Lacrosse

“ There is somewhat of an illusion, however, among spectators at a Lacrosse match. They see an excitable wavering game; the real play is not confined to any limit—it is far from Quakerish. They see twenty-four men on the alert for the ubiqitous ball—here and there they move out and in, while some run as fast as their legs can carry them. The ball flies through the air from one point to another; there are innumerable close contests and hard struggles in attack and defence, all of which appear in quick succession. ”

“ How determinedly, how earnestly they work; how they put their hearts into the pleasure, and even enjoy their own misfortunes; letting out the most demonstrative proof of sound lung and limb ever developed by field game, and realizing something of the rush and thrill of a genuine battle. Nature may send born poets into the world, but she never sends Lacrosse players; at least, not in any white community. There is nothing more amusing to a good player than to watch the first attempts of a tyro, with a crosse and a ball. ”

“ Scratched shins and crimsoned noses are still to be found on the lacrosse-field.
There is, of course, a good deal of difference between lacrosse as played by the whites to-day and as it was played by the redskins half a century ago. In the first place, the ground was not a level, smooth-shaven lawn, with a cinder path around it, and beyond that rows of seats for spectators, but a glade in the forest, interspersed with stumps of trees, fallen trunks, and clumps of young spruce. ”

“ I admit the pleasure of the good swipe in cricket, the excitement of the runs, the delight of blocking a treacherous slow ball, the rapture of catching out a good player, and the feverish anxiety of a close-run game, but still I hold that cricket cannot hold a candle to Lacrosse for variety, ingenuity and interest. ”

“ Lacrosse has its failings, but so has every game; but for what the object of all such sports should be—that is, the healthy, active exercise of every part of the body, unintermittent amusement, infinite variety, and science enough to stimulate young players to keep at it till they learn, and old ones not to give it up—what other game compares to Lacrosse? ”

“ As a game, I rank Lacrosse far above cricket or golf. It does not require attendants and special ground, like golf, and it boasts more unintermittent amusement and more simultaneous competition than cricket. ”

“ The aim of Lacrosse is so evident and simple that a child looker-on can intuitively understand it. It has no elaborate nomenclature to make it puzzling; its science and beauty need but eyes for discovery. The players are divided into two equal sides; each has a goal to defend and one to attack; certain men are posted in certain positions; the ball is placed midway on the field and faced for by the centres. The object of both sides is to put the ball through the goal of the opponent and prevent him getting it through theirs ”

“ GOAL-KEEPING.
No moment in the game of Lacrosse is of more intense and nervous interest, than the critical junctures of attack and defence at the goals. The fate of every game culminates at one or the other. No score can be made by any other play than that which puts the ball in, and then the score is not individual but collective. ”

“ It is a great mistake to suppose you can make good players by an immediate rush into hot games. There is no royal road to Lacrosse any more than to geometry; and though you may pick up what may seem to be a successful style by playing the game, ignorant of its principles, it will no more compare to genuine Lacrosse than sliding on a chip does to toboganing. ”

“ The lacrosse field is a level piece of ground with net or wire goals at each end. The players strive to hurl the ball into their opponents’ goal by means of a lacrosse stick or “crosse.” This is a peculiar bent stick with a shallow gut net at one end. It somewhat resembles a tennis racket, but is more like a snowshoe with a handle. The game originated with the Indians and is much played in Canada.
In playing, the ball must not be touched with the hands, but is hurled from one player to another by the “lacrosses” until it is possible to attempt for a goal. ”

“ Nothing is easier than to draw up plans for a grand campaign, but the difficulty lies in carrying them out. Nothing is easier than to propose fine theories in Lacrosse; but, like the Fenian projects to take Canada, they look mightier on paper than they turn out in practice.
It is well understood by the best Lacrosse-players everywhere, that no position in the game is, or ever can be, absolutely permanent; that they fluctuate in accordance with the wavering destinies of the ball and the circumstances which grow out of these changes. ”

“ Unscientific play in any game has sometimes been more effective than its antithesis, as poor shots have sometimes made bull’s-eyes when champions have missed altogether; but the more head-work put into such a game as Lacrosse, the more beautiful and less rough it will become. ”

“ Dodging—Is the art of carrying the ball past one or more checkers. It is the ostentation and glitter of the game; and though important, has been too often made a sort of saturnalia, where the dodger ran a gauntlet of merciless swipers, after the Indian fashion of the gauntlet for captives. Its absolute necessity is of rare recurrence, but common custom and young blood, has made it an indelible and prominent feature of Lacrosse. There is a madness in its most difficult feats, spiced with a smack of danger, that must always make it a tempting attraction. ”

“ The fact that an opponent, seen or unseen, is on your track, is likely to excite and confuse you, and sometimes spoil your throw.
“Following the ball” in Lacrosse is not a general chase after it;—that would be as absurd as an entire “Eleven” chasing a cricket-ball. No man is restrained from following it, in accordance with his own judgment, and that of his captain; but, as we said before, position should never be sacrificed, nor defence weakened, by too much skirmishing. ”

“ Who has not seen every part of the anatomy maimed by cricket and base ball, and eyes gouged out by racket balls. The worst accident yet known from Lacrosse was the fracture of the radius of an arm by a fall. No one was ever maimed for life, though it is hard to go earnestly into the game and entirely escape some slight skin cuts and scratches. Many players have their own blood upon their heads by persistent attempts to dodge when they cannot dodge; but after all no game is worth a fig if it has not some spice of danger. ”

“ No goal-keeper can possibly count upon safely stopping them; and if they are not prohibited, in course of time there will be few goal-keepers without smashed faces, and Lacrosse will surely degenerate.
We feel we cannot better bring this book to an end, than by beseeching players not to cultivate rough and dangerous methods of play, merely because they are successful. If it is unfair and wrong in Cricket and other sports, why not in Lacrosse?—and where is the honor of taking advantage of little imperfections in the laws, and resorting to force, instead of cultivating accuracy and skill. ”

“ It may not be possible for one who has never handled a Crosse—even though he has witnessed many of the exciting matches of the present day, to conceive of the intensity and vehemence of the old game; but to a player who has tried his mettle against Indian wind and endurance, and experienced the exertion required in the present modified game, it is easier to estimate correctly the magnificent physical condition of the aborigine a century ago, and the unparalleled union of strength, agility and wind developed by, and necessary for, the primitive Lacrosse. ”

“ If they are to be hard study, don't call them sports; if sports, then get out of them all possible recreation.
It is not generally the custom of Anglo-Saxons to depreciate a game because it is likely to become more popular than their particular favorite; but Lacrosse has been one of the best-abused in the catalogue of recreations. It would seem a pity if the race of grumblers met with even a sport to please them. Lacrosse, however, survived in spite of disparagement ”

“ Never was there ancient or modern field sport that so effectually tried the endurance and agility, and every physical instinct as the original game of Lacrosse. The gladiatorial games of the Romans, and the bull fights of Spain, were severe tests of stamina and skill ”

“ It is easy to understand the merit of each man perfecting his own play;—in fact, a good “Twelve” is always the result of individual progress: it is not that we deprecate, but the playing solely for effect and admiration; the attempt to monopolize attention in so far as possible, and for the sake of separate applause, sacrifice the science of Lacrosse to hard running. It is vexing to a side to see a man persist in carrying the ball, when a throw to another in a better position would have accomplished the object more surely. ”

“ It may seem to some, well acquainted with Lacrosse, as if I had given too much space to the rudiments of the game; but I intend this book for the novice as well as the expert, and wish even the latter to believe with me, that there is a gradation of learning in the use of the crosse, as there is with the rifle or the cricket bat. We may wish for the hereditary sagacity of the Indian, who plays mainly by instinct ”

“ It would be a weakly game of Lacrosse that would be played by one legged men, as cricket is sometimes indulged in between the one leg'd and one arm'd veterans of Greenwich Hospital. A gouty foot, a rheumatic limb, and even the minor affliction of corns and bunions, are the greatest impediment to Lacrosse players. ”

“ The most important positions are those of the immediate attack and defence, and, perhaps, Nestor's plan of drawing up troops, might serve to illustrate the tactics for Lacrosse,—the best men first and last, and the weakest in the middle. ”

“ The laws relating to spiked soles, holding, striking, pushing, &c., were necessary, because of the license to rough play, of which there was formerly too much to make Lacrosse attractive, to anybody who valued the use of his hands and head. ”

“ The popularity of the game has popularized all healthy sports; and nothing, perhaps, has won more esteem for Lacrosse than its moral tendencies, and the necessity it involves of abstaining from habits, which are too often associated with other recreations. ”

“ The development of science in Lacrosse, has been brought about, too, by the smallness of the fields, or the short distances from goal to goal; bringing the players to close contests, and necessitating quick feats, and entirely different play from that formerly practised on large fields. The whites have only ever beaten the Indians because they played on smaller fields than the latter are accustomed to; and there is no doubt but that if the red skins had goals half a mile apart, the whites would seldom, if ever, get a chance to touch the ball. ”

“ One objection to Lacrosse—hardly ever made, though, by players—is the great exertion required. It is a common perversion of the game to be made violent by unscientific and young players. They make vehement what they cannot make scientific. But the fierce exertion is fast becoming traditional, and it is a question if the present game is more fatiguing than foot-ball, or half as trying and dangerous as a stiff boat-race. Hard work, however, is no disparagement. ”

“ The hunters and warriors looked and longed for the grand anniversaries, when through dense forests, and in bark canoes, hundreds would return from the chase and the war-path to be present at the Lacrosse tournaments. ”

“ Lacrosse as a beneficial exercise has no superior. It combines the benefits of several. It brings into operation at one time more muscles than any other game, and equalizes the exercise over the entire system. Biceps and chest, trained by boxing, are developed at the expense of other muscles and parts left in repose, and the object of exercise is frustrated, that is, the symmetrical development from head to toe, brain as well as muscle. ”

“ The origin of Cricket, in enlightened Europe, is uncertain, though traced to the 13th century. How much more difficult to discover the origin of Lacrosse in a savage country, unknown till the century after. If obscurity be any proof of antiquity, Lacrosse is certainly senior among field games. ”

“ In a sport, however, contingencies and casual circumstances occur, which lead off from some theories into new ones, and such science can never be unalterable and certain.
Is the art of Lacrosse based on a science? Not entirely so, not as much so as cricket; but that there is science in the game is proved by the fact that many throws, dodges, checks, &c., are explained by fixed principles, from which no one can deviate and be successful. The throw of the ball, for instance, unlike that of a die, is not under the doctrine of chance. ”

“ That Lacrosse can never be as scientific a game as cricket is freely acknowledged; but that it suffers thereby is not believed. The genuine worth of any physical recreation is in keeping the physical above the mental, for once the mind is paramount to the body, the object of bodily exercise is frustrated.
The science in Lacrosse will be more prominent when rough play is ousted, and men learn to play up to the strict letter of the law. If this science is to be developed, rough brute force play must end ”

“ Lacrosse.Football being quite out of the question, on account of its roughness, we have fallen back upon lacrosse, a game which requires the same qualities of combination, obedience, courage, individual unselfishness for the sake of a side—a player who attempts to keep the ball instead of passing it being absolutely useless—and is full of interest on account of the various kinds of skill required, fleetness of foot, quickness of eye, strength of wrist, and a great deal of judgment and knack. ”