Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-09-10
BASE BALL HOOTERS

at doesn't seem to me as if the rooters
are as witty or original as they used to be,
said the grizzled base ball zealot and Ia
matte. I've been to every game on the
home grounds this season, and TO some
games on foreign grounds, and maven
heard more shan half a dozen genulneiy
funny remarks from the rooters' sections.
I'm a bleacherite, or sun god, too, occa-
Sionally, and it was in the bleachers Where
the fun used to be, you'll remember Some
days 1 go into the grand stand ana some
on the bleachers. but, as l say, there an
absence of sure-enough witty cracks from
the rooters nowadays that deplore greatly.
1t used to be as good as the game to listen
to the shrewd. whimsical, really -and-trurJ
funny things that mellow fans would have
to say to the players. Some of their say
ings were as good as the best things you d
hear in the theater at a humorous show.
The chaps who got these things off did not
set themselves deliberately to the task or
being funny for the entertainment of the
| crowd but their remarks rose involuntarily
to their lips. and they were often so telling
that they'd often all but break up the
games, while all hands, including the play
ers themselves, rocked with the enjoyment
of the QuiDs.
But nowadays the alleged funny fellows
a the ball games appear to just lay them
selves out to be funny, and, consequently,
| they're not the least bit entertaining. In
fact, most of them simply nuisances
and bores, and they get on the nerves or
everybody within the sound of their voices.
No man can be deliberately and deter
minedly and perSistently funny for whole
afternoon at a ball game, and when you
observe out of the tail of your eye that
the sake of making a hit why along toward
the middle of the game you feel like hitting
him with a bat.
1T can't be that all of the good things
from the rooterS' benches have been said
yet and that's one of the reasons why 1
cant explain the utter lack of SpOntaneity
of the rooters cracks at this day and date.
There's big-voiced We'll, well, Well
man at the Washington games pretty fire.
quently, who spoils the whole effect of his
yawp by repea ting it time and again, until
people become heartily tired and sick of it.
The old-time Well, we'll, we'll man used to
get or his gigantic howl only couple of
times during the course of the game, and
then only at the opportune points. so that
there was actual meat for mirth in his
huge note of amazement
There seems too to be a good deal less
patience and heap more bitterness among
the fans nowadays than there used to be.
Inc take-him-out' people begin their I'M
reasonable shout the instant PLAYER of
the nome nine makes the slightest kind Of
an error. and then the player loses mis-
nerve and has all that he can do to
scramble through the game 1t doesn' t
n AXE any difference apparently to the
present generation of fans whether man
OF the team has been sent. in a pinch to
cover position that he is entirely new to.
III he exhibits the most natural and I'M
aVoidaple little break in his playing of the
new position. they get at him with their
Wlld demands that he be taken out" and
the result is always disastrous upon The
players game. Time was when player
had to make a number of bad breaks and
hn rrnc 90 Co. =
III no shape to go ahead, before the take
him-out' shriekers got busy
Inc rooterS of today, too, seem to me
to be good deal too personal in their re-
marks to players. and | am not surprised
that 1t has happened several times this
season that players insulted in this manner
Lave climbed into the stand and slugged
their tormentors. The old-time rooter was
funny without being bitter or mean. lie
was too good-humored and mellow and
alive to the rights of others to make aIIu-
SION for instance. to the bow legs of a
player or to the ugliness of his face or %
some other physical characteristic that Is
liable to be a sore spot with the man m
Uniform The rooters of today I am boun
to say, are wholly ungenerous and incon-
slderate IN their way of pointing out these
thnss ana in harping and chewing on
them throughout the length of a long game
o: doubleheader. 1t isn't square / don't
blame the ball players for resenting it, |
could mention several renowned actors who
80 SnStSHtC coH-i out the gallery
ties don't ba wi that fact at them when the
actors are giving their performances And
can't see why it isn't just as mean and
common to allude to the physical defects
OF peculiarities of ball players as it would
be to hurl such remarks at actors on the
stage.
Il rever was an audible rooter myself.
Al very early stage of my life I reached
the conclusion that I wasn't a little bit
funny. and I've never tried to be funny
since | made up my mind that way / wish
some of the fellows who attend the ball
| games would achieve a belated reform in
| the same direction. It's never too late 10
pend"