America's National Game

Front matter

America's National Game

| AMERICA'S NATIONAL GAME

| | HISTORIC FACTS CONCERNING THE BEGINNING EVOLUTION, DEVELOPMENT AND POPULARITY OF | BASE BALL | WITH PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF ITS VICISSITUDES, ITS VICTORIES AND ITS VOTARIES | BY | ALBERT G. SPALDING | CARTOONS BY HOMER C. DAVENPORT | NEW YORK AMERICAN SPORTS PUBLISHING COMPANY 1911

Chapter 1

CHAPTER I.

EAST AND WEST, NORTH AND SOUTH "PLAY BALL"

CHAPTER I.

WHY BASE BALL HAS BECOME OUR NATIONAL GAME—DISTINCTIVELY AMERICAN AS TO ITS NATIVITY, EVOLUTION, DEVELOPMENT, SPIRIT AND ACHIEVEMENTS.

HAVE we, of America, a National Game? Is there in our country a form of athletic pastime which is distinctively American? Do our people recognize, among their diversified field sports, one standing apart from every other, outclassing all in its hold upon the interest and affection of the masses? If a negative reply may truthfully be given to all or any of these queries, then this book should never have been published—or written.

But, if we have a National Game; if we know a form of athletics which is peculiarly American, and have adopted it as our own; if it is American in its spirit, its character and its achievements; if it conforms in every way to the American temperament; if we have a field sport outranking all others in popularity, then it is indeed time that the writing, in personal reminiscence, of its story in book form should begin, "lest we forget" the salient points in the inception, evolution and development of so important a factor in the widespread entertainment of the American people and the physical upbuilding of our youth.

To enter upon a deliberate argument to prove that Base Ball is our National Game; that it has all the attributes of American origin, American character and unbounded public favor in America, seems a work of supererogation. It is to undertake the elucidation of a patent fact; the sober demonstration of an axiom; it is like a solemn declaration that two plus two equal four.

Every citizen of this country who is blessed with organs of vision knows that whenever the elements are favorable and wherever grounds are available, the great American game is in progress, whether in city, village or hamlet, east, west, north or south, and that countless thousands of interested spectators gather daily throughout the season to witness contests which are to determine the comparative excellence of competing local organizations or professional league teams.

The statement will not be successfully challenged that the American game of Base Ball attracts more numerous and larger gatherings of spectators than any other form of field sport in any land. It must also be admitted that it is the only game known for which the general public is willing day after day to pay the price of admission. In exciting political campaigns, Presidential candidates and brilliant orators will attract thousands; but let there be a charge of half a dollar imposed, and only Base Ball can stand the test.

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; American Pluck, Persistency, Performance; American Spirit, Sagacity, Success; American Vim, Vigor, Virility.

Base Ball is the American Game par excellence, because its playing demands Brain and Brawn, and American manhood supplies these ingredients in quantity sufficient to spread over the entire continent.

No man or boy can win distinction on the ball field who is not, as man or boy, an athlete, possessing all the qualifications which an intelligent, effective playing of the game demands. Having these, he has within him the elements of pronounced success in other walks of life. In demonstration of this broad statement of fact, one needs only to note the brilliant array of statesmen, judges, lawyers, preachers, teachers, engineers, physicians, surgeons, merchants, manufacturers, men of eminence in all the professions and in every avenue of commercial and industrial activity, who have graduated from the ball field to enter upon honorable careers as American citizens of the highest type, each with a sane mind in a sound body.

It seems impossible to write on this branch of the subject—to treat of Base Ball as our National Game—without referring to Cricket, the national field sport of Great Britain and most of her colonies. Every writer on this theme does so. But, in instituting a comparison between these games of the two foremost nations of earth, I must not be misunderstood. Cricket is a splendid game, for Britons. It is a genteel game, a conventional game—and our cousins across the Atlantic are nothing if not conventional. They play Cricket because it accords with the traditions of their country so to do; because it is easy and does not overtax their energy or their thought. They play it because they like it and it is the proper thing to do. Their sires, and grandsires, and great-grandsires played Cricket—why not they? They play Cricket because it is their National Game, and every Briton is a Patriot. They play it persistently—and they play it well. I have played Cricket and like it. There are some features about that game which I admire more than I do some things about Base Ball.

But Cricket would never do for Americans; it is too slow. It takes two and sometimes three days to complete a first-class Cricket match; but two hours of Base Ball is quite sufficient to exhaust both players and spectators. An Englishman is so constituted by nature that he can wait three days for the result of a Cricket match; while two hours is about as long as an American can wait for the close of a Base Ball game—or anything else, for that matter. The best Cricket team ever organized in America had its home in Philadelphia—and remained there. Cricket does not satisfy the red-hot blood of Young or Old America.

The genius of our institutions is democratic; Base Ball is a democratic game. The spirit of our national life is combative; Base Ball is a combative game. We are a cosmopolitan people, knowing no arbitrary class distinctions, acknowledging none. The son of a President of the United States would as soon play ball with Patsy Flannigan as with Lawrence Lionel Livingstone, provided only that Patsy could put up the right article. Whether Patsy's dad was a banker or boiler-maker would never enter the mind of the White House lad. It would be quite enough for him to know that Patsy was up in the game.

I have declared that Cricket is a genteel game. It is. Our British Cricketer, having finished his day's labor at noon, may don his negligee shirt, his white trousers, his gorgeous hosiery and his canvas shoes, and sally forth to the field of sport, with his sweetheart on one arm and his Cricket bat under the other, knowing that he may engage in his national pastime without soiling his linen or neglecting his lady. He may play Cricket, drink afternoon tea, flirt, gossip, smoke, take a whiskey-and-soda at the customary hour, and have a jolly, conventional good time, don't you know?

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. It may happen to be his business to slide; hence, forgetting his beautiful new flannel uniform, he cares not if the mud is four inches deep at the base he intends to reach. His sweetheart may be in the grandstand—she probably is—but she is not for him while the game lasts.

Cricket is a gentle pastime. Base Ball is War! Cricket is an Athletic Sociable, played and applauded in a conventional, decorous and English manner. Base Ball is an Athletic Turmoil, played and applauded in an unconventional, enthusiastic and American manner.

The founder of our National Game became a Major General in the United States Army! The sport had its

CRICKET VS. BASE BALL

baptism when our country was in the preliminary agonies of a fratricidal conflict. Its early evolution was among the men, both North and South, who, during the war of the sixties, played the game to relieve the monotony of camp life in those years of melancholy struggle. It was the medium by which, in the days following the "late unpleasantness," a million warriors and their sons, from both belligerent sections, passed naturally, easily, gracefully, from a state of bitter battling to one of perfect peace.

Base Ball, I repeat, is War! and the playing of the game is a battle in which every contestant is a commanding General, who, having a field of occupation, must defend it; who, having gained an advantage, must hold it by the employment of every faculty of his brain and body, by every resource of his mind and muscle.

But it is a bloodless battle; and when the struggle ends, the foes of the minute past are friends of the minute present, victims congratulating victors, conquerors pointing out the brilliant individual plays of the conquered.

It would be as impossible for a Briton, who had not breathed the air of this free land as a naturalized American citizen; for one who had no part or heritage in the hopes and achievements of our country, to play Base Ball, as it would for an American, free from the trammels of English traditions, customs, conventionalities, to play the national game of Great Britain.

Let such an Englishman stand at the batter's slab on an American ball field, facing the son of an American President in the pitcher's box, and while he was rumi upon the propriety of hitting, in his "best form," a ball delivered by the hands of so august a personage, the President's boy would probably shoot three hot ones over the plate, and the Umpire's "Three strikes; you're out," would arouse our British cousin to a realization that we have a game too lively for any but Americans to play.

On the other hand, if one of our cosmopolitan ball artists should visit England, and attempt a game of Cricket, whether it were Cobb, Lajoie, Wagner, or any American batsman of Scandinavian, Irish, French or German antecedents; simply because he was an American, and even though the Cricket ball were to be bowled at his feet by King George himself, he would probably hit the sphere in regular Base Ball style, and smash all conventionalities at the same time, in his eager effort to clear the bases with a three-bagger.

The game of Base Ball is American as to another peculiar feature. It is the only form of field sport known where spectators have an important part and actually participate in the game. Time was, and not long ago, when comparatively few understood the playing rules but the day has come when nearly every man and boy in the land is versed in all the intricacies of the pastime; thousands of young women have learned it well enough to keep score, and the number of matrons who know the difference between the short-stop and the back-stop is daily increasing.

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; they may play Golf, and receive trophies; but Base Ball is too strenuous for womankind, except as she may take part in grandstand, with applause for the brilliant play, with waving kerchief to the hero of the three-bagger, and, since she is ever a loyal partisan of the home team, with smiles of derision for the Umpire when he gives us the worst of it, and, for the same reason, with occasional perfectly decorous demonstrations when it becomes necessary to rattle the opposing pitcher.

But spectators of the sterner sex may play the game on field, in grandstand or on bleachers, and the influence they exert upon the contest is hardly less than that of the competitors themselves.

In every town, village and city is the local wag. He is a Base Ball fan from infancy. He knows every player in the League by sight and by name. He is a veritable encyclopædia of information on the origin, evolution and history of the game. He can tell you when the Knicker-bockers were organized, and knows who led the batting list in every team of the National and American Leagues last year. He never misses a game. His witticisms, ever seasoned with spice, hurled at the visitors and now and then at the Umpire, are as thoroughly enjoyed by all who hear them as is any other feature of the sport. His words of encouragement to the home team, his shouts of derision to the opposing players, find sympathetic responses in the hearts of all present,

But it is neither the applause of the women nor the

BASE BALL FOLLOWS THE FLAG

jokes of the wag which make for victory or defeat in comparison with the work of the "Rooter." He is ever present in large numbers. He is there to see the "boys" win. Nothing else will satisfy him. He is bound by no rules of the game, and too often, perhaps, by no laws of decorum. His sole object in life for two mortal hours is to gain victory for the home team, and that he is not overscrupulous as to the amount of racket emanating from his immediate vicinity need not be emphasized here.

And so it comes to pass that at every important game there is an exhibition in progress, in grandstand and on bleachers, that is quite as interesting in its features of excitement and entertainment as is the contest on the field of sport, and which, in its bearing upon the final result, is sometimes a factor nearly as potent as are the efforts of the contesting players.

It must be admitted that as the game of Base Ball has become more generally known; that is, as patrons of the sport are coming to be more familiar with its rules and its requirements, their enjoyment has immeasurably increased; because, just in so far as those in attendance understand the features presented in every play, so far are they able to become participators in the game itself. And beyond doubt it is to this growing knowledge on the part of the general public with the pastime that its remarkable popularity is due. For, despite the old adage, familiarity does not breed contempt, but fondness, and all America has come to regard Base Ball as its very own, to be known throughout the civilized world as the great American National Game.

Finally, in one other particular Base Ball has won its right to be denominated the American National Game. Ever since its establishment in the hearts of the people as the foremost of field sports, Base Ball has "followed the flag." It followed the flag to the front in the sixties, and received then an impetus which has carried it to half a century of wondrous growth and prosperity. It has followed the flag to Alaska, where, under the midnight sun, it is played on Arctic ice. It has followed the flag to the Hawaiian Islands, and at once supplanted every other form of athletics in popularity. It has followed the flag to the Philippines, to Porto Rico and to Cuba, and wherever a ship floating the Stars and Stripes finds anchorage to-day, somewhere on nearby shore the American National Game is in progress.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

BALL PLAYING IN ALL AGES AND ALL CLIMES

CHAPTER II.

ANTIQUITY OF THE GAME OF BALL—ARCHÆOLOGY, MYTHOLOGY, TRADITION AND HISTORY NOTE GAMES OF BALL FROM THE BEGINNING OF RECORDED TIME—THE MAN WHO DEVISED BASE BALL.

RCHÆOLOGY contributes its testimony to the antiquity of ball-playing by opening its storehouses of ancient treasures; for, graven on tablets, and temples and monuments, have been found pictures of human figures in the act of playing with balls.

Four thousand years ago, in the 12th Egyptian dynasty, a Coptic artist sculptured on the temple Beni Hassan, human figures throwing and catching balls. A leather-covered ball used in games played on the Nile over forty centuries ago, has a place among the many archæological specimens in the British Museum, at London. It has a sewed cover and is still in a remarkable state of preservation.

The game of ball was prized by the Greeks as giving grace and elasticity to the human figure, and they erected a statue to one Aristonicus for his proficiency in it. We are told by Horace that Mæcenas amused himself during his journeys by playing ball. In the Greek gymnasia and in the Roman baths there were special compartments for ball-playing, called Sphæristerii, where certain rules and gradations of exercise were observed, according to the health of the player. The balls used were of various materials, the most common being of leather, filled with hair, while others were stuffed with feathers. Ancient medical practitioners were wont to prescribe a course of ball-playing, where the modern doctor would order a diet of pills.

It is supposed that ball-tossing had a deep symbolical meaning when played in the spring of the year; and that the tossing of the ball was intended to first typify the upspringing of the life of nature after the gloom of winter. And, whether this was the case among the people of antiquity or not, it is a remarkable fact that the ecclesiastics of the early Church adopted this symbol and gave it a very special significance by meeting in the churches on Easter Day, and throwing up a ball from hand to hand, to typify The Resurrection.

In the 16th century the game of ball was very popular in the courts of the Princes of Europe, especially in Italy and France. It was considered one of the best forms of exercise known for cultivating grace in motion, agility and strength, as well as for promoting general health of body and cheerfulness of disposition.

The Chinese have played ball in various ways from times of remote antiquity. For centuries games of ball have been known, and played in Japan. Ethiopian and East Indian traditions refer to games with balls played many centuries ago. Britons, Celts, Scots, Scandinavians, Teutons and the early Latin races have played games of ball time out of mind.

But while it is true that ball playing in many forms has been engaged in by most nations from time immemor , it is a proven fact that the game now designated "Base Ball," is of modern and purely American origin.

I have no intention, in this work, of reopening the discussion which waxed so warm a short time ago, as to the origin of the game. It would be an act of disloyalty to the Commission that was appointed at my suggestion in 1907, with instructions to consider all available evidence and decide the case upon its merits, were I ever again to enter upon the details of that vexed controversy—except in order to prove the righteousness of the verdict then rendered. It is quite enough here to say that the Commission referred to, after a long, thorough, painstaking investigation of all obtainable facts, unanimously declared:

"First—That Base Ball had its origin in the United States;

"Second—That the first scheme for playing it, according to the best evidence obtainable to date, was devised by Abner Doubleday, at Cooperstown, New York, in 1839."

The Commission rendering this important decision was composed of such able men and well-known friends of the game as

Mr. A. G. Mills of New York, an enthusiastic ball player before and during the Civil War, and the third President of the National League.

Hon. Arthur P. Gorman (since deceased), ex-United States Senator from Maryland.

Hon. Morgan G. Bulkeley, ex-Governor, and later United States Senator from Connecticut, and the first President of the National League.

Mr. N. E. Young of Washington, D. C, a veteran ball player, and the first Secretary and afterward the fourth President of the National League.

Mr. Alfred J. Reach of Philadelphia, and

Mr. George Wright of Boston, both well-known business men and two of the most famous ball players in their day.

Mr. James E. Sullivan of New York, President of the Amateur Athletic Union, accepted the position of Secretary of this Special Commission.

The report of the Commission, written by Mr. A. G. Mills, and bearing date December 30th, 1907, is signed by all the members named above, except Hon. A. P. Gorman, whose death occurred while his colleagues were engaged in the work of research. The report closes with these words:

"As I have stated, my belief had been that our 'National Game of Base Ball' originated with the Knickerbocker club, organized in New York in 1845, and which club published certain elementary rules in that year; but, in the interesting and pertinent testimony for which we are indebted to Mr. A. G. Spalding, appears a circumstantial statement by a reputable gentleman, according to which the first known diagram of the diamond, indicating positions for the players, was drawn by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, N. Y., in 1839. Abner Doubleday subsequently graduated from West Point and entered the regular army, where, as Captain of Artillery, he sighted the first gun fired on the Union side (at Fort Sumter) in the Civil War. Later still, as Major General, he was in command of the Union army at the close of the first day's fight in the "battle of Gettysburg, and he died full of honors at Mendham, N. J., in 1893. It happened that he and I were members of the same veteran military organization—the crack Grand Army Post (Lafayette), and the duty devolved upon me, as Commander of that organization, to have charge of his obsequies, and to command the veteran military escort which served as guard of honor when his body lay in state, January 30, 1893, in the New York City Hall, prior to his interment in Arlington.

"In the days when Abner Doubleday attended school in Cooperstown, it was a common thing for two dozen or more of school boys to join in a game of ball. Doubtless, as in my later experience, collisions between players in attempting to catch the batted ball were frequent, and injury due to this cause, or to the practice of putting out the runner by hitting him with the ball, often occurred.

"I can well understand how the orderly mind of the embryo West Pointer would devise a scheme for limiting the contestants on each side and allotting them to field positions, each with a certain amount of territory; also substituting the existing method of putting out the base runner for the old one of 'plugging' him with the ball.

"True, it appears from the statement that Doubleday provided for eleven men on a side instead of nine, stationing the two extra men between first and second, and second and third bases, but this is a minor detail, and, indeed, I have played, and doubtless other old players have, repeatedly with eleven on a side, placed almost identically in the manner indicated by Doubleday's diagram, although it is true that we so played, after the number on each side had been fixed at nine, simply to admit to the game an additional number of those who wished to take part in it.

"I am also much interested in the statement made by Mr. Curry, of the pioneer Knickerbocker club, and confirmed by Mr. Tassie, of the famous old Atlantic club of Brooklyn, that a diagram, showing the ball field laid out substantially as it is to-day, was brought to the field one afternoon by a Mr. Wadsworth. Mr. Curry says 'the plan caused a great deal of talk, but, finally, we agreed to try it.'

While he is not quoted as adding that they did both try and adopt it, it is apparent that such was the fact; as, from that day to this, the scheme of the game described by Mr. Curry has been continued with only slight variations in detail. It should be borne in mind that Mr. Curry was the first president of the old Knickerbocker club, and participated in drafting the first published rules of the game.

"It is possible that a connection more or less direct can be traced between the diagram drawn by Doubleday in 1839 and that presented to the Knickerbocker club by Wadsworth in 1845, or thereabouts, and I wrote several days ago for certain data bearing on this point, but as it has not yet come to hand I have decided to delay no longer sending in the kind of paper your letter calls for, promising to furnish you the indicated data when I obtain it, whatever it may be.

"Yours very truly,

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"We, the undersigned members of the Special Base Ball Commission, unanimously agree with the decision as expressed and outlined in Mr. A. G. Mills' letter of December 30, 1907.

Senator Bulkeley, after affixing his signature, appended the following statement:

"I personally remember as a boy in East Haddam, Conn., before 1846, playing the game of One and Two Old Cat, and remember with great distinctness the early struggles in Brooklyn, N. Y., between the two rival clubs, the Atlantics and Excelsiors, and later the Stars, with Creighton as pitcher. This was some ten to fifteen years before the National organization. I was present, representing the Hartford club, at the formation of what is now the National League at the Grand Central Hotel, Broadway, New York City, about 1875 or 1876, and was its first President, with Nick Young, Secretary.

"M. G. Bulkeley."

Accepting the decision of the Commission appointed to consider the subject of the origin of Base Ball as final, I have nothing to add to their report. However, it is quite in keeping with the purpose of the story of our national game to present here a brief biography of the man who first perfected the system out of which the fi greatest of all out-of-doors pastimes has had its evolution. The following sketch is from Appleton's "Encyclopædia of American Biography":

"Major General Abner Doubleday was born in Ballston Spa, New York, June 26, 1819. He was a civil engineer in 1836-1838, when he was appointed to the U. S. Military Academy, and on his graduation in 1842, was assigned to the Third Artillery. He served in the First Cavalry during the Mexican War, being engaged at Monterey and at Rinconada Pass during the Battle of Buena Vista. He was promoted to First Lieutenant March 3, 1847, to Captain March 3, 1855, and served against the Seminoles (Indians) in 1856-1858. He was in Fort Moultrie from 1860 till the garrison withdrew to Fort Sumter on December 26th of that year, and aimed the first gun fired in defence of the latter fort on April 12th, 1861. He was promoted to Major in the Seventeenth Infantry on May 14th, 1861; from June till August was with General Patterson in the Shenandoah Valley, and then served in the defence of Washington, commanding forts and batteries on the Potomac. He was made Brigadier General of Volunteers on February 3, 1862, and was assigned to the command of all the defences of Washington on the same date, and commanded a Brigade on the Rappahannock and in the Northern Virginia campaign from May to September, 1862, including the second Battle of Bull Run, where he succeeded, on August 30, to the command of Hatch's Division. In the Battle of Antietam, his Division held the extreme right and opened the battle, losing heavily, but taking six battle-flags. On November 29, 1862, he was promoted to Major-General of Volunteers. He was at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and succeeded General John F. Reynolds as Chief of the First Corps when that officer was appointed to that command of a wing of the army. On July 1, 1863, he was sent to Gettysburg to support Buford's Cavalry, and on the fall of General Reynolds, took command of the field till the arrival of General Howard, some hours later. His division fought gallantly in the battle that followed, and on the third day aided in the repulse of Pickett's charge.

"General Doubleday served on courts-martial and commissions in 1863, and on July 12, 1864, temporarily commanded the south-eastern defences of Washington, when the city was threatened by Early's raiders. He was brevetted Colonel in the Regular Army on March 11, 1865, and Brigadier and Major-General on March 13, for his services during the war. In December, 1866, he was in command at Galveston, Texas; served as Assistant Commissioner of the Freedman's Bureau there until August 1, 1867, and, after being mustered out of the volunteer service, was made Colonel of the Thirty-fifth Infantry, September 15, 1867. He was a member of the Retiring Board in New York City in 1868, and in 1869-1871 superintended the general recruiting service in San Francisco, where, in 1870, he suggested and obtained a charter for the first cable street railway in the United States. After commanding in Texas, he was retired from active service on December 11, 1873. He has published 'Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-1861,' New York, 1876; 'Chancellorsville and Gettysburg,' 1882; and articles in periodicals on army matters, the water supply of cities, and other subjects."

Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.

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CHAPTER III.

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.