The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-02-17
Baseball News
Not n Rabid Rooter.

eTsbaye hadfa nanDer of severe disap- pointments in life, chiefly in the way or failures to develop capacity of one Kind earnest attempt. One of the worst of these dIsappolntments is over my nnal and com. t.lete failure to become a paae- ball crank. If I could sit en the irwardly consumed by the desire to murder the ums ire. l would feel nv self not only more human than l am, but also greatly superior to any condi- ton I can ever attain through the pursuit of base ball whilen my calm ness is not the result ts self-restrai..t under ditticulties, but of mere apathy.
 To sit in this apathetic condition while my neighbors on my right ana left are white around the lips tn sup- pressed emotion argues something lacking in me for which l gan not aet by care, pains and real earnestness any man may develop in himself capa- city which Is common to his fellow actual fact, am forced to confess that my serenity under every possible decis- ion is not asumed but real. All ltae credit l may have obtained Tor com plete self-control under the most try ing circumstances was obtained under false pretenses. l was really as calm as looked all the time at every base bali game I ever attended, Ind my; secret consciousness of my. false pre- lenses has grown on me to sucn an extent of late years that It Is almost painful to me to face my dtar Ielow1 y,n man, nr the cars to see the score in my paper.
 Nevertheless, I am in another sense a base ball crank. Of all the manly games" 1t Is the manifest. Alter rea1 ing long accounts of the noses which have been broken and the ribs which have beep fractured In some other games. there are times when l alnloss ,os.s really manly game left. It takes mind and muscle, skill and fairness 10 pay a manly game, and no game whicn ends in winning through fractured rios and broken noses stands for mind and fairness, even though 1t may call TOT some skill and a great deal or muscle'
 The yerS rage sesI aIsanns5 tnnugb me every pv one else does, strikes deep into my lnteI- feet, though 1t misses bv emotions. " is due to the idea, right or wrong, that the game is in danger of being decided by something else besides skill and fairness It Is not mere rage. as a rule, but genuine indl"naLlon. Anu whether or not man man 70 ouHhe aHIIoyv bin', self to become angry over oase pan or anything else, there are times yneh, if he does not become indls9atnt, t he ,s not fit to live in world or the klho i'e There was occasion for some. indigna- ion when several thousand people from both sides of the Ri9 ,dd Sranae to sss as
 
 fe-ht between a lion ana bull If 1t were possible to 1unish them as they 6eserve every one of them would be hiackiisted forever from base ball and ali other games that cali for mind' skill "iT' That base ball is not only an Ameri- can game, but the American game, IS a fact of which every American nuBns to feel proud. There are a number or things which are as American as oase haiI of which the Ie2st said is the soonest mended, at least until there is a chance to mend them, but as long as hase hall can be accented as rep tesenfinss the "American spirit there will always be hope Of mendins the
 The whole, gamef rests on the as- sumption that no players VIII pc a. lowed to take advantage Of any other, a,,d 1UT that from beginning to end the end men shall be allowed the best posSloI onportunity to win by doin~ their pest instead of their worst. They are not tn Set n man on his back and 1umn on Riu, so that he will have to be carl Tied of the field with half his rios hroi.sn rne, are not to dance around him until thev get chance 10 rescn his solar plexus with a right -nanoer or to break his jaw with an upper merits. through skill and brains put into Weli-developed and hence tntelli- gent muscles. All muscles that are 1ea1Iv well developed become intelli- gent with an intelligence of their own, Z1jthout depending wholly on the in- tei1igence of the brain. A highly train ed operator on a typewriter could copy this discourse, blindfolded, without an error, merely through the intelligence