Los Angeles herald., 1906-06-03
EXPERTASSERTS THAT
BASEBALL DEVELOPS
MENTAL FACULTIES
SPALDING GIVES HISTORY OF GAME
Fraught With Incidents Calculated to Lend Test
and Strength, Great American Pastime Has
Become Indispensable Factor of National
Lite-Development of the Sport

keep this great notional sport UP to the
highest standard.
/ look upon baseball and kindred
sports as one of the greatest eudca-
tional factors Of the times. We live
in strenuous age, and our American
boys and youths should be educated
and developed along lines that will
enable them to meet and cope with
these conditions.
| What can better Mt boy for the
rough and tumble business life of to-
day than a thorough schooling in
athletics properly directed.
As the mental faculties grow and de-
velop. let the physical body grow
along with It in order to make a COM
bination that will be useful. and in
our crowded cities how is 1t possible
| to thus develop our city boys except
through a systematic and properly di-
rected training in athletic sports. An
American boy takes to athletic sport
and games like duck to water. but
this natural Unborn love needs proper
direction. and that is what L under
stand the Public Schools Athletic
league has undertaken to do for the
boys of Greater New York.
Baseball not only develops the mus
cles and the whole physical body, but
1t is of still greater value in developing
the mental faculties. for the ballplayer
act with the thought, for there is no
place on the team for the laggard.
Training for the Boy
1t is also a great training for the
temper, for a boy soon learns that los
ing his temper is equivalent to losing
the game.
AS moral force nothing excels
baseball and athletic sports generally,
for 1t is a healthy medium through
which q boys youthful vitality can
work off naturally, and after a hard
fought game he has become so phys
ically tired out that he has no incl-
nation for anything except a good meal
and go to bed.
The game of baseball affords splen-
did discipline for the mental and moral
natures. The intense excitement of
the game plays havoc with the emo
tions, for player can go to the very
heights of glory in victory, down to the
very depths of despair in defeat.
There are no halfway stations, the
journey is complete; the score is 10 to
4; you win or you lose.
After theI game the victorious player
walks or runs off the field with proud
step, touching only the high places, or
perhaps his admiring friends may carry
him off on their shoulders; but alas,
how different is the step of the de-
lGdLeu yer, Ills IHuSCleS are weary
and almost refuse to work, his feet
weigh a ton, and there is no glad hand
or admiring friend to accompany him
to the dressing room. He looks crushed
and probably feels an unpleasant swell
ing In his throat
1 know the feeling, boys, for I have
been there. 1 know of no remedy for
this tired, defeated feeling, but my
experience long since taught me that
the SWELLING in tha throat nnI11d ha
duced and the step made lighter by
going, Immediately after the game was
over, UP to the player who had played
similar position on the opposition
team, shake him by the hand and con-
gratulate him on his victory, and tell
him that he won because his team out
played yours. Don't lay it on to the
umpire-only "muckers" do that-for
that is unmanly, unsport and
invariably untrue.
Treatment Of Vanquished
The victor of today may be the van
quished of tomorrow, so if the boy can
have a few years of this kind of train
ing he will learn not to be unduly elated
in victory nor too much cast down in
defeat, all of which tends to that self
poise and equilibrium so necessary in
the evenly developed boy and man.
This is becoming an athletic age.
Americans are becoming famous as the
most skilful athletes in the world.
While we are here this afternoon our
returning victorious athletes from the
recent Olympian games at Athens are
approaching New York harbor with
their brows covered with the laurel
wreaths of victory won at the Stadium
in the ancient city of Athens in Greece,
the birthplace of athletic sports.
At Washington there sits in the ex-
ecutive chair our first athletic pres-'l
dent, whose sportsmanlike qualities,
energy and Square deaI' brand of in
tegrity is an inspiration to the boys of
this country.
Because of the athletic spirit that is
permeating the boys of our nation, fu
ture generations will see more honesty
and less hypocricy in high places will
hear more of square deal and less of
graft, for the spirit underlying all ath-
letic sports is fair play, honesty and