Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1914-02-15
SUMMER BALL
IS FAVORED BY
BIC COLLEGES
Harvard Joins Yale, Princeton,
Penn and Brown in Plan for
New Code.

UMMER baseball, which is played
by college students between col
lege years, has been Endorsed by
several Of the leading colleges, and a
plan is under way for the captains OF
Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell,
and Pennsylvania baseball teams to
adopt a definite standard. Summer
baseball was for many years a rec
ognized institution at many of the
big universities, but the system OF
abuse crept into the sport, and its
near approach to professionalism
prompted the National College Ath-
letic Association to inaugurate
campaign against the growing evil.
Major Palmer Pierce, the then head
OF the association, adopted vigorous
methods to keep college athletics on
purely amateur basis, but during the
last two years there has been a reac-
ton, and summer baseball is now IA
vored.
There is a growing feeling that a
student should not forfeit his amateur
status because he has his expenses
paid to play summer baseball and in
addition the stand is taken that it Is
against the American spirit Of fair
ness to bar player from engaging in
the sport during the summer months.
Captain Dana ]. P. Wingate, of the
Harvard varsity nine, and Emlen
Hare. chairman of the baseball COM
mittee of the University of Pennsyl-
vania, are the latest to join the move
ment in recognizing summer base
ball in the colleges, and favoring a
professional playing on varsity nine.
providing he has observed all the
other rules and has maintained the
proper eligibility standard in his
studies.
Penn in Favor Of II.
PENIS baseball chairman says
plainly: 'T think professional should
be allowed to play on a college base
ball team if he is bona fide stu
dent" while Captain Wingate, Of
Harvard. is equally strong in his sup
port. The captains of Yale, Prince
ton and Brown have also taken a
pronounced attitude in favor of the
new code That summer baseball, the
most important issue in current col
lege athletics, is not modern sports
evil is attested by ParlSe Davis in a
paper recently prepared on the sub
iect. He says
The testimony Of experience is
strongly against the practicability of
summer baseball In the early days
of the diamond the decade of the
, 7O's, Eastern college stars were in
great demand by the professional
teams, for in that Period the college
mines, particularly Harvard. Prince
ton and Yale, We're superior to the
city mines. For a time there was no
objection to the collegians playing
with the professionals during the
summer vacation, although the for
mer openly were paid for their serv =
ices. In the spring of 1879, however
two famous college players from the
same institution who, after gradua-
ton, were playing with a great city
nine, suddenly left the professional
team, re-entered college, and by their
presence lifted their college nine from
the rear to the front in the intercol-
legiate campaign.
Here Is an Old Rule.
This spectacular occurrence natu-
rally centered attention upon the sub
iect of professionalism AS a resuli
of the agitation which followed six
colleges. namely. Amherst, Brown
Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton ano
Yale. met-in the Ola Massasoit House
at Springfield December 6, 1879, for
the purpose of 'lcafting a common
eligibility rule and. If possible, to form
baseball league Their delibera-
lions eventually produced both. The
rule adopted on that occasion ran as
follows:
Any student who has been il
regular attendance for the whole o.
! any college year in any department
| shall be eligible n that year for tn,
| nine. Any student who after thi.
date shall play upon a professional
team or who shall play for money
\ shall not be eligible
This pioneer RUE struck directly a
the grievances as they existed in tn,
| sport was TO develop rapidly int
simple days of 1870, but period wa
/ tho hr.rlrn,, in, ,,thi,h IL lini4 L.