The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-04-27
BASEBALL.

When the big league clubs essayed forth upon
the diamond and began the momentous struggle for
supremacy for the year 1907 it was the formal an
nouncement that the season for Americas greatest
outdoor sport was begun. Professional baseball
seems to be as we'll established any other fea
ture of American life, but the great hold it has
upon the mind of the American public cannot be
said to have developed from the big leagues. Rather
do the professional clubs reflect the love which grew
into the hearts of the people when they were young
and played the game one of its numerous modi-
fcations ON the commons, the school yard or the
vacant lot long since filed with residences apart
ment houses. From coast to coast and from che
farthest ends of Texas and Maine, in the cities
towns and rural settlements, the boys develop
ing their muscles by the fine sport and are Incl
dentally developing deep affection for the game
which in future years. if the opportunity IS present
will cause them to seek the beachers and roar and
yell and root for their favorite team. They are
growing up to perpetuate the present race of
"fans"
No wonder the American people like baseball.
The game is clean and healthful; it develops quick
perception and rapid and accurate action, and pro
fessiona players need some moral as well as physi-
cal strength to successfully play the game. All
the fine points in the play the people who love base
ball know and understand because they learned the
principles of the game when they young, and
the changes made in rules are easily understood.
As long as boys play baseball and dream of some
day joining the ranks of the professional players
there is no danger of the national game becoming
any less popular. Rather will it become more and
more part of our national life: and if. as Wei
lington is reported to have said Waterloo was
won upon the cricket fields of England, the great
battles for peace and international tolerance of the
future may well be considered as founded upon
the diamonds laid out wherever bunch of boys
find vacant place to enjoy their favorite pastime
The game, too, has added to the beauties of the
language, or has developed language of its own.
which cannot be more than half understood by
those fedgngs who pass up the sport pages of the
daily newspaper for the poetry of Browning or the
tragedies of Shakespeare. When the baseball re-
porter tells how some one plowed up The left garden
to catch long fly or another whanged off a lulu
to deep center bringing home two men, he knows
what he is talking about and so do the fans. even
if it is all lost on the student of the language and
literature of the age. The successful baseball
porter must be a master of smile and metaphor,
and there seems no end to the high-soundine
phrases with which he may adorn his reports of
games Grammar and rhetoric are but hindranees
to his pyrotechnic imagination His dope he must
peddle up to the printer in time to have a complete
report of the game on the street before the crowd
has returned from the ball grounds and he does it
every day the home team appears on the local dia-
mond.
The professional season is always opened too
early for good weather conditions. Rain, cold and
untimely SHOWS interfere with the early-season-
games, but the people can't be expected wait till
June to enjoy the sport. That would be asking too
much. Besides, the reporters vacation has already
strung out too long to suit him, and baseball with
out the reporter would lose much of its charm to
those who can't go to see the games.