Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-11-27
THE GREATEST GAME.
Saturdays the Best Exhibition of
Foot Ball in America.
bow YALE ADDED TO her VICTORIES.
Let Harvard Line Out in the First
Half.
THEN WENT IN AND WON

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
BOSTON. November 26. 1893
No one who has not actually seen
a Harvard-Yale foot ball game can
fully appreciate what it is as a spec
tacle and how the contest stirs the
blood and arouses the maddest kind OF en-
thusiasm. Nothing in modern times, certain
ly nothing in America, has equaled it. The
place that the sport holds in the minds of
| the friends of the two great colleges sug-
gests the interest that the Greeks had in
the Olympic games, the Romans in the
sports of the amphitheater and our knight
ly English ancestors in the contests of the
tournament. 1t is essentially an Anglo
Saxon sport; It embodies the Anglo-Saxon
idea of a man-to-man contest, where the
rivals meet with no sword or rapier, but
armed only with the weapons which God
has given them. That is fair play; that
means that the best man or the best men
shall win.
A man doesn't need to understand single
rule of the game to enjoy the great annual
contest at Springfield
The scene. the spectacle, is something that
cannot be equaled or initiated. Any event
that will call together the governors and ex-
governors of half a dozen states the beauty
and wealth of the great eastern cities,
| thousands Of the most learned and distin-
guished men in the country, to say nothing
Of that irrepressibie contingent. the under
graduates of a dozen colleges, is worth see
ing, whatever be the object that calls the
crowd together.
Thirty thousand cheering, shouting. sing
ing spectators, strong in their partisanship
stronger in their love Of fair play.
The Yale people take one side of the field
md f~tn As. To-
Harvard side is a blaze OF crimson; the Yale
Is bathed in blue. Banners, gowns hats,
neckties, flowers display the possessor's
favorite color. Some young ladies have
brothers in one college and friends in the
other. They sometimes wear the brothers
ribbon, but always carry Charles" yio-
lets or carnations, as the case may be.
The Most Successful Game.
Saturdays game was the most successful
in every way of any of the annual matches
The day was clear, the only drawback be-
ing "a nipping and an eager air." with a
good western Massachusetts breeze. The
attendance was large, and the number Of
notables greater than ever before. The
contest itself was the best exhibition of the
Rugby game ever seen in America. There
was no smuggling" and Harvard had no
| cause this year to complain of Yale muck
erism.' as it is termed in classical parlance
To be sure. Harvard lost, and Boston and
Cambridge are today shrouded in gloom.
But IL a Yale victory could kill Harvard en-
thusiasm, foot ball would have been dead
long ago. Indeed the survival of the in
terest in the sport among the Cambridge
athletes well Illustrates the proverb that
Hope springs eternal in the human
breast" For the fact is that Harvard has
beaten Yale at foot ball only once in
eighteen games, and that victory was scor-
ed in 1Sy1
IT Is diffIcult fo understand ubv vala
should be able to win year after year from
her great rival. Harvard really has sew
eral advantages which Yale does not pos
sess. She has larger body of students to
select from, for one thing; again, a larger
proportion of her new students are trained
foot ball players than is the case with
Yale or any other college. She not only
gets a somewhat larger proportion of the
players of the great preparatory schools of
Exeter and Andover, but she gets some ex-
cellent material from the interscholastic
league. composed of the teams of the high
schools of Boston, Cambridge and other
neighboring cities.
Why Harvard Is Beaten.
The fault is not in poverty of material,
but in ignorance of the game.
The New England schools do not add
anything to Harvard's knowledge, because
they get their ideas from the Cambridge
University. Yale has found out how to
play the game; Harvard is still experiment
ing.
This fact is proved whenever a company
of Harvard coaches get together. Each has
some theory or project of his own. When
the Yale coachers meet there Is practically
no difference as to the way the game should
be played, and all their energy is devoted
to selecting a good team from their some
what crude material and teaching them to
play the game that way.
why" said Capt. Ray Tompkins of the
Yale team of 1884, yesterday before the
game Harvard doesn't know the A, b, c
Of foot ball. She is making the ridiculous
mistake of playing her game on paper. 1t
works beautifully when you theorize ii
out like a game of checkers. But unfortu-
nately for Harvard foot ball field is quite
different thing from checker board.
The whole science of foot ball is not so
complicated as Harvard seems to think.
There is only one way to play the game, and
that is the right way. Yale has discovered
this secret and ali her coachers recognize
it."
Capt. Tompkins closed his statement with
the prediction that Yale would surely win
adding that the only way for Harvard to
get behind Yale's goal was to go around
the world and come up on the other side
His estimate, however. was not accepted
by the friends of the crimson. There was
plenty of Harvard money in sight before
the game, and the betting was even. In
deed, the way the Cambridge boys have
backed their team year after year savors
of the heroic. They do 1t on principle, and
also because they think every year that
they ere going to win. There seems to be
fore the game. For week before each an
nuaf contest rumor says that the Yale
team is an aggregation of cripples that
they never were any good, and at the last
moment they have gone to pieces entirely
From Harvard come reports of the most
roseate hue. The crimson never had such
valiant defenders, and the Boston papers
are filled with their pictures and hints of
1.-The flying wedges" De1and tricks and
such triumphs of strategy that II is easy
to believe that while the entire Yale tear
| is looking for the ball in the bottom of a
scrimmage a Harvard half back will stem
| out and score touchdown.
Yale Had the Wind.
Harvard never went to battle SO full of
| surprising mtneuvers to spring on the
wearers of the blue as this year. But i'm
| reality the contest was fought on very
simple principles Capt. Hinkey of Yale
won the toss and chose the side with the
strong wind in his favor He then in
structed Butterworth, the veteran full
| back, to kick the ball down the field when
| ever he got the chance. The result was
| that whenever Yale had a chance at the ball
| it went sailing down the field before the
| wind, and Harvard had to push it back by
| the hardest kind of work. In doing this
| they exhibited all their new tricks, and
though neither side scored in the first half
| the Harvard men were weary with cna SiD