New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-06-21
THE SPORTS OF ORR LONG DAYS.

In this merry month Of sunshine outdoor
sports are in full swing. America has taken up
golf with an ardor which would be amazing
were it not that the doughty Scottish game APP
pealS strongly to youth and age alike. The
patriarch of fourscore and the schoolgirl OF
fourteen can find health and diversion on the
links. Golf clubs are multiplying, and the tech
meal terms Of the game are heard on every
side 1t would not be suitable to speak of the
passion for golf as a craze, since no saner zest
for wholesome recreation has been known
among us than the liking for the tees and the
hazards the bunkers and the strokes. Croquet
Is past and gone. 1t Is forgotten utterly. Lawn
tennis is a pale and veinless wrath in com
parSon with the sturdy Scotch amusement.
Cricket is not chirping briskly on the Atlantic
coast this summer, and professional baseball in
the metropolis has become the prey OF Tam
many toughs. The so-called American game had
multtudes of Jealous followers until the faint
of ruffiansm with the blight of the Tammany
plague OF mismanagement infected it. The
New York club under Freedman's wrong headed
control has sunk so low that even Cherry Hill
is ashamed of IT, But the college boys play ball
fairly and honorably. The college mines are not
made up from the scum Of the slums. and the
student players have not abandoned every sen
tment of dccency, the Freedman-CroEar or
ganization has done. The contests between the
young men Of our universities and schools
still Olympian in their eArnestness, in their
freedom from base motives from disorder and
vile language. The contrast between college
baseball and professional baseball is the con
rast between cleanliness Of soul and the Four
teenth-st. blackmail of the dives.
The strenuous oarsmcn from our institutions
of learning are now shifting the resoundng fur
III,
an ideal of unsefsh achievement is clear and
high. These boys, who spend laborious days
and do a great deal OF plain living (and some
high thinking ALSO for the glories of their
benignant mothers are worthy Of praise. Their
self-restraint, their unhagging toll, their devo-
ton to aims neither low nor mean, will help
them in their later work. The reports Of the
struggles OF our college gladiators in the arenas
which now crowded with their strivings
deserve the sympathetic applause OF even the
coolest and most apathetic Of Americans.
Yachting is not developed in 1900 it was
last year and will be next year No hot fever Of
contention is yet aroused among the owners
OF the daintest and feetest of the pleasure
vessels Later the stress and strain of the
most important of salt water battles will be
entered upon. On the trotting tracks nothing
of startling note has excited public attention
thus far this year, but the trotters may accom-
plish feats of renown in a few weeks at the
Empire City track. near Yonkers Racing assO-
Citations in this State have unwseIy adopted
the policy Of holding running races six days in
the week. That folly helped to ruin the turf in
New-Jersey. Scandal now follows scandal al
most without interval No sport can prosper in
the long run which is not governed prudently
and with moderation. A wild excess is now
conspicuous the courses in this State, and
there are troubles ahead. Reason and common
sense have taken flight.