The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1905-11-16
increase QF FOOTBALL
Remarkable Popularity of Grid
iron Game in Short Time
FIRST REAL GAME IN 1876

Years Because of National inter-
est Crcatcd--IIas Never Gained
the Favor Baseball Claimed in its
Beginning.
About the time that organized
baseball became a powerful factor in
American sports, says the Louisville
Courier-Journal, American football
crept in. Not so many are apt to- rat
tie off football statistics as are able
to tell stories of all the baseball play
ers of prominence, and yet when the
statement is made that the game of
football has developed with more
rapidity than any sport in the Uni
ted States. growing from weakling
to lusty young giant in an incredi-
bly, short period of time, it is stating
a common truth which is well known
to every sporting authority and
cheerfully granted by every dealer in
sporting goods in the United States
In 1876 the National League of
baseball clubs was organized. We
had plenty of baseball before then,
but this new organization helped
vastly to put baseball on the substan-
tial footing it enjoys at the present
time.
How many are there who know
that, in the same year, 1876, the real
game of American football was in
spircd? How few there. are who
would think, so far as time is con-
cerned, that the rise of baseball and
football in a measure is synonymous.
And the reason for it all is the fact
that football was a little backward at
the start and has only leaped to it's
popularity within the last score of
years, while baseball swung into gen.
eral favor from the date of the incep-
tion of a well constituted orgariza-
ton.
The missionaries of football
throughout the United States have
been the college men. Westerners
who went East to study at Harvard
and Yale, at Princeton and at other
universities which have picked up
football one after the other, returned
home filled with the longing to see
football elevens established in the
cities in which they resided.
As the West became more thiclily
settled, and colleges sprang up here
and here throughout the country,
there was a desire on the part of the
students to emulate the East in the
matter of participation in football,
and the result was the gradual in
PRODUCTION of the game into the larS-
er educational institutions, and from
those to the smaller
From 1850 to 1890 there was al
ways football in the United States,
but little was heard Of it except in
college Centers. It was a long way
some day to command thousands of
columns of attention from the news
papers of the land. After 1890 the
big games between Harvard and
Yale, and Yale and Princeton. and
between other colleges of promi-
nence, began to be witnessed by sys-
tematically increasing crowds. 1t
was discovered that men were trav-
cling from one limit of the United
States to the other to be present at
the annual football game between
their alma mater and some univer-
sity dearly loved as an enemy. As
the crowds swelled and their inter
est waXed, the game was forced more
and more on public attention, but it
is only within the last five years that
football has attained anything like
the popularity of baseball, and now,
considering the brief time in which
1t is possible to play, it is a ques-
tion If, all things considered, it does
not outstrip baseball in the feverish
anxiety of its votaries to make the
most of their opportunity.
When it is known that the output
of a factory furnishing football sup
plies is now twenty times greater
than it was five years ago, some idea
may be had of the increased number
of football players in the United
States. The output of the same fac
tory is almost fifty times greater
than it was twenty years ago, or
even fifteen years ago.
Whether boys of tender years
should be allowed to play football is
a question which it is not the pur-
DOSt Ol lulS W uCDdlc. IL 10
a matter which rests solely with the
parents. One thing is very certain,
no boy should be permitted to take
part in the game who is not sound
constitutionally 1t is the most try
ing of all our outdoor pastimes, and,
while it may be splendid exercise
and tonic for the strong, it is far
too greedy in its demands for the
weak To go through a game of foot
ball is the equivalent of splitting
wood in the back yard, and if that
fact were impressed theoretically on
some youngsters who want to play
but are hardly up to physical re-
quirements, it might discourage
them to such an extent that they
would be willing to sit on the fence
and watch the others.
Upton To Try Again.
Sir Thomas Upton, thrice defeated
hi OFF to 81, ,tai Of