Baseball game

“ Baseball is the national game. It is not only the most popular sport in the United States, but it is national in the sense that it expresses the ingenuity, the energy and the agility of the typical American. Viewed in this light, baseball possesses a dignity of its own and an entertaining and informing piece of literary work about it cannot be trivial. ”

“ A left-handed thrower will seldom make a success as a ball player except as pitcher or on first base. Left-handed batsmen, however, are a distinct advantage to a team, as nothing will so disconcert a green pitcher as to have batsmen standing first on one side of the plate and then on the other.
Every boy who plays baseball must know the rules thoroughly to be a success. It is in this way that advantage of every fair opportunity can be taken. Nothing is so disheartening to a team as to lose a closely contested game on a technicality of rules. ”

“ The players bat in turn and attempt to reach the various bases without being put out by their opponents. Each year the rules are changed in some slight particulars, consequently a beginner in baseball must be thoroughly familiar with the rules of the game before attempting to play. The pitcher attempts to pitch the ball over the home plate to the catcher and the batsman endeavours to hit it. If the ball after being hit is caught by one of the opposing players, or if it is thrown to the base to which the batsman is running before he reaches the base, he is “out.” ”

“ The Yeggmen beat the Grafters, but the Grafters made them fight.
McGee, the Grafters’ pitcher, had to hide his head in shame—
He tried to bribe the warden, who was umpiring the game.
If Saturday’s a pleasant day for outside games like ball
The Con Men play the Lifers, and we’ll be there, one and all.
For the finest “inside” baseball I have seen in many a day
Is inside the dear old prison, where they like to have me stay. ”

“ Of course I am half Irish and that must be taken into account when I say that next to baseball it is the greatest game in the world for exercising both body and brain. Played at its best it is a splendid swift panorama of rippling muscles, dancing feet, sparkling eyes, and racing thoughts. You can actually, by the player’s intent, eye, tell how he is going to smash that ball, which will come two strokes later, into the middle of next week. ”

“ There is the description of an exciting baseball game, and the stratagem by which the wily coach, Payson, puts some ginger into an overtrained squad and develops from it a winning team will appeal to every boy. ”

“ We could not escape the impression that the English author felt that a baseball game was the most primitive thing America had to offer and that he was in duty bound to enthuse over this exhibition of human nature in the raw. ”

“ What can present a more attractive picture to the lover of out door sports than the scene presented at a base ball match between two trained professional teams competing for championship honors, in which every point of play is so well looked after in the field, that it is only by some extra display of skill at the bat, that a single run is obtained in a full nine innings game? If it is considered, too, that base ball is a healthy, recreative exercise, suitable for all classes of our people, there can be no surprise that such a game should reach the unprecedented popularity it has. ”

“ Baseball is called the National Game of America just as cricket is regarded as the national game in England. The game received its wide popularity directly after the Civil War by the soldiers who returned to all parts of the country and introduced the game that they had learned in camp. Almost every village and town has its ball team, in which the interest is general. It is not a game for middle-aged men to play, like golf, but if one has been a ball player in youth the chances are that he will keep his interest in the game through life. Baseball is largely a game of skill. ”

“ To the true baseball crank this game represented the climax of the year, for here were the best 18 players in the world ready for the supreme struggle. So these thousands sat silent and watchful. As you know, when stirred by passion 60,000 people can give vent to the most hideous and awesome sound. ”

“ Alex solved this by putting in another shortstop and giving me the mask. (In England they have a game called 'Rounders,' in which you are supposed to hit the base runner with the ball to put him out. This is generally a tennis ball and does not hurt very much.) Well, those Tommies had a habit of lamming the baseball with all their might at the unfortunate runner. Many an early practice was broken up this way, because the team would lose interest in baseball when they had a chance to view a fight between a giver and receiver. ”

“ Baseball meets my hearty approval, although a clean, healthy sport like that may be carried to excess, and even amateur players should be properly trained and hardened so that no evil effects may follow the exertions of the game, which call for sharp runs, straining, jumping, and so forth. In baseball it occasionally happens that a player is severely or seriously injured, but the timid lad who avoids the game because of this is pretty sure to lack courage to fight the battle of life to a successful consummation. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The rules of baseball govern the game. After a player finishes his turn, he takes position at the farther end of his side, and the next in line takes his turn, thus preserving the batting order. When three players have been declared out, that side is retired and the other side takes its inning. ”

“ The game of baseball originated in the United States of America approximately 150 years ago and quickly became a fixture of community life. Today baseball diamonds dot parks, playgrounds, and schoolyards across the land, and virtually every village, town, and neighborhood has its own team, or teams. ”

“ The pitcher has the most important position on the team. If by his skill he is able to deceive the opposing batsmen and cause them to strike out or to make feeble hits, the rest of the team will have but little to do except of course to bat when their turn comes and try to score runs. Baseball has become a very scientific game in recent years and the sustained interest in it year after year is largely due to the fact that the regular attendants at a game have learned to understand and to appreciate the finer points of the game almost as well as the players themselves. ”

“ A good pitcher must be able to pitch a curved ball. This art will only come with constant practice. Until about forty years ago a curve was unknown. In the old days the number of runs scored in a game was very high, it being a common thing for a winning team to make twenty to thirty runs. The rules of baseball are changed frequently and almost every change has been made with a view to restricting the batsman. As a consequence, in modern games the scores are very low and sometimes neither side will score a single run in a tie game of ten or twelve innings. ”

“ Base-ball is a scientific game, more difficult than many who are in the habit of judging hastily from the outward semblance can possibly imagine. It is in fact the cricket of the American continent, considerably altered since its first origin, as has been cricket, by the yearly recourse to the improvements necessitated by the experience of each season. In the cricket field there is at times a wearisome monotony that is entirely unknown to baseball. ”

“ The principal thing that mars a good game of ball next to kicking and wrangling is the tendency of the crowd to get on the field and to interfere with the players. An easy remedy for this is simply to call the game until the spectators take their proper places.
Baseball is a good game if it is properly played. It is unfortunate that so many amateur games are spoiled because some of the players lose their tempers in their anxiety to have their wrongs righted. ”

“ To him baseball meant more than to the average player. From the time when he had seen his first game, as a little chap, our hero had fairly lived, eaten and slept in an atmosphere of the diamond. He had organized a team of lads when he was scarcely nine years old, and played those little chaps in a sort of improvised circuit. ”

“ In the history of baseball there have not been more than fifteen or twenty free swingers altogether, and they are the real natural hitters of the game, the men with eyes nice enough and accurate enough to take a long wallop at the ball. ”

“ In the recent past, the rule on the League ball fields—and minor leagues copy all that the major league does—has been that, from the time the umpire takes up his position behind the bat, from the beginning to the end of a game, he finds both the contesting teams regarding him as a common enemy, the losing side invariably blaming him as the primary cause of their losing the game. ”

“ The coach divided his players into two nines and had them practise batting first, then fielding, and finally started them in a game, with each candidate playing the position he hoped to make on the varsity.
It was a weird game. The majority of the twenty candidates displayed little knowledge of baseball. School-boys on the commons could have beaten them. They were hooted and hissed by the students, and before half the innings were played the bleachers and stands were empty. That was what old Wayne's students thought of Arthurs' candidates. ”

“ Because amateur baseball plays such an important role in our lives, and because millions of Americans are involved in the game as players, fans, and supporters, it is fitting that we should celebrate this uniquely American activity. ”

“ VII—WATCHING BASEBALL D.A.C. NEWS Eighteen men play a game of baseball and eighteen thousand watch them, and yet those who play are the only ones who have any official direction in the matter of rules and regulations. The eighteen thousand are allowed to run wild. They don't have even a Spalding's Guide containing group photographs of model organizations of fans in Fall River, Mass., or the Junior Rooters of Lyons, Nebraska. Whatever course of behavior a fan follows at a game he makes up for himself. ”

“ All Basking Ridge's local police force was on the spot, but half a dozen good-natured officers are next to useless when up against thousands; in contests of this sort dependence [120] must be placed on the spirit of fair play that is generally a part of baseball crowds, especially in smaller towns, where the players are known.
"The game is called; now for it!" yelled the nearest spectators, as they saw the umpire pick up his mask and step forward to announce the batteries, while the Hickory Ridge players started for their positions. ”

“ Blind Boys and Baseball.
Blind boys can play baseball. It is not the baseball of the League, but it answers—blind boys. Only one man in the game must have good eyes—the umpire. The diamond is like the regular ones, save that bases are forty instead of ninety feet apart. Players are stationed the same as in a League game, but there is a second short stop, or ten men on each side. ”

“ Paul side of the fence, for a poorer exhibition of baseball-playing has doubtless seldom been seen at Eastern Park than the game put up by the representatives of the New York Association. The out-fielders could not judge the easiest of flies, and dropped almost every ball that they did manage to get their hands on, and the in-fielders were not much better. ”

“ The "New England" was played with a small and light ball, thrown overhand to the bat, while in the "New York" a large and elastic ball was used.
Threw Balls at Player.
Before baseball, as recognized as the game of to-day, came into vogue, the rules allowed a man to be declared out if he were struck by a thrown ball. This schoolboy rule was soon abolished, and it was required that a runner had to be touched to be ruled out. This was the first departure from the primitive rules.
At this period, too, the game was won by the club making the largest number of "aces" or runs in a given time. ”

“ MONDAY, n. In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game. ”

“ No one is in a better position to know all about inside baseball then a man like I who have been a pitcher in the big league because it is the pitchers that has to do most of the thinking and pull off the smart plays that is what wins ball games. For inst. I will write down about a little incidents that come off one time 2 yrs. ago when the Boston club was playing against the Chicago White Sox where I was one of the stars when the U. S. went into the war and then I dropped baseball and signed up a contract with Uncle Sam to play for my country in the big game against the Kaiser of Germany. ”

“ The Boston clubs represented were the Olympics, Bay States, and Pythians.
The Diamond Supplants the Square.
The "New England" game passed quickly out of existence, and was supplanted by the "New York" game, so-called, the introduction of which marked the beginning of modern baseball. The diamond supplanted the square; canvas bags supplanted stakes, a pitched ball took the place of the thrown ball; nine innings, and not a certain number of runs, constituted a game; three men, and not one man, put out the side; nine players constituted a side ”