Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-09-04
L|KENS BASE BALL
TO MELTING POT
All Glasses and Conditions Mingle
at the Great National
Pastime.
CRUCIBLE IN WHICH
PREJUDICE YIELDS
Men Meet on Common Plane When
Roofing for Success of the
Home Team.

Do you wish TO see the greatest display
Of pure democracy that can be found In
any nation. any city, any gathering? Go
90 a ball park.
Do YOU wish TO see a meeting place
where the poor man IS as good as the mil
nonaire. the proletariat mingles on an
even footing with the plutocrat and the
laboring man speaks frankly to his stern
employer?
Go TO a ball park.
DO you wish 10 see the one spot where
the nations meet and mix on equal terms.
where pride of birth and race and ances-
try are laid aside. and the brotherhood of
man holds full. untrammeled sway?
Go 10 a ball park.
The great sages and sociological ex-
perts who fret and worry over the compo-
eition OF the American people-the wise
men who wonder how the seething mass
OF forty different nations can ever be as
eimilated-should go 10 a ball park on
Saturday or a Sunday afternoon. A great
food of white light would suddenly burst
upon their hampered understandings
part. at least, of the vast national PROP
lem would be cleared away.
melting pot wherein the rival races are
being mixed, combined and nodded to the
standard Of real citizenship and the re-
quirements of the true American.
AS the only game spreads wider and
wider. till its ripples have flowed smoothly
over all the millions. so will the true de-
mocracy and the pure spirit of brother
hood and mutual friendliness take posses
sion of the multitudes. An exaggeration?
An optimistic dream? Go to a ball park
and find out.
The democratic spirit OF base ball reaches
into every angle. dusts out every corner.
II breaks down the barriers between the
nations: IL makes men fast friends, ire
spective Of the land whence they came.
and II even overturns the caste lines long
established among the original Americans
themselves. There was striking Illus
tration of this last statement on a certain
National League team three or four years
ago. No use mentioning any names-it
wouldn't matter any, and everybody
knows the players, anyhow.
Thrown Together.
The wheel OF base ball fortune threw
together. on the same team. two men who
came from the same state. county and
township In the south. One of these
men was OF the biuest Dixie blooe-a
descendant of the Cavalier: a youth OF
quality one of the kind to whom a
southern neighborhood kowtows: one Of
those whom the negro addresses with
hat In hand, adulation In his tone and
Mars Henry" or Mars john in every
sentence.
Tho other was Of the poor white type
"a lean and gangiing mountaineer. with
. face the color of q claybank, and the
dialect of the most shiftless cracker. Ever
hear q negro singing "Ah'd ratheh be a
niggah than the pore white trash? No
negro would give respect TO the fellow.
nor TO his family.
Fate ordained II that each OF these
men should become a ball player. The
rich young blueblood showed such skill
in his college days that he received nu-
merous offers from big league teams.
and. despite the fact that he was rich
and did not need TO even exert himself
as much as a ball game would require.
he signed up with the best proposition.
The poor white, meanwhile, played ball
with small mountain teams, gained repu-
tatton first as a batter and then as q
shrewd. even though awkward. player.
Finally. the wheel Of fortune brought
both OF these men into fast company
and on the same team. and-for thus
does fortune play her tricks-the poor
white trash" became the captain, while
the scion of southern aristocracy re-
NAMED a private in the ranks. The blue
blood was q corking good ball player,
but when IL came TO base ball brains and
the shrewd craft that makes winners he
was far inferior TO the illiterate, un-
educated fellow from the hills. Thus IL
came about that these two southerners
We're assigned to the same ball club, and
that II was the duty Of the rich man
10 obey the commands OF the poor devil
as something hardly better than the black
men round the plantation.
Good Discipline.
And right here the influences OF base
ball shone forth glorious and unmistak-
able. Did the naughty southerner refuse
70 play the game under the orders Of his
social inferior? He did nothing OF the
kind. Did the proud southron, when on
the field. refuse 10 associate with the
poor white. and keep an infiexible barrier
between them? He did nothing OF the
sort
When the poor white man. after a bad
blunder by the naughty artstocrat.
squawled out "Fo' heaving's sakes, yo'
bonehead. what are 20 all a-tryin' 70
co-toss away this hyah gamer" the
aristocrat humbly answered. 'Just
couldn't help IL, Cap. I'll know better
next time Can you even imagine such
a dialogue between them in the old DAYS
down in Dixie? Can you even imagine
the chance for such a dialogue to hap
pen?
On the field, the proud young planter
became the sworn friend and close asso-
ciate or his captain. They roomed to-
gether during the last two years of their
major league career. and when they both
went home for the winter the melting in
nuence OF base ball became grandly ap-
parent-off the field as well as on The
proud aristocrat took his captain home
with him. and the big folks at the plan
tation treated the once despised billy
billy with real southern hospitality There
was no question now of birth or history
the young fellow from the hills had
shown himself worthy OF their sons clos
est friendship, and he was therefore &C
cepted az an equal in that lofty-minded
family. And, furthermore. TO show how
the rules work two ways, the hilybilly
under the refining influences OF his new
associations, became a gentleman In car.