht am Rhein,” an American “Marseillaise,” and not less potent than the war-songs of older races. Micky O’Hooligan sees more of America at a ball game, and hears more of it, than anywhere else. He knows by its utterances that its heart is right. He is consciously, hilariously, a part of it. And when, with spirit at once softened and elated, he turns toward home and is halted in the street by a representative of the abhorred “ plutocrat” class, he overlooks artificial distinctions, as created by a Panama hat, gloves, and a swagger-stick, and ungrudgingly divulges the score. “A mon’s a mon, for a’ that!” Next day, as he discusses the game with Father Hogan and Morris Rosenberg, with Patrolman McNally and a worker from the settlement, with a scab and a walking delegate, he finds always a glow of fellow-feeling, so strong and so genuine as in some sort to bespeak a realization of that noble American ideal, the brotherhood of man.