Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-09
STIRRING LANGUAGE.
Editors Opinion of Eastern Brother
Who Knows Base Ball.
From the Kansas City Journal.

From the Kansas tlty JUurnaI
A captious eastern editor asks petulantly
what the base ball writer of the Journal
means by the following:
Tinker led off for the Cubs and ozoned.
Evers slammed clean single to left and
went TO third on Kings solitaire to the
same place. King purloined second. Pfef-
fer sauntered on four wide ones. and the
To let signs were pulled down from all the
bases"
In our minds eye we can picture this
eastern editor as he is OF course, he wears
whiskers. and they are probably red and
cut Van Dyke. He parts his hair in the
nidde-if lie has any hair-and wears big,
round glasses. He was the pet of his fam
ily and spent his early youth in some nice.
refined Boston nursery, and never. never
played "one-od-cat'' in the alley with boys
of his own age. Ffe never climbed tele
graph pole TO witness the home team pedal
the bags for winning game and could
no; have experienced the triumphant joy OF
chasing foul ball outside the fence which,
when garHered. entitled him to a seat on
the bleachers.
As the years of his adolescence passed
this editor always kept at his work during
the long, suitry days Of summer, and never
longed for a breath Of fresh air, the blood
stirring sight Of the big green diamond and
the blessed privilege of roofing for the
llNiifC team ana EulllnS picturesque mare
dictions at the rohber umpire. The editor
was studOus and carefully avoided sneak
ing out to the bail park u Saturday aft
ernoOn and telling his contidins wife after
ward thai the reason she could not reach
him at has office was because his telephone
was out OF order. Oh. no. Our captious
brother editor was a model The result is
that he has allowed the world to go by him.
He sits in isolated ignorance of the greatest
American institution-base ball,
The absolute poverty of written language
TO express human emotions was probably
first eXemplified when the paleozoic sporting
writer. with his stylus and his papyrus pad,
tried to describe the first cocoanut twirling
game between the 'Megatherium Mud Eat
ers' and the "Megalosaurus Giants" From
that time TO this the language of sport has
always been in advance of the ages. 1t has
outStripped the classicalists. who are bound
by rOte and rule The base ball writer with
his sleeves rolled up and his trusty type
writer eating on roll of paper. is a maker
of language His is natures own method.
He gets close to the readers because he Is
sublimely free from hampering grammatical
form, and his vocabulary is evolved as he
goes along. 1t weaves itself from the wool
OF encircling smoke from his malodorous
pipe. and as he gayly sails out into the
bOundless realm Of his red and green imag-
ination he coyly picks the choicest idoms
and fits from flower TO flower In the glor-
ious gardens of budding synonym and
blooming metaphor
The base ball writer writes for those who
understand his linguistic vagaries and revel
in the seeming confusion OF his complex
phraseOiOgy He Is the journalistic free
lance. who denies the right of precedent
and rides roughshod over the stickler for
literary finish. He knows his readers and
they know him. When he says Tinker led
on for the Cubs and ozoned' every legiti-
mate thirty-third degree fan grasps i'm
mediateiy the graphic picture thus painted.
Let the base ball writer alone In his
very frenzied philology he contributes a
vivid and refreshing contrast to the mo-
notonous news pages and the wearying pre-
cisi0n of the nice. round editorial sentences
And we who also write for a living must
confess to a sneaking admiration for his
holiness. his originality and the easy ia
miliarity of his style