The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1907-05-23
BASEBALL
RIOTERS
Let us now consider the rcoters for


like the teeny-weeniest break the
Washington fans will rip enough holes
In the circumambien ito make the en-
circlipg atmosphere look like some
thing all shot full of holes. Give them
straw to clutch at, just little piece
OF tempest-tCssed chicken-cOop to
grab at in the tumultuous sea Of base
ball. and the hungry, wistful Wash
ington fans will root themselves right
over to the borderland of the big d.
vide; will root till the bovines re-
turn; will root till their countenances
are of the colors that of the lamented
Dorsey Foultz; will root till the am
balances line up and drag them, limp
and exhausted. but deliriously happy,
to the reviving works.
The Funny Fans.
But there are rooters and rooters,
here as well as everywhere else.
The great majority of them are the
bulliest fellows imaginable. But there
are just a few types of baseball root
ers who are irksome.
They don't know it. That's the pa
thetic part of it. They mean we'll.
Their intentions are the best in the
world. But they are sufferers from
what might be termed the confused
ego. They have the imaginative tenn
permanent.
For example. quite few rooters
imagine themselves to be humorists,
when they really are not-not at all;
not little bit.
The sure-enough funny baseball
rooter is a rare bird. Few ball towns
have more than two or three of them
at the most. And they're joy. They're
about half the fun of the afternoon.
They're quaint, inventive, quippish
overdo it. They don't keep blatting
all the time. like megaphones on the
rubberneck wagons. They pick the
pat moment and send the funny one
over, convulsing all hands within
sound of their voices. They have the
genuine sense of proportion and of
time measurement. They know to
the eighth OF second just when to
shoot in the right one. And they're
always good-natured about it. The
honest-Injun funny baseball rcoter is
never a crouch. He's there for the
outing and the fun, a game man will
ing to take his medicine if need be,
as entertaining in defeat as he is
jovial and generous in victory. He's
got comedy in him. He's there with
the bright mind, stored with quirks
and outlets. He isn't obviously try
ing to make hit with the folks. He
isn't posing as funnyist. He's just
letting the stuff out Of him that
seethes in naturally joyous midriff.
Imitation HumOriStS.
But, We repeat, the really-and-truly
funny baseball roOter is rara avis.
Washington has it's quota, like other
baseball towns, of two or three-no
more.
The imitators OF the real article,
however. are many. They are not
able to view themselves from the
proper focusing distance. They don't
know how to stand off and lock them
selves over from the correct angle.
Otherwise they wouldn't be imitation
funny baseball rooters.
They somehow or another develop
the exaggerated ego-ish notion that
they are the real slips, cut-ups, leases,
hoydens of the game. And they are
out to show folks that they're there
with the stuff. Candor compels the
statement that. far from being in the
leastwise entertaining, they are very,
very" sad persons.
They do not conduce to the gayety
of an afternoon at ball park. Their
utterances have about as much point
as a carpenters pencil that has been
used as a can-opener. They excite
about as much mirth as does the
sight OF gored horse at a bull fight.
They diffuse an aurO and aroma OF
gloom all over the occasion. They
surcharge the affair with an atmos-
phere of sorrow. They render the
concourse uneasy and unhappy. They
mistake antediluvian gibes for up-to-
the-minute witticisms, thereby Great
ing perspective of verbal monotony
that is irksome to the spirit ana
wearisome unto the flesh.
And they never, never stop till the
last mans out. They are making the
hit of the afternoon, according to their
dope. and so they don't feel like de-
priving the crowd of their funniness
till it's all ever. They begin just as
soon as the umpire sweeps off the
home plate, or little bit earlier. and
from then on till the wind-up they
are making tunnels OF their hands
and making their near neighbors long
for sudden death. If compressed into
a box of similar size, the thing they
suppose to be their humor. would re-
semble 1O-cent can OF French sar-
dimes caught off the coast OF Maine.
And all the time they imagine that
everybody all over the place is just
rocking from side to side and holding
his sides with sheer, uncomfortable
laughter. That's the pity of it. lago
that these imitation funny rooters
actually suppose that they are con-
ferring benefit upon the folk who
have given up their good coin at the
gate. Nobody feels like trying to flag
one of these limitations. 1t is so per-
fectly apparent that the phony funny
list actually thinks that he alone is
worth twice the price OF admission.
that generous-hearted men. no matter
how horribly they suffer under the
affliction, haven't the gizzard to so up
and tell him that he's in wrong; that
he really is shine, and a smudge
and nuisance as wculd-be divert
ing rocter. Moreover, such Il con-
formation would perhaps fetch up a
crouch and a growl, and perhaps a
scrap, and SO the imitation funny root
er is rarely or never called. He goes
right on. from year to year. making
people wretched and miserable and
misanthropic.
Let's wistfully, prayerfully hope
that we will net have many OF him
this year. 1t doesn't cost anything to
hope.
The knOw.All ROOter.
Then there's the rooter who knows
more about the game than Mr.. Can
tillOn, Lave Cross and people like