The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-22
ABOUT AMERICAN SPORTS
BASEBALL SPALDING' TELLS SOME
THING OF THEIR BEGINNING.
Early Days of BasebaII-CrOquet and
rious Sports Have Developed.

Robert p Porter, in Philadelphia Inquirer.
Walking the deck of this vessel (Fuerst
Bismarcl) with A. G. Spalding, it was nat
ural that should discuss the develop
ment of sports and games in the United
States. Spalding was the son of a well-to-
do farmer of northern Illinois, who, after
prospecting on the farm, moved up to the
nearest large town, and, with his God-fear
ing wife, set about the systematic educa-
ton of their children. Both his parents
were very much opposed to AL taking up
with baseball, believing it would lead to
perdition rather than to a fortune. Twen-
ty-five years ago, in this part of Illinois,
baseball was frowned upon, and anything
savoring of playing in public was hardly
regarded as the proper thing for a mer-
chants or farmers son. Spalding as
boy was not infrequently asked to stand
up in his class as a frightful example and
| receive severe remand for absenting him
self to play baseball, even though many of
the highly respectable merchants of his
town had been to see the young athlete
play. On one of these occasions Spalding
| had been backed by one of the school COM
rnissioners, who had promised to make it
right with the professor, but forgot. Next
day the professor called the pitcher up and
notified him that unless the baseball bust
ness was stopped he would be expelled from
the school. Alarmed he went around to
his friend, the school commissioner, who
promised to fix matters, and did so, for
he came to school next day and nothing
more was done about the matter.
Looking back now," said Spalding, land
more fully realizing the hold baseball has
on Americans, L believe it would have been
question whether the professor or L
would have beer1 exne1lad had the matter
really come to an issue"
The war gave the first great impetus to
baseball Various games of this kind were
played in different parts of the country
before the war, but they differed materially
in different localities. The soldiers coming
from all parts played baseball in camp,
| thereby establishing rules, and when the
war ended the game was disseminated all
over the country, and with the younger
soldiers for a nucleus, baseball clubs be-
gan to appear. The first games of baseball
| for spectators seem to have been in
augurated early in the Sixties and from
these small beginnings the several associa-
| tons and leagues were formed All who
know anything about the game are familiar
with its progress since that time Base
ball may therefore be regarded as the fore
runner OF all other sports and games in the
| United States. 1t was when the first base
ball excitement broke out not only our ma
tlonal game, but practically our only game.
An illustration of this is the fact that when
Spalding left the diamond and went into a
small business in Chicago he did SO with
the idea of furnishing baseball supplies
only. For several years he literally sold
nothing else, and not until he visited Eng
land in 1915 did the idea occur to him that
| there were other games and sports which
we might take up, and that in this respect
| we We're a one-ideaed people. In England
| he found the people given over to great va
riety Of sports, and that while cricket was
the national game, the people were far
more given to pastimes than his more
that time there was hardly any tennis
| played here, golf was unknown, archery
| and tobogganing in their infancy, boxing
| hardly thought of, and fishing, hunting and
| shooting nothing like so extensively carried
on as now.
THE MILD CROQUET
| From this time-or say twenty years ago
| sports in America began to broaden.
Croquet, which seems to have been invent
ed, or perhaps 1 should say imported
from the English rectories, was proper and
yielded an opportunity for gentle filtration.
The introducing of tennis, however, soon
side-tracked croquet in the fashionable
quarters, though the game still holds its
own in the rural districts. Tennis is a
far more vigorous, healthful game, and for
| people out of the teens and along towards
middle life-if not too stout-forms splendid
exercise. The game soon became somewhat
of craze because the fashionable set took
| 1t up. Then the newspapers gave it a
great boom, until everybody began to play
and all the vacant lots in town were con-
verified into tennis courts Naturally the
fashionabes dropped it, and it is much less
In vogue now. Then came archery with its
picturesque costumes and handsome bows,
| and hardly well-kept lawn could be
| found without its attractively painted tar
get. The next craze in the way of sport
! spread over the country like wild fire and
| soon not only the cities, but every village
had its roller skating rink Here was a
game in which both sexes and all classes
could take hand-or perhaps we should
say 1oOt-and skating Kinks grew up in a
night. 1t was a delightful and exhilarat-
largely upon the women, for the joys of
parlor skating were nil without a pretty
lgrl Like SO many other things, parlor
skating was overdone. We threw ourselves
and our girls into it with such vim and
vlgor that it did not last. Abuses crept in
scandals cropped out and parents froWend
on it as a. pastime for their daughters for
both physical and social reasons The de-
cine of parlor skating was almost as rapid
it under the ban, the Kinks closed their
doors and failed, and 1t might be said par
iof n skating angs is now via, thing Of the past
gaming and archery. though the latter
never became so universal. What use to-
| bogganing without the gentle sex? Surely
men would find no fun in such a pastime
| after the first time or two. Tobogganing
without a girl to tuck UP and NAV he hold
tightly AROUND the waist, was barren sort
of fun. So tobogganing went the way of
all games in which women are the essential
element. Thus it may be truly said that
while woman is the life of some outdoor
sports, she is also the death of those pas
times which depend on the tickle sex for
success.
THE MANLY SPORTS.
The purely manly sports-sports which
depend on the masculine sex alone-are the
one in which public interest continues I'M
abated. Here are striking instances. side
by side:
sports IN which Sports which depend
men alone engage. Tor success largely
on women.
Cricket,
Football, Crouuet
Baseball, Tennis
Rowing, Archery,
rleIu ana IobOgganing
Track athletics, Parlor sIates
Boxing,
Golf,
Yachting,
Cricket has gone on for more than a CEN
fury baseball for more than forty years