Black ball

“ A black cannon ball lies in a garden, an ornament like a shell or a fossil, among blue lobelia and green ferns. It is about as big as a cricket ball—a mere trifle to look at. What a contrast with the immense projectiles thrown by modern guns! ”

“ The Change to Black.—You take the ball in the right hand, and turning to the left bring it down rather smartly oh the table, to prove its solidity. This gives you the opportunity of dropping the red ball into the profonde and taking the black one from the pochette. To change the white ball to black you will proceed as in the previous change, disposing of the palmed white ball at the earliest opportunity, or it can be produced with good effect from the bottom of the trousers. ”

“ A ball flew from the batter and Virginia, watching it apathetically as it soared far out to the deep field, saw all at once ahead of it a great black figure which spanned the sward in long catlike bounds, and as the ball seemed hanging high above its head, it leaped, leaped like a great black panther with a circular sweep of the big, loose-knit body. ”

“ Black Pool.—In this game, which lasts for half-an-hour, there are no lives, the player whose ball is pocketed paying the stake to the pocketer. Each player receives a coloured ball and plays in order as in “Following Pool,” the white ball being spotted; there is, in addition, however, a black ball, which is spotted on the centre-spot. ”

“ Moreover, the ballot was at first declared to be favourable, and it was only upon a revision of the balls that the black ball was discovered; that is to say, the lady president of the club, the widowed Frau von Droste-Vischering, a very worthy and good-humoured lady, either by mistake or from the well-meant intention of preventing the disagreeable consequences of blackballing, had counted a white ball too much. It was remarked by one of the prebendaries present, that the whole number of balls did not agree with the number of votes. ”

“ The game is opened as at black pool; neither black nor pink can ever be taken up if they interfere with the striker, nor any coloured ball, except in the first round. When a coloured ball has been taken, the striker must play on either pink or black. ”

“ Divide the remaining balls equally among the players, or give an equal number of balls to each player. If four play, it is more interesting to form sides, the two players on one side taking the dark balls, and the other two the light ones. Blue and black are considered dark—red and yellow, light. The players, retiring to some part of the room more or less distant from the white ball, now bowl the colored balls, which they hold, at the white one, by turns. Each player bowls one ball at a time, the play passing around the company as many times as there are colored balls for each player. ”

“ The necessary accessories are a red, a black, and a white billiard ball, all solid. Place the white ball in the profonde, and the black one in the pochette, on the left side. Having arrived at the point in Annihilation (p. 100) where all the balls have been disposed of with the exception of the last solid one, you throw this in the air as if to vanish it in that direction. While all eyes follow the ball in its upward flight you lower the left hand and take the white ball from the profonde, palming it. In doing this you would of course stand with the right side to the audience. ”

“ The players of each side play alternately—a white and a color—and the luck constantly changes; for as, at the close of the game, all balls of one side count which are nearer to the black than any ball of the other side, a lucky roll may change the whole result by coming in closer, or by knocking away either black, white, or colored balls.
Great skill can be used, as, if the ball is too swift, it goes beyond all the balls unless it hits and scatters them; if too light, it fails to come in near the black. ”

“ They had acquired a reputation that inspired terror among the base ball players of the southern portion of the state; and when it was noised abroad that a new nine from Dean County, heretofore unknown in the Diamond Field, had actually challenged the Black Hawks, experienced amateurs and professional players made remarks about the assurance of the new men from the North that were not intended to be complimentary or encouraging. ”

“ They practically controlled professional base-ball for many years, although there were occasional attempts to overthrow their authority, the most notable being the formation in 1890 of a brotherhood of players called the Players’ League, organized for the purpose of securing some of the financial benefits accruing to the managers, as well as for the purpose of abolishing black-listing and other supposed abuses. ”

“ My own innings, for instance, did not afford the smallest loophole for enthusiasm at any time.
“somewhere in the small ribs.”
The black certainly began well. He hit the first ball he received clean out of the ground for six runs, but the second ball retaliated and smote him direfully somewhere in the small ribs. Thereupon, he fell down and rolled twenty yards to allay the agony, after which he rose up and withdrew, declaring that he had met his death, and that no power on earth would induce him to bat again. These negroes never forget an injury of this kind. ”

“ After stringing for lead, the leader plays at the black, forfeiting a ball if he misses. His opponent then plays at the black if it has not been touched, otherwise any way he likes, and each then plays alternately, the object being to hole the black and his own balls, the winner being the one who scores the highest number of points. If a player holes one of his opponent's balls it is scored for his opponent. ”

“ The moon stood high in the cloudless sky, wherein there was so little vapour that the stars seemed scarcely dimmed by her brilliancy. The great tower, stark against the black vault, appeared gigantic in its proportions as it looked down on the strange scene below. The noises of the city—even the howling of the dogs—were for the moment completely stilled; our camels, horses, mules, and asses lay resting after their day’s work, and amongst them the sleeping figures of our men, wrapped up in white haïks or jellabias, looked weird and ghostly in the moonlight. ”

“ That beautiful Milky Way, which has for ages been the object of admiration to all lovers of nature, never disclosed its true nature to the eye of man till the astronomer of Padua turned on it his magic tube. The splendid zone of silvery light was then displayed as star-dust scattered over the black background of the sky. It was observed that though the individual stars were too small to be seen severally without optical aid, yet such was their incredible number that the celestial radiance produced that luminosity with which every stargazer was so familiar. ”

“ Other games were arranged for later work, but this match, which was partly for practice, and partly to test the material of the new nine, was felt to be one of the most important. From Sandy Key the Nine were to go to Bluford to play the famous "Zoo-zoo Nine," as they called themselves, of that city, and then they were to begin a struggle for the championship of Northern Illinois with the Red Stockings of Galena. How much depended on the result of the meeting of the Black Hawks and the Catalpas, you who have followed the career of a base ball nine can best reckon. ”

“ Those will fall into great error, who shall imagine that in Carolina and Georgia there are but two orders of men; and that the artificial distinctions of society have only classified the people into white and black, freemen and slaves. It is true, that the distinctions of colour are the most obvious, and present themselves more readily than any others to the inspection of a stranger ”

“ I did not know what city I was in; but as the sailors had all told me, at Savannah, that their ship was bound to Philadelphia, I had no doubt of being in that city. In going along the street, a black man met me, and I asked him if I was in Philadelphia. This question caused the stranger to laugh loudly: and he passed on without giving me any answer. Soon afterwards I met an old gentleman, with drab clothes on, as I could see by the light of the lamps. To him I propounded the same question, that had been addressed a few moments before to the black man. ”

“ But, to say nothing of the improbability of the appearance of such a man in a family that by frequent intermixture with the black race has become more Negro than Moorish, it seems a pure illusion to imagine that even an extraordinary man seated on the throne of Marocco, and surrounded by such agents as he would have at hand, could accomplish salutary reforms, and, more than that, to suppose that these could have any permanence. ”

“ Few readers may care to sympathise with the distress of a naturalist who looks on his specimens, not only as scientific documents bringing some additions to our knowledge of the structure and relations of the organised world, but as things of beauty giving delight to the senses of form and colour, when, after much pains and care, he finds the flowers change their hues and drop off, the leaves turn black, and when mould, the sure sign of decomposition, begins to encrust the stems and fruits. ”

“ It was manifest that I was now in a country where the life of a black man was no more regarded than that of an ox, except as far as the man was worth the more money in the market. On all the plantations that we passed, there was a want of live stock of every description, except slaves, and they were deplorably abundant. ”

“ The fields of cotton at this season of the year are very beautiful. The plants, amongst which we worked this day, were about three feet high, and in full bloom, with branches so numerous that they nearly covered the whole ground—leaving scarcely space enough between them to permit us to move about, and work with our hoes.
About seven o'clock in the morning the overseer sounded his horn; and we all repaired to the shade of some perscimmon trees, which grew in a corner of the field, to get our breakfast. I here saw a cart drawn by a yoke of oxen, driven by an old black man, nearly blind. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The plain fact of the matter is, that the origin of the ball is one of those matters which must of necessity be lost in antiquity. Nature herself supplies an endless variety of balls of all sizes, suitable for throwing from hand to hand, and the act of playing with them is instinctive. The apple and the orange are, so to speak, objects which nature supplies, not only as objects of food, but also as materials for pastime; clay, too, and snow, are of so plastic a nature that the hands even of children naturally mould them into a spherical form and hurl them to and fro in sport. ”

“ The fact that in the three instances in which we find the name mentioned it is always a game for girls or women, would justify the suspicion that it was not always the same game, and that it in any way resembled our game is not to be imagined. Base- ball in its mildest form is essentially a robust game, and it would require an elastic imagination to conceive of little girls possessed of physical powers such as its play demands. ”

“ Official Handballs used for the game of Handball differ somewhat in America and Ireland, where this is the national game. The American balls are made both of rubber and leather. The specifications for the balls of the Amateur Athletic Union of America call for a ball measuring 1-7/8 inches in diameter, with a weight of 1-5/8 ounces. ”

“ Billie seemed to leap forward and throw his bat at it. There was a sharp ringing crack—and the ball was like a white string marvelously stretching out over the players, over the green field beyond, and then, sailing, soaring, over the right-field fence. For a moment the stands, even the bleachers, were stone quiet. No player had ever hit a ball over that fence. It had been deemed impossible, as was attested to by the many painted "ads" offering prizes for such a feat. Suddenly the far end of the bleachers exploded and the swelling roar rolled up to engulf the grand stand in thunder. ”

“ The balls should be about ten inches in circumference, perfectly spherical, and should weigh about eight ounces. They should be designated by different colors, either by painting the entire surface of the ball, or by a stripe of the color merely. But the first method is much to be preferred, as a ball needs all the protection it can have to preserve it from [15] the effects of the weather, and for this purpose nothing is better than good oil paint and varnish. There is a universal predisposition towards large balls by all novices in the game ”