The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-08-04
WHEN BASEBALL BEGAN.
REPORTER NOT SURE ABOUT
 THE NUMBER OF BASES.
They Used to "soak" the Runner and When They Hit Him He was Out HaIcyon Days of the Umpire.

HaIcyOn Days of the Umpire.
 The first newspaper report of base ball game that remember reading was an account of a game played at Ho- boken. N. j., in 1859. It appeared in an illustrated weekly, and was such nov el and interesting event that the week ly gave double-page illustration.
 There were no baseball schedules in those days, and nobody lay awake nights matching up reasons why liar yard should not play Princeton and why Yale should play Pennsylvania. All that was needed was an occasion such as a Fourth of July celebration, a county fair house-raising, or some other event of that nature.
 The occasion for this particular game was the entertainment given to team of English crickets then touring this country and defeating United States twenty-twos' with commendable regu- Iarity. We had evolved a game from the old English "rounders," 1" which we. called baseball, and we wanted to show our cousins what high old game it was. It may have been the "humors-of- the-day'' editor who wrote the report which was as follows:
 Baseball differs from cricket, espe- cially in there being no Wickets. The bat is held nigh in the afr. When the ball has been struck, the outs try to catch it, in which case the striker is out or if they cannot do this, to strike the striker with it when he is running, which likewise puts him out Instead of wickets, there are at this game four or five marks called bases, one of which, being the one at which the striker stands, is called home As at cricket, the point of the game is to make the most runs between bases; the party which counts the most runs wins the day.
 The fact that the reporter thought it necessary to explain how the game was played indicates the extent of the pub lies knowledge of baseball at that time, and even he wasn't quite sure whether there were four bases or five.
 When he says base-runner may be put out by hitting him with the ball he makes no mistakes, for that was an ac- tual fact, and 1t was considered a good play on the part of the base-runner to draw a throw from the pitcher, for usu- ally the runner would dodge the throw and ganibol around the bases while the Il fielders were hurrying after the ball. This rule was abolished as soon as the game became popular, for a baseman, instead of touching a runner with the ! ball, would often "soak" him at short * range, which generally brought forth unprintable remarks from the soakee. The artist in Illustrating this game N was not far behind the reporter. The picture shows us several hundred spec N tators, and, with the exception of few ladies and gentlemen seated in carriages the only one person sitting down in the entire assemblage is the umpire; and, as if to show the perfect tranquility of his mind and his contempt for foul tips, he
 leans gracefully back in his chair with
 his legs crossed.
 The hasemen, instead of playing off" are standing, each with one foot
 on his base and a base runner is
 "glued on third" although the pitcher is about to deliver the ball. Tn short,
 the general aspect of the field is enough E to, give the modern baseball captain
 nervous prostration.
 The year 1870 saw baseball well estab-
 lished and deserving it's title of national
 game. Of the amatuer clubs, the Har-
 ward university team was one of the
 strongest, virtually defeating the A famous Red Stockings in one game. The
 score stood IT to 12 in Har-
 wards favor at the beginning of the # ninth, and with two Reds out, Good Fl win, the Harvard pitcher, was hit by a ! batted ball and injured.
 He recovered sufficiently to pitch the
 game out and then tainted, the Reds,
 meahwhile, piling up eight runs and M wir(ning. The game was played in Cin- cinnati. Imagine Harvard team of & to-day going 50 far from home to play & a. professional club!
 E Another notable achievement of a # Harvard nine was the 24-inning and no- Fl run game in 1877 with the Manchester # (N. H.) club In this game Catcher
 Tyng of the Harvards, (yes Jim Tyng & perennial Jim Tyng,1 made the un-
 precedented record of thirty -one putouts
 and three assists
 While this game was interesting and # exciting in it's early part it grew
 somewhat monotonous after the if
 teenth inning, owing to the fact that the
 dead ball used became ''punky' and the
 batsrnan were unable to knock it out
 side the diamond. The pitching of
 Ernst amused the spectators, however, 8 and think Ernst must have been the
 pioneer contortien pitcher.
 It was customary in those days fol
 pitcher to stand erect and deliver the
 ball with the hand below the shoulder, # but Ernst had a way of tucking the ball
 behind his back, looking over his right
 shoulder and elevating his left leg as
 he pitched. This seemed to the specta-
 tors a bad case of monkey business, and
 always called forth derisive remarks \ from the small boys.
 His record of fifteen strike out and # but four flies knocked into the outfiel6
 as outs shows that he knew his busi-
 ness, at all events.
 The score of a few games by leading
 clubs in 1869 show that the players
 occasional request for a substitute tc
 run few laps for him was not without
 reason.
 LA an