The Washington times., 1911-04-11
TWELVE CITIES WAIT THE
e~ CRY, "PLAY BALL"

! Jnat tneres are women VINO nave never
loved, but none who have loved only
once. In benighted regions beyond the
zone of the Saturday bath and the
Sunday shirt, where sage tea is still
household. remedy and crewel-work
tides are cherished heirlooms, there
are victims of Fate who have never
witnessed the great. American game
There is no such freak of Nature as
the man or woman who has seen the
game but once. The wanderlust may
cool when the gypsy JOY of vagabondia
is stifed with ennui and the ricketts, ;
the finical hay fever may skip an
Indian summer out of the very abun-
dance of its eccentric cussedness. But
the baseball fever spares neither age
nor sex, no social quality or estate,
and its rooted infection is for life.
The great day is at hand. Between
the irksome routine, of what we
facetiously call business affairs and
the alluring roar of the distant bleach
ers there will be no close decisions
That frankly prejudiced umpire, the
inward monitor, has viewed the situa-
tion from every angle and decided in
favor of an afternoon in the great out
of-doors. Lloyd's itself, though it
UNDERWRITERS risks against triplets and
famine and death by the thunder
stone, would not have insured against
such a decision for twenty shillings in
the pound.
1t seems the veriest matter of course
that the Chief Magistrate of the Re-
public, and perhaps his sunny under
study is to be among those present to-
morrow. The Speed Boys and the
Nationals are about to begin maneu
vers more thrilling than the war game
wherein cabinets and constitutions are
the rocks and pawns. Swept away in
the current of enthusiasm, like the
loyal rooter that he is, he may feel the
fascination of the links fading like the
mollycoddle dream of Alice Sit Blythe
Fire. With such an example before
him, is boyhood more than mortal that
it should remain in the deserted mar
ket place on such day to polish up
the knocker on the big front doori
Come next June, it will be just half
century since a Washington club
first met visiting team in an or
ganized baseball contest. The same
date will mark the semi-centennial Of
the first in a series of somewhat
monotonous defeats. Apparently it
was the first false step in a habit. 1t
is all but true that the Nationals on
entering the diamond hail the pennant
as the gladiators greeted Caesar, with
We who are about to die salute thee!"
Still, no smitten Spartacus ever
moistened the bloody sands with more
of that heroic courage which makes
victor of the vanquished. In the three
score years and ten required to develop
the devil-may-care field sport of
FOUNDERS" into the scientific game
which is now our national pastime, the
Nationals have borne an honorable
part. Much of the time they have been
as 'the muzzled OK which treadeth out
the corn" They have piped more than
they have danced. Mayhap this second
decade of the century will open for
them a new and happier era.
Through the silent watches of to-
night the born fan, 'like the hound
who hunts in Dreams" will start from
itful maps with the enkindling cry,
play BALI" echoing in his ears. The
buzz of the bleachers where the leveled
masses of democracy have met; the
lar and wrangle which eddy and surge
around the stolid umpire; the zip of
the daisy cutters and the burr of fouls
against the protecting net; the familiar
course of the evening shadows on the
dial-like fence; the postmortems Of
the dopesters and the pell-mell rush for
home, tired and happy-it all comes
back as if it were yesterday.
Twelve major league cities will be
sleeping on their arms tonight. They
await but the bugle note, play ball!"