Charlevoix county herald., 1910-05-14
ATHLETICS in
THE PHILIPPINES
Sid Stewart Writes Interesting
Account.

In a letter to his mother, Mrs.
James Howey, Sidney Stewart has
the following to say relative to ath-
letcs in our island possessions
Cebu, March |, 1910.
Dear Mother:-
"Since l returned To the Islands |
have devoted great deal OF time 70
the development of athletics In the
Visayan Islands, thai is the central
islands of the archipelago, and blythe
way the Visayan Islands are the most
important Of all as they contain three
out Of the eight million people in the
p. L. Athletics may seem TO you to
be an unimpOrtant thug, but over
here / contend that it is one of the
most important phases Of school work.
The Filipiuos have no native games Of
their own which develop them ph,s-
ically. All the games which they
have are more or less vicious. To
supplant them with clean, wholesome
American sports like base ball and
track will benefit them not only phys
ically but morally and mentally. In
some parts Of Luzon much has been
done in atheletics. But in these GEN.
trail islands nothing was done to speak
of until last year when got things
started here in Cebu and held the first
athletic meet with the Silliman IDsti.
tute at Dumaguete on the island Of
Negros. This year we held another
meet with the same school and these
dual meets between Silliman and
Cebu Will be annual affairs. Upon my
return from the states, began to
work up big athletic meet in which
all the Visayan Provnces would COM
pete. This took several months. AZ
ter the various provinces had consent
ed TO enter the meet, we got the gov
ernment interested To the extent Of
furnishing free transportation for the
different teams to the place where the
meet was TO be held. which was again
at Dumaguete where there is good
athletic field. That meet was held in
January and was an entire success, so
much so that these big lntes. Visayan
meets will be held annually. | had
charge OF the meet from beginning TO
end. Our Cebu base ball team defeat
ed every team that they were ptted
ilx hnu
were the best team in the Visayas.
Our track team won second place
with which we were satitied although
we felt that our Cebu team was The
best team entered. Silliman won first
in track events.
"As result Of the Inter Visayan
meet. the best teams there were selec-
ted to go to Manila and compete
there at the Carnival athletic meet.
The Cebu base bal and track team
was chosen as was also the Silliman
track team and the Leyte base ball
team. l was given charge by the gov
ernment Of all these teams and two
other teams were sent also, Silliman
and Leyte man. We were in Man
lila about three weeks. In the ath-
letic meets there the best teams from
all over Luzon and the other northern
islands competed. 1t has always been
thought that Manila is the whole
thing In every way, and in athletics
they are strong. Manila should be
the strongest In the Islands. for their
students there are the pick Of the Is
lands, and they have beeu in athletics
since the beginning OF American Oc-
cupation. No one in Manila thought
thought that Cebu could compete
with Manila, the idea was hoOted that
Cebu stood a chance to even score In
base ball. But / had worked hard
with my team and knew that they
would put up hard game at least.
In the first ball game we were pitted
against the Manila High School team,
supposed to he the strongest team In
Manila and In the Islands. My team
put up an errorless game and from
start to flush outplayed the Manila
team at every point of the game, out
tielded, outbatted, outdid them in
base running and in team work. We
had team work down fine and made
the Manila team look like bunch of
''muts.n My team scored In every
inning and shut out the Manila team.
The score was ten To zero, 1t was the
greatest surprise ever handed Manila
in base ball. Al once people sat up
and took notice of Cebu. Then the
next day in the big track aud field
meet our Cebu team won first place,
Silliman secoud. Manila third, and
other Luzon provinces following. We
played each ball team that was there