Ballista

“ More can play. Have as many pins or Indian clubs set up as men playing. Players all stand in front of pins at either end of gymnasium and keep as many balls busy as you have on hand. Every pin knocked down counts one point for the side knocking it down. Balls may be thrown against the wall behind the pins and carromed back, knocking down pins in that way. Men must not step over the centre line in throwing the ball or for any reason. With the use of the medicine balls and two or three basket balls, twenty players can be kept exceedingly busy.
Mat Tag ”

“ There are times, when the ball gets to the ground (plate 226) , and such a confused mass rushing together around it, and knocking their sticks together, without the possibility of any one getting or seeing it, for the dust that they raise, that the spectator loses his strength, and everything else but his senses; when the condensed mass of ball-sticks, and shins, and bloody noses, is carried around the different parts of the ground, for a quarter of an hour at a time, without any one of the mass being able to see the ball ”

“ It was a game in which men famous on the diamond in the seventies and eighties took part, and by instinct their old cunning, dulled a bit by long lack of practice, came back to them for the afternoon, and they played the best Base Ball of which they were capable. For seven innings men with gray hair, men with little hair at all, men grown rotund and men grown thin, assumed the old Base Ball gait, laid for infield and outfield flies, and handled the willow at the bat as only men to the diamond born can. ”

“ Girls still strike, as then, balls with the palm of the hand to keep up their bouncing, or fling them against the wall to drive them back on the return, or pass the ball from hand to hand in the ring or row. Boys in those days, standing on the corners of a triangle, sent back the ball on the fly or the bounce, giving with one hand and taking with the other, much as they do to-day. ”

“ We have our balls regularly, for instance; and there are artists on board this ship, who, though they cannot, perhaps, make as accurate a right angle with their legs as the first dancer of a leaping ballet, can go through their figures in a gale of wind; which is more than can be said of the highest jumper of them all on shore.”
“A ball, without females, would, at least, be thought an unsocial amusement, with us uninstructed people of terra firma.” ”

“ The required ball for the National Association of Baseball Leagues is not less than 5 nor more than 5-1/4 ounces in weight, and measures not less than 9 nor more than 9-1/4 inches in circumference. A slightly smaller ball is used in junior play; that is, for boys under sixteen. The best construction of baseballs is that in which there is a rubber center wound with woolen yarn, the outside covering being of white horsehide. Good balls cost from fifty cents to $1.50 each, but baseballs may be had at five cents each. ”

“ Meanwhile the ball is beating round beneath their feet, their skates are clashing steel on steel. I hear the shuffling kicks, the battling strokes of clubs, the husky mutterings of passion half suppressed; I hear the panting breath and the impetuous whisperings between the teeth, as they push and wrestle and jam. A lucky hit now sends the ball a few feet from the fray. A ready hand improves the chance; but as he lifts his stick a youngster’s nose gets in the way and spoils his stroke; he slips, and falls upon the ball ”

“ In the ball-play of the women, they have two balls attached to the ends of a string, about a foot and a half long; and each woman has a short stick in each hand, on which she catches the string with the two balls, and throws them, endeavouring to force them over the goal of her own party. The men are more than half drunk, when they feel liberal enough to indulge the women in such an amusement; and take infinite pleasure in rolling about on the ground and laughing to excess, whilst the women are tumbling about in all attitudes, and scuffling for the ball. ”

“ In the history of the world no such great crowds have gathered to watch anything the world has ever known—sport or anything else—with so few fights. Base Ball, you see, arouses no brutal instincts. It is a turmoil rather than a battle. It is more a war of skill than a war of strength. Foot ball often breeds fierce fights. That game calls for heavy muscles, don't you see? as well as skill, and I shall dare some critics when I say that foot ball science is less delicate than Base Ball science. Brute strength in one foot ball player can, and often does, overmaster the pure science of another. ”

“ The public-ball cavaliers rejoice in lavender- or lemon-colored kids, and display exuberant activity in the "squares;" so the dancing-man of society punctiliously gloves his hands in white, and strolls through a quadrille with an air of languid indifference. One romp, and one only, does the private ball countenance in the merry-go-round of the third figure of a "sixteen" (double) set of Lancers.
After every dance, in the early stage of the ball, there is a general set of the dancers in the direction of the tea-room. ”

“ In addressing his ball the amateur stands rigidly facing it with muscles set, and with careful attention and painstaking deliberation shown in his entire attitude, concentration written on every feature. Gradually he begins a carefully guarded movement of his club away from his ball. Up to the top of his swing he makes this careful, deliberate movement, consciously controlling every change in position, and then when he reaches the top of his swing, he makes a wild, vicious attempt to whack that ball to “kingdom come.” ”

“ The game is a great deal of fun when the players number from twenty to forty, and four or five balls are used. The balls should be either very soft Indoor baseballs which have been considerably battered, or the larger Playground ball.
The leader tosses these balls into the center, which is the signal for the game to begin. Those nearest the balls pick them up and throw them at someone. If the people at whom the balls are thrown catch them, all is well, but if they do not, and are hit by the ball, they are out, and must go outside the boundaries. ”

“ Through tag, fire-engine, pom-pom-pull-away, hide-and-seek, baseball, and boxing, I came to tennis, which I knew instinctively was to be my athletic grand passion. Perhaps I was first attracted by the game's constant humor which was forever making the ball imitate or caricature humanity, or beguiling the players to act like solemn automata. For children are usually quicker than grown-ups to see these droll resemblances. ”

“ In wrestling the Cornwall and Devonshire men excelled, and a ram, or sometimes a cock, was the prize of the victor. Bowling alleys were commonly attached to the houses of the wealthy, and to places of public resort. Among the games at ball we find tennis, trap-ball, bat and ball, and the balloon-ball, in which a large ball filled with air was struck from one side to the other by two players with their hands and wrists guarded by bandages. ”

“ A small dance in a bright airy country house on a balmy summer evening is about as pleasant a form of entertainment as can be offered to the youthful mind not satiated by metropolitan entertainments, by balls in Park Lane, where the flowers alone cost the price of an elderly spinster's annuity, Bachelors' balls, and Guards' balls, American balls in Carlton Gardens, patrician balls in grand old London houses, built in the days when rank was as much apart from the herd and the newly rich as royalty ”

“ While it may not be any more wrong to hit a ball from the end of a stick—as in billiards—than it is to hit it from a mallet in croquet; or from a stretched tendon, as in tennis; or from a bat, as in baseball—we do not feel that we have to argue the point, when we remind the reader that billiards and pool, especially in the public parlors, do assemble questionable companions, who use questionable language; while these games are often accompanied by betting, which is always to be deplored. ”

“ To the right hand of each athlete is strapped a thin short wooden bat called pala, or else, in a variant of the game, a basket, known as cesta, or remonte, shaped a little like the curved beak of some bird, scooped and long and narrow. The principle of pelota is like our handball which may indeed be a derivation. But the Basque game with its great distance of service and return, its complexity of movement due to the use of three walls for the rebounds of the fast ball, achieves an extraordinary brilliance. ”

“ And the fact that older ladies of distinction dance with dignity, has an inevitable effect upon younger ones, so that at balls at least, dancing has not degenerated into gymnastics or contortions.
The extreme reverse of a "smart" Boston ball is one—no matter where—which has a roomful of people who deport themselves abominably, who greet each other by waving their arms aloft, who dance like Apaches or jiggling music-box figures, and who scarcely suggest an assemblage of even decent—let alone well-bred—people. ”

“ Not so the American Ball Player. He may be a veritable Beau Brummel in social life. He may be the Swellest Swell of the Smart Set in Swelldom; but when he dons his Base Ball suit, he says good-bye to society, doffs his gentility, and becomes—just a Ball Player! He knows that his business now is to play ball, and that first of all he is expected to attend to business. ”

“ I take one long preliminary swing to prepare the shoulder muscles for the coming strain, and with my right foot firmly braced on the slab, I lurch forward with a high, straight throw, the weight of my body adding impetus to the ball. ”

“ Young men and maids,
Now very brisk,
At barley-break and
Stool-ball frisk.
A ball custom now prevails annually at Bury St. Edmund’s, Suffolk. On Shrove Tuesday, Easter Monday, and the Whitsuntide festivals, twelve old women side off for a game at trap-and-ball, which is kept up with the greatest spirit and vigour until sunset. One old lady, named Gill, upwards of sixty years of age, has been celebrated as the “mistress of the sport” for a number of years past; and it affords much of the good old humour to flow round, whilst the merry combatants dexterously hurl the giddy ball to and fro. ”

“ POETIC LITERATURE OF BASE BALL—INTERESTING STORY OF "CASEY AT THE BAT"—ITS AUTHOR—DE WOLF HOPPER'S PART IN MAKING THE POEM A CLASSIC—OTHER POEMS. LIKE every other cause worthy the best efforts of writers of note, Base Ball has a literature peculiarly its own. Love has its sonnets galore; War its epics in heroic verse; Tragedy its sombre story in measured lines, and Base Ball has "Casey at the Bat."
To this day men of splendid mental equipment are burning midnight oil in labored efforts to solve the authorship of the immortal productions usually accredited to the "Bard of Avon." ”

“ The ballet at the Marionette is a triumph of choreographic art, and is extremely funny. The prima ballerina has all the difficult grace and far-fetched arts of the prima ballerina of flesh and blood; and when the enthusiastic audience calls her back after the scene, she is humanly delighted, and acknowledges the compliment with lifelike empressement. I have no doubt the corps de ballet have their private jealousies and bickerings, when quietly laid away in boxes, and deprived of all positive power by the removal of the cords which agitate their arms and legs. ”

“ So does a tennis ball thrown by the hand or struck by the racket; though here, indeed, I admit that a spin may be given to the ball which will somewhat detract from the simplicity of its movement. In playing baseball, a large part of the skill of the pitcher consists in throwing the ball in such a way that it shall not move in a parabola, but in some twisting curve by which he hopes to baffle his adversary. Setting aside these exceptions, and such another as the case of a body tossed straight up or271 dropped straight down, we may assert that the path of a projectile is a parabola. ”

“ In leaving a ball, it is not deemed necessary to wish the lady of the house a good night. In leaving a small dance or party, it is civil to do so.
The difference between a ball and an evening party is, that at a ball there must be dancing, and at an evening party there may or may not be. A London authority defines a ball to be "an assemblage for dancing, of not less than seventy-five persons." ”

“ Can you think of any word that we have which means dancing, and yet sounds like a game?"
"Like a game of ball, auntie?" said Maggie.
"I know!" cried Edith clapping her hands; "you've just said it, Maggie—a ball. Don't you know people always dance at a ball."
The children were very much pleased to find [Pg 92] out that the grown-up people's amusement took its name from one of their toys, and that the short songs, or ballads, which we sing came from the songs which the Greeks sang whilst they played ball. ”

“ As we were transported to the next tee by Phaeton and his machine, I looked at my ball, and the peculiarity of its make became clear at once. It was called "The Vulcan," [Pg 205] and in action had precisely the same movement as that of a thunder-bolt—thus:
"Great ball, eh?" said Jupiter. "Adds a lot to the science of the game. A straight putt is easy, but the zigzag is no child's play." ”

“ Run away from school I would, and run away from school I did until even the old man became disgusted with the idea of trying to make a scholar of me.
Sport of any kind, and particularly sport of an outdoor variety, had for me more attractions than the best book that was ever published. The game of base-ball was then in its infancy and while it was being played to some extent to the eastward of us the craze had not as yet reached Marshalltown. ”