Sports game

“ In the eighteenth century allusions to the game become more frequent, although it was still a boy's game. It had its poet, who sang—
"Hail, cricket, glorious, manly, British game,
First of all sports, be first alike in fame."
It had its calumniators, who said that it "propagated [pg 063] a spirit of idleness" in bad times, when people ought to work and not play, and that it encouraged gambling. But the game began to prosper, and several noted men, poets and illustrious statesmen, recall the pleasurable memories of their prowess with the bat and ball. ”

“ Imagine the athletes of every village training for those prizes—thousands of boy-topers turning gymnasts, ward delegates running for something besides office, and the members of a Young Men's Association seeking paradise on this side of the grave!
With the decadence of athletic sports, games of skill come generally into favor ”

“ But some of the best sports are those which they make up without anything at all, just out of their heads, like STAGS, and FOX-HUNTING, and SHOEING THE WILD HORSE (you need confederates for this, and a fresh boy; but it’s quite a respectable game) , and TOMMY ALL ROUND, and BLIND DONKEY, and SAILOR, and HORSE-SOLDIERS. Horse-soldiers (also called FLYING ANGELS) is rather rough, and so is COCK AND HEN FIGHT. Or hide-and-seek games like I spy—spit in your eye, which goes like this:—
[Pg 20]
“Five or ten can play, one has to hide wile the Others hide. ”

“ Each number contains a story of manly sports, replete with lively incidents, dramatic situations and a sparkle of humor. Every popular game will be featured in the succeeding stories, such as baseball, skating, wrestling, etc. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To realize the necessity of a book that explains rules and the intricacies of the play of our glorious sport, one has but to travel to some town where the game is just developing from its infancy, where the players are scarcely able to appreciate its scientific points, and he will readily perceive that it is a long-felt want. ”

“ They are steadfast on their pleasure, if you will, or on each other, or on those extraordinary games they play, in which you have to hit a small india-rubber ball, or so I take it to be, as few times as possible, putting it, at uncertain intervals, into a species of small jam-pot sunk in little lawns, in order to win this very serious game. Golf, I think, is the name of the sport which I am feeling for. ”

“ A few enthusiastic amateurs still delight in the noble and costly game, but the many have reason to be grateful for lawn-tennis out of doors, though it be but a mild version of the great game, to which it stands as hockey to polo or as draughts to chess. ”

“ Racing is [Pg 153] the national recreation, just as gambling is the national vice. The two insensibly melt into each other. It is a great sporting continent. When the word “sport” is used—when a certain individual is called a sportsman, and another individual is referred to as a follower of “the game”—the reference is invariably to the game in which the horse and the bookmaker play the leading parts. ”

“ I take it that you are trying to find out what effect the game has on the mind, and what effect the mind has on the game. The general impression among those who do not know, and, although there are several million people in this country who do know, still there remain a few who don't, is that Base Ball is simply a form of physical exercise which is interesting to watch and to take part in. Those who have played the game know well that it is more—much more. They know that it is quite as much a mental as it is a physical exercise. ”

“ And, as the sport proceeded, deeper and deeper grew the excitement among the infatuated participants, till every sense and feeling seemed lost to every thing save the result of each rapidly succeeding game ”

“ Often it will be sent to and fro a dozen times, from head to head, until finally it rises with such a sweep that it passes far over the heads of the opposite players and descends behind them. Then shrill, rolling cries of good-humored triumph arise from the victors; and the game instantly begins again with fresh zest. There are, of course, no such rules as in a specialized ball-game of civilization; and I saw no disputes. There may be eight or ten, or many more, players on each side. The ball is never touched with the hands or feet, or with anything except he top of the head. ”

“ I claim that Base Ball owes its prestige as our National Game to the fact that as no other form of sport it is the exponent of American Courage, Confidence, Combativeness; American Dash, Discipline, Determination, American Energy, Eagerness, Enthusiasm ”

“ Men play the game, the boys the clubs convey,
And lovely woman gives the prize away,
When August brings the great, the medal day!
Nay, more: tho' some may doubt, and sneer, and scoff,
The female muse has sung the game of Goff,
And trac'd it down, with choicest skill and grace,
Thro' all its bearings, to the human race;
The tee, the start of youth—the game, our life—
The ball when fairly bunkered, man and wife.
Now, Muse, assist me while I strive to name
The varied skill and chances of the game.
Suppose we play a match: if all agree,
Let Clan and Saddell tackle Baird and me. ”

“ The Olympic beauty of this game is beyond all praise. It calls into active exercise every muscle of the human frame, and brings into bold relief the supple and athletic forms of the best built people in the world. ”

“ Players will try to deceive their opponents as to the point where the ball is to cross the curtain, and the more rapid the play is the more alert the players will have to be. The great sport of the game consists in the unexpectedness with which the ball may appear at any given point. ”

“ The winners ride out of the enclosure in single file, while the losers dismount and follow on foot, leading their horses, a picturesque conclusion to a noble and manly game. Should neither side score its banded ball within a given time (half-an-hour usually) from the commencement of play, the game is drawn. ”

“ The ball is in all directions in seconds of time, till finally the vast struggling crowd surges towards the goals, surrounds them, and a fierce lucky swipe knocks it through, while a hundred lusty voices cry their loudest Game! ”

“ A controversy has grown up in relation to those athletic plays which are here called sports, for we distinguish sports from another group of plays of which we are to treat hereafter as games. Sports are athletic activities, games are intellectual activities; sports develop from mimicry to rivalry, games develop from dependence on sorcery for success to dependence on skill for success. Now, if we understand the distinction between sports and games we are better prepared to understand the nature of sports themselves. ”

“ It doesn’t matter how all these sports are played. What matters is that they are played. To show how wide-awake our youngsters are, to be able to go on inventing games out of their heads all the time—that’s [Pg 156] the point: my point, at least. The particular rules of all these different games—they don’t strike me as very important, or even interesting. ”

“ Blessed with a strong, symmetrical frame, a quick eye, a sure hand, a perfect constitution, and abundant courage, he came easily by a mastery of the different sports he entered into, and had few equals, and fewer superiors, at cricket, football, lacrosse, baseball, swimming, rowing, and the other amusements of the day. ”

“ Our games have to be considered from all points of view, and one of these is. Which has the best effect on character? Certain critics say that far too much time is given to games at our public schools and universities—a broad question which I do not propose to discuss at length here. I have, however, in the course of my life met with several men who hold this view, and I can with truth say that a great many ought not to be taken as fair judges of the question, for they have never played any game, except perhaps lawn tennis, in their lives. ”

“ STEPS IN THE EVOLUTION OF BASE BALL FROM ITS PRIMITIVE STAGES—HOW IT DEVELOPED, NATURALLY, FROM A BOY WITH A BALL, TO ITS PRESENT FORM, WITH EIGHTEEN PLAYERS, BALL, BATS AND BASES. HOWEVER views of individuals may differ as to the origin of the American national game, all must agree that the sport had as its foundation—a Ball. ”

“ Great importance was rightly attached to every form of sport. Wherever a British detachment was stationed, football and cricket fields and tennis courts were provided, and even the newly invented game of handball was introduced. ”

“ When a match at foot-ball is made, two parties, each containing an equal number of competitors, take the field and stand between two goals, placed at a distance of eighty or a hundred yards the one from the other; the ball, which is commonly made from a blown bladder, and cased with leather, is delivered in the midst of the ground, and the object of each party is to drive it through the goal of their antagonists, which being achieved the game is won. ”

“ Gaze at me while I aim another blow; lo,
I've missed because I looked at her! With sighs
I murmur an apologetic solo.
The proudest athlete here might stoop,
To hit a ball just through a hoop,
And say the game—with her—beats golf and polo.
[Pg 81]
CRICKET—THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE
"Good match, old fellow?"
"Oh, yes; awfully jolly!"
"What did you do?"
"I 'ad a hover of Jackson; the first ball 'it me on the 'and, the second 'ad me on the knee; the third was in my eye; and the fourth bowled me out!"
[Jolly game.
[Pg 82]
ADVICE TO YOUNG CROQUET-PLAYERS
1. ”

“ Bunching Game.—It is the highest art of goal- guarding to contest successfully against a bunch of opponents, especially if they be frantic Indians fighting your men for the ball. Stoop down low, and keep your eye on the ball. ”

“ In every game I have never succeeded in rising above mediocrity; but here again I doubt if the great players—whom I nevertheless envy—have enjoyed playing football, baseball, hockey, tennis, golf, billiards, pool, duplicate whist—a better game than bridge—more than I have. ”

“ Football is a national game in America as well as in England, but I do not suppose that either you or we think that our soldiers fought any worse in the war for having been fond of football. I put games definitely as a desirable part of recreation, and I would say have one or more games of which you are fond, but let them, at any rate in youth, be games which test the wind, the staying power, and the activity of the whole body, as well as skill. ”

“ Base Ball is essentially the people's game, in that it is equally accessible to the sons of the rich and poor, and in point of exhilarating exercise to the player and healthy enjoyment to the spectator—whether played on the village common or the splendidly appointed grounds of the modern professional club—it satisfies and typifies the American idea of a manly, honest, entertaining recreation. ”

“ The ball games requiring team play have been described according to an analytic scheme not before used for the class of games given in the present volume, which makes it possible to locate at a glance information about the laying out of the ground, the number, assignment, and duties of players, the object of the game, rules and points of play, fouls, and score. ”

“ And the rule of play is, that any person holding the ball, or lifting it, or attempting to lift it, is liable to be floored by any means short of striking; so that broken heads and broken bones are by no means uncommon: and a ball is seldom played for a day without being carried into the river in the vicinity of the town or village where the game is annually held ”

“ I strongly advise any one who contemplates betaking himself to the velt after big game to set about the enterprise in the true sporting spirit, making of it a really genuine contest between man and beast—a genuine duel—not an onslaught of the many upon the one. Many English writers support me in this, and they understand the claims of sport in this field as well as we Germans do at home. The English have instituted clearly defined rules which no sportsman may transgress. ”

“ Nearly all the students, men and women alike, played games at least twice a week. There were series of contests in football, baseball, track, tennis, volley-ball, basket-ball, and other out-of-door sports. ”

“ Any one who has taken the trouble to study the faces of spectators at a match may have seen in their expression an index of the character of the game. Gouty old gentlemen forget their big toes in the excitement of watching a struggle for the ball ”

“ I have not said much of our sports and games; but it must not be inferred that we have no play. Indeed, I question if there is any place in the solar system, at any race, where we can be beaten in the enjoyment of active sports and games. ”

“ But neither our wives, our sisters, our daughters nor our sweethearts, may play Base Ball on the field. They may play Cricket, but seldom do; they may play Lawn Tennis, and win championships; they may play Basket Ball, and achieve laurels ”

“ But shout and play with ball and bat,
Or dance with maidens fair;
Play tennis, cricket, kiss-in-the-ring,
Rounders or golf or catch,
Play baseball, rounders—anything, But please don’t fight and scratch.
Run quarter miles, or hurdle race,
Jump high or low or wide;
Try football tricks, both drop and place,
Join us in seek and hide.
But please don’t squabble, dear boys,
It isn’t nice to squall;
It looks so bad, makes such a noise,
It quite upsets us all. ”