San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1886-01-29
THE BELLIES OF THE BAT.
At San Pedro Springs Park Tomorrow
and Sunday History Of Female Ball
Playing.

great ltGlldlG DhNF bs4tl iuhANhS W "
played between nine Of the young ladies
base ball club and picked nine Of San
Antonio boys at San Pedro springs to-
morrow and sunday evening, the LIGHT
thinking few items in regard to the ORR
gen and history of ball playing by the
gentle sex might be of interest 10
It's readers dispatched reporter
to interview the manager OF the Queens
OF the emerald Diamond" as they are
apily termed.
This enterprlsing gentleman, Mr..
Harry II. Freeman, received the LTGHl
reporter very COurteOusly, when the
, following points upon female base Dali
! playing were obtained.
RepOrter.-ITOw long have you been
! on the road with your novel attraction
/ Manager-This is my third season
and my club has played in every princi-
pal city from the Atlantic TO and beyond
! The Missouri and from the lakes OF the
| North to the Gulf of MeXico-Spending
three months last Winter at the
! New Orleans great worlds expo
! sition. In short the young ladies
baseball club under my management
| during the three seasons | have had
| them on the road, nave Travelled more
miles, been through more States, over
greater part of the country, played in
! more cities and towns, played before
| larger audiences, received longer and
more fattering notices. been more
abused, slandered and misrepresented
than any other baseball Club-male or
female-that ever existed.
R.-When did ball playing first Origi-
nate with women?
M.-That question is not so easily an
swered. The first femelc baseball club
ever organized in this country, was or
ganIZed by myself in New York City in
April and May 1879, where built and
enclosed ball ground at my own eX-
pense in the very center of the aristro-
cratic part Of the metropolis, corner of
Madison Avenue and Fifty-ninth
street, on the present site of the Battle
of Yorktown building.
now THE LADIES OF ENGLAND PLAYED BALL
400 YEARS AGO.
R.-Was not ball playing very pOpu-
lar among the women of ancient times:
M.-Ies: open air gymnastics were
very popular among the women of the
ancient Greeks. likewise the ancient
Romans. and history records the fact
that the ladies Of England in the four
teenth century played ball, and were en-
cOuraged in so doing by the nobility,
and why should not the young ladies of
America in the nineteenth century prsc-
tiCe and cultivate these eXhilarating and
pleasant pastimes? more especially go
| when the same historian informs us
that the ball is OF feminine origin, the
first ball ever constructed being made
by lady of distinction and presented
to the daughter Of king. (See Stew
arts History of Ancient and Modern
Games and Psstimes.)
R.-DO many ladies attend your
games?
M.-Certainly in tue large cities
where we have played One-fOurth to one
| third our audience have been ladies. and
| in one town in Ohio remember one day
| last summer that the first twenty
seven tickets sold out of the box
office were to ladies. The exhibition
| is iirst-Class in every particular, moral
| in every sense, free from every obieC-
| tiOnable feature, and can be visited by
any one, even the most refined and fas-
| tidiOus, and these games by ladies have
not only been endorsed by leading news
papers of the country, but also by noted
ClSrgymen, and the Leading medical
faculty of the country, and my object
| in organizing the Young Ladies' Ball
| Club is to encourage and promote APP
arOpriate and healthy recreation and
Open-air exercises for ladies, aed hope
| to be successful in pOpulariZing Open-air
exercises among the women of our land
our sisters and our daughters not
only as an invigorating but as beau
| tifying influence. By encouraging such
among their women, the ancient Greeks
| fully understood the value of open-air
| gymnastics, and have produced those
| beautiful and graceful figures which, as
shown in their marble representatives
handed down to us, the world of to-day
can not rival.
At this point, after such an eloquent
reference to the benefits TO be derived
by ladies from Open-air exercises, the
LIGHT representative Tentured to sug-
gest to Mr.. Freeman that he seemed to
| be pretty well posted on these matters,
he laughed, and replied the nature of
| his business made it necessary to keep
! himself pretty well posted on both mod
ern and ancient pastimes, and open-air
exercises for ladies.
The games to be played tomorrow
and Sunday will take place within
canvas enclosure 10 feet high and $50 feet
square. with grand stand, seating ca
pacity for 1000 people. A brass band
street parade will be made at ii o'clock
in the morning. and the fun will begin
at $50 p. M, the game being called
promptly at that time. IT the weather
is pleasant, it is expected that 5000 to
10000 people will witness this novel ex-
hibtion, so great is the desire to see
girls throw the ball and WELD the ash.
From a number of press notices hand
ed the reporter, we extract the follow
ing:
lover 1000 spectators on Saturday Wis
| tied the Manhattan Athletic Grounds
and laughed themselves hungry and
thirsty watching game of base ball
played by nine pretty girls on one side
and nine of the Delaware Club on the
! other New York Sun.
NEARLY 5000 people were at Union
Park. Allegheny, yesterday afternoon to
see the first game of ball In this city by
the great and only female ball club.
The weather was cold and cherries. but
from the time the girls arrived until they
left it would require small sized cy-
clone to make the crowd decsmp. About
200 ladies we're present. Billy Taylor,
the noted pitcher, was selected to do the
umpiring. - Pittsburg Dispatch