New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-10-24

............ Kathc Guam
Christy Mathewson is best known here
abouts az the composer of the fade
away" and other devices for making the
opposing batsmen bite the dust. but the
literary sense is highly developed I'm all
our more gifted ball players, as the news
papers reveal every time a world series
comes along. and II is not strange, there
fore, now that the rougher battles OF the
year are over, that he should seek self
expression I'm one OF the gentler-if per-
haps, almost as difflcult-arts. Mrs. Rida
Johnson Young has co-operated with Mr..
Mathewson. and the result is THE Girl
and the Pennant." which was presented
to a rather more than usually exotic audi
ence at the Lyric Theatre last evening.
The heroine is the lady owner OF q
baseball team-an orphan, young and
beautiful. The hero is Mr.. Copley
Reeves. who lives in the typical stage
bachelor apartment and has a fraternity
pin. but plays on the team just the same.
Mr.. Reeves is self-sacrificlng. trine
awkward. and not such very brilliant
PLAYER. while his brother Punch is
more dashlng, eeoistic and the star
pitcher for the team. When, therefore,
the perfidous manager. who has been
trying all the season To sell out at
tempts on the day Of the final deciding
game 10 make defeat certain by getting
the careless Punch drunk. 1t is Cop
ley. naturally. who jumps into the breach
and makes the pinch" hit that wins the
game.
This is the crucial-and noisiest-scene
in the drama. The game IS played on
stage and is described To the audience In
the -honored They're of. Now
they're at the quarter, Come on. you Blue
bells" manner by the beautiful lady man
ager, her chaperon and others. Whether
It IL worse from the spectators point
OF view 10 have. TO see horscrace' a
football game or pinch hit played IN
this way Is OF course n matter Of taste,
but AT any rate here II the baseball game.
The worthy Mr. Reeves comes into his
own. and in the next act at the lady
owners ancestral home on the Hudson,
all ends happily.
Leaving aside the sporting-if Mr. Math-
ewson will pardon the word-interest OF
last evenings event. an interest always
felt whenever the man of action ventures
into the more subjective world. when
Colonel Roosevelt discusses futurist art
or the Emperor William composes song
setting this apart. and coming down to
the purely artistic merits OF the play, one
may only surmisc, of course. where Mr..
Mathewson leaves off and Mrs. Rida
Johnson Young begins IL Is 20 be hoped
that he doesn't 80 very far, for Mr..
Mathewson is great and serious attn
lete. and. from any serious point OF view,
the piece is very horrible indeed. Almost
as. or perhaps even more, terrible than
Brown of Harvard" which Mrs. Young
also wrote. and thousands OF people APP
peared TO like immensely, as, indeed, they
may like this.
The Girl and the Pennant' reminds
one of Brown OF Harvard" at times. in
deed, for Mrs. Young has way all her
own. In the earlier play the love scenes
between the Harvard hero and his Dull,
cinea were carried on at the corner oil
Holworthy and StoughtOn-the equivalent
from Cambridge point Of view OF the
Carnegie Hall stage under battery oil
spotlights. and in this play the team
drifts into song under somewhat similar
circumstances. At another time, on the
day before the game, the entire team
turns up for tea at the DOdy manager 5
palace on the Hudson, just as the Irish
and Hebrew comedians turn up at the
young ladies' seminary in burlesque.
Most of the lines are In slang, and the
slang, IN addition to not being very
funny is generally shouted. Mr. William
Courtenay does what he can as Copley
Reeves Miss Florence Reed has moments
of naturalness and outlandish clothes, as
the lady owner, and Mr.. FULLY Marshall
struggled, rather sadly ii seemed with
the part of the wicked manager. There
was one gimer Of amusing characterize
ton I'm the part OF a coquettish Southern
girl who tried To get personal souvenir
from every man she met, and another
glimmer-and very welcome one-in tn,
comparative naturalness OF Miss Ethe
stannard az the chaperon. Miss Squlbbs
A. r.
pTAVpp FOLK To pT,AV GOLF