“ George Wright is generally regarded as a model base-ball player, especially in his responsible position of short-stop; and until he injured his leg he had no equal in the position. He is a jolly, good-natured youth full of life and spirit, up to all the dodges of the game, and especially is he noted for his sure catching of high balls in the infield, and for his swift and accurate throwing. At the bat, too, he excels; while as a bowler, fielder, and batsman, in cricket, he ranks with the best of American cricketers. ”

“ But if any one can present to us a sport or pastime, a race or a contest, which can in all its essentials of stirring excitement, displays of manly courage, nerve and endurance, and its unwearying scenes of skillful play and alternations of success equal our national game of ball, we should like to see it. ”

“ In 1888 the pitchers were handicapped by the absurd rule which charged runs scored on bases on balls as earned runs, successive bases on balls giving an earned run to the batting side, even in the absence of a single base hit. To estimate a pitcher's skill on such a basis is nonsense. As the scoring rules do not admit of the record of data showing runs clean earned off the pitching, and not off the fielding and pitching combined, we are obliged to make up a record of the percentage of victories as the only reliable figures at command on which to judge the pitching of the season. ”

“ It is well managed and harmonious teams, not picked nines led by special stars, which win in the long run. Now and then—as there are exceptions in all cases—a picked nine will attain a certain degree of success. But for steady struggles for permanent success in the professional championship arena, team work of the very best, and admirably managed teams will alone achieve steady victory. The old Boston teams under Harry Wright, and the Chicago teams under Anson, are a standing proof of this fact. Let the National League magnates ponder these truths earnestly. ”

“ Drunken players are not only a costly drawback to success individually, but they permeate the whole baseball fraternity with a demoralizing influence. The fact is, professional baseball playing has arrived at that point of excellence, and reached so advanced a position in regard to its financial possibilities, that it will no longer pay, in any solitary respect, to allow players of drinking habits in first-class teams. The demands of the game, as it is now played, are such as to require a player to have all his wits about him to play ball up to the standard it has now reached. ”

“ The batsman who excels in the essentials of the art of batting is the true leader, though he may not make a three-bagger or a home run more than half a dozen times in a season's batting. And a part of team work at the bat is sacrifice hitting—sacrifice hits being hits which, while they result in the striker's retirement, nevertheless either forward runners to the bases or bring runs in. After a batsman has become a base-runner, whether by a hit, a fielding error, or a battery error, if he be forwarded to second by a safe bunt or a neat tap of the ball, both being base hits ”

“ The American national game of base ball has reached a period in its history, when it no longer needs to be referred to as a field exercise, calling for particular mention of its peculiar merits. It is now the established favorite game of ball of the American people, and occupies a position in public estimation which no other field sport in vogue approaches. The game has attained its present position of popularity, not only from its adaptability to our peculiar national characteristics, as regards its possession of special points of attraction ”

“ There is one thing the season's experience has shown, and that is that field captains of intelligence and judgment, like Anson, Comiskey, Ward, Irwin, et al. have come to realize the fact that team batting is a very important element in bringing about pennant winning, and by team batting is meant the rule which makes everything secondary in the work of the batsman to the important point to forward men around the bases and to bring runs in. ”

“ The contest for the American Association championship was also one of the interesting events of the season, and one, too, which taught aspiring clubs a lesson which they can well profit by; and that is, that success in championship contests is due far more to able management, competent captaining, and thorough team work, than to the gathering together of the strongest of star players in a club team. ”

“ The rugged honesty of the League president is a matter with which those interested in base ball have long been familiar. His residence is in Washington, and he was for years a player and umpire, having all the ups and downs usual to their lot, but he is now in very comfortable circumstances. The duties of his office require a cool-headed man, able to do justice to all without fear or favor. ”

“ When the batsman hits a fair ball, while at the same time that he gives the fielders a chance to put him out, he himself is also given an equal chance of making a base or of scoring a run; but when he hits a foul ball, while he affords the fielders an opportunity to catch him out, no such compensating advantage is given him in the way of earning a base or a run as in the case of a fair hit ball ”

“ THE VALUE OF TEAM WORK. Nothing has been more gratifying to the admirers of the game in the practical experience of improved points of play realized during the season of 1888, than the growing appreciation, by the most intelligent patrons of the game, of the value of team work at the bat, and its great superiority as an element of success in winning pennants, to the old school plan of record batting as shown in the efforts to excel solely in home run hitting and the slugging style of batting. ”

“ In judgment, command of the ball, pluck, endurance, and nerve, in his position he has no superior; while his education and gentlemanly qualities place him above the generality of base- ball pitchers. As a batsman he now equals the best of what are called 'scientific' batsmen—men who use their heads more than their muscle in handling the ash. His force in delivery is the success with which he disguises a change of pace from swift to medium, a great essential in successful pitching. Spalding is a thorough representative of the spirited young men of the Western States, he being from Illinois. ”

“ If there is any sport which yields a fair equivalent in the special attractions it presents for an admission fee of half a dollar, it is such ball playing as was exhibited during the past season on the grounds of the leading clubs of the National League. A feature of the attendance at the League games of 1888 was the presence of the fair sex in such goodly numbers. Where the ladies congregate as spectators of sports a refining influence is brought to bear which is valuable to the welfare of the game. ”

“ It is to the introduction of base ball as a national pastime, in fact, that the growth of athletic sports in general in popularity is largely due; and the game pointed out to the mercantile community of our large cities that "all work and no play" is the most costly policy they can pursue, both in regard to the advantages to their own health, and in the improvement in the work of their employees, the combination of work and play judiciously, yielding results in better work and more satisfactory service than was possible under the old rule. ”

“ The success of the New York Club in winning the championship, introducing, as it did, a new possessor of the League pennant and its accompanying honors, may justly be regarded as an advantage to the general interests of the National League, inasmuch as it is anything but desirable that one club should, season after season, carry off the honors, as the old Boston Club did in the early history of the professional championship contest ”

“ Then again, the quick handling of a batted or thrown ball, that it may be returned with all accuracy and lightning like rapidity to the waiting basemen are points which our cricketers are deficient in, when compared with the American professional ball player. It can be seen at a glance that the game is prolific of opportunities for quick and brilliant fielding. ”

“ Suppose a ball is batted to the short stop, and that fielder overthrows the ball to first base, and it goes toward the crowd and is there stopped or touched by an outsider, the moment this stoppage of the ball or interference with it occurs, the umpire must call "Block ball," and until the ball is returned to the field and held by the pitcher while in his "box," it is dead for putting out any base runner; and such runners are permitted to run all the bases they can until the ball is thus put legally into play. ”

“ For instance, suppose there is a runner at first base trying to steal second, and the catcher throws the ball to the second baseman to cut him off, and that the ball thus thrown hits the umpire and glances off out of the reach of the fielders, the runner in such case, while being debarred from making second base by the accident, is allowed to return to the base he left without being put out. But the umpire must see to it that the ball is not intentionally thrown to hit the umpire with a view of preventing what would otherwise be a successful steal. ”

“ It is equally unquestionable that the very reverse had a great deal to do with the lamentable failure of the Boston team to follow up the success with which that club's team opened the campaign. The contrast, these two clubs presented in this special respect calls for the most earnest consideration of the vital question of insisting upon temperate habits in all the club teams during the period of the championship season each year. The evil of drunkenness among the professional teams is one which has grown upon the fraternity until it has become too costly an abuse to be longer tolerated. ”

“ In regard to the slugging tactics which the batsman goes in for extra hits at all costs, it may partly be regarded as a very stupid piece of play at the bat to endeavor to make a home run when there is no one on the bases to benefit by it, and for the reason that it subjects the batsman to a violent sprinting of 120 yards, and professional sprint-runners who enter for runs of that distance, even when in training for the effort, require a half-hour's good rest before making another such effort. ”

“ When a ball is hit so slowly towards a fielder that he cannot handle it in time to put out the batsman.
That in all cases where a base runner is retired by being hit by a batted ball, the batsman should be credited with a base hit. ”

“ Any attempt to steal a base must go to the credit of the base runner, whether the ball is thrown wild or muffed by the fielder, but any manifest error is to be charged to the fielder making the same. If the base runner advances another base he shall not be credited with a stolen base, and the fielder allowing the advancement is also to be charged with an error. If a base runner makes a start and a battery error is made, the runner secures the credit of a stolen base, and the battery error is scored against the player making it. ”

“ It is sufficient punishment for hitting a foul ball that he, as batsman, be deprived of making a base, without adding the unjust penalty of an out. This one sided condition of things, too, is increased when a double play is made on the catch of a foul ball, for not only is the batsman unfairly punished, but also the base runner who may have made the base by a clean hit. ”

“ The practical application of the rule is that if a club has not nine men ready to take the field at the hour appointed for beginning a regularly scheduled championship-game, the club short handed must forfeit the game. Moreover, if they begin play with the required complement of men, and one of the number becomes injured and disabled from service in the field, and they have no legal substitute player to take the disabled man's place, the game cannot be continued with but eight men in the field, and therefore it must be similarly forfeited. ”

“ The work of the slugging batsman who, nearly every time he goes to the bat when no one is on the bases, makes an extra hit, does not compare with that of the team worker who either by a single base hit or a sacrifice hit forwards a runner round the bases, or sends a run in. Here is where the batting averages prove to be complete failures so far as affording a criterion of a batsman's value in team work is concerned ”

“ For this reason the pitcher, who was really a poor fielder in his position in fielding balls from the bat, but who happened to be fortunate in striking batsmen out by his pitching—thereby getting a big record of pitching assistances—became the leader in the pitcher's fielding averages; while the pitcher who really excelled as a fielder when in the box, but who was not as fortunate in striking out his batting opponents, and therefore could not furnish as good a record of assistances on strikes, was set down in the fielding averages as a tail-ender. ”

“ PRIVATE SIGNALS IN COACHING. The coaching of base runners by private signals is an improvement in the game which is bound to come into vogue eventually. The noisy method of coaching which disgraced most of the American Association club teams in 1888 is doomed to die out. In the case of the coaching of deaf mutes, like Hoy and others, private signals had to be employed, and it can readily be seen how effective these can be made to be when properly systematized. There is not a single point in noisy verbal coaching which aids base-runners. ”