The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-06-28
CURIOUS BASE BALL ENGLISH.
Which Might Puzzle Shakes
peareand Even Authors of this Day.
(From the New York Tribune

F'rom the New York Tribune)
Base ball English, as she is wrote for the
edIfcation of the public, is luridly pictures
que. The writer used to go to base ball
games. Later he became SO busy that he
could not go, but he read accounts of the
games with certain amount of pleasure
and instruction. Finally he ceased to lead
about the green diamond SPORT The other
day, however, he went up to the polo
grounds to court his old love. 1t was a
prettily played game and he enjoyed it.
With his interest still keen he glanced over
a published account of the same game and
found that his impressions of it, formed on
the grounds were entirely wrong. In the
first place, players who were supposed to
have family names hadn't any such useless
things. In the paper one was Midget"
another was ''Spud.'' There was Fatty
with Skeleton to keep him company, &c.
Family names, like pedigrees. it seems, do
not make base ball players.
The first man who came to the bat did not
make a base hit. He ''Walloped out SINGLE"
The next did not do anything SO tame and
antique as to send fly to center field or
fly out. He got real demoniac and
s'fungoed to CENTER The center fielder
wasn't a bit terrified, either, for he
'hugged the musty f1y.'' What the innocent
lover of base ball, had taken for a three
base hit was nothing of the kind. Such
conventional things are not allowed on the
grounds. 1t was ''whistling triplet'
A fielder did not catch a fly. He ICON
nected with a balloon fly" and the young
man who was rash enough to follow up this
phenomenon was put out at first base; he
arranged his own funeral and ''died an
easy death at first" Catching has gone out
of fashion entirely. When player catches
ball he is fined by the umpire for insulting
the intelligence of the spectators. He
"clasps high one,'' or "hauls in a fly,'' or
pulls a throw down.
1t seems that at this game, according to
the published report, an active player had
wings on his heels'' and 'tabasco sauce
in his arms,' Yet she was perfectly tame
and tractable when not "larruping scrap
ers," Or shaping out dandy singles" or
facing an easy one,'' OF slashing out a
peach.' There was a nice-appearing
young man in one of the teams, who did not
look as if he would harm fly, but he was
really fiend incarnate. for he deliberately
and in cold blood unclaimed cyclone with
his willow and tore out the ground back of
center feld''
1t isn't safe to Judge by appearances. One
player seemed to jog along to first base when
the umpire gave him his base on balls. But
the base ball Shakespeare denies this ma
licious charge. He says that he ''ambled
to the bag This same man did not steal
second base; he ''pilfered it," Altogether
he was a pretty disreputable fellow, for he
also robbed the visitors of third" His ca
reer of crime was checked, however, for
when he tried to ''embezzle the plate'' he
was ''nailed,' though to what is not Oh
record.
The players all had peculiar gaits. Some
of them galloped, some of them romped,
some of them cantered, some of them scamp