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 it's
near approach to professionalism
prompted the National College Ath-
letic Association to inaugurate a
campaign against the growing evil.
Major Palmer Pierce, the then head
of the association, adopted vigorous
methods to keep college athletics on a
purely amateur basis, but during the
last two years there mas 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 IL is
against the American spirit of fair
ness to bar a player from engaging in
the sport during the summer months.
Captain Dana J. 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 a varsity min
providing he has observed all the
other rules and has maintained the
proper eligibility standard in his
studies.
Penn in Favor of 1t.
PENIS baseball chairman SAYS
plainly: Il think a 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 a modern sports
evil is attested by Parke Davis in a
paper recently prepared on the sub
jet. He says:
THE testimony Of experience is
strongly against the practica bility OF
summer baseball In the early DAYS
of the diamond. the decade of the
| 70's, Eastern college stars were In
great demand by the professional
teams for in that reriod the college
mines, particularly Harvard, Prince
ton and Yale, were 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-
| egiate campaign.
Here Is an Old Rule.
This spectacular occurrence natu-
! rally centered after ton upon the sub
| ject of professionalism AS 81 result
| of the agitation which followed siS
colleges namely. Amherst. Brown
| Dartmouth. Harvard, Princeton and
Yale, met in the oio Massasoit House
| at Springfield December 8, 1879. for
| the purpose of lcafting a common
eligibility rule and, II possible to form
a baseball league Their delibera
tons 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 IN 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 rule struck directly a
the grievances a. they existed in tn,
sport was TO develop rapidly int,
simple days OF 1870, but period wal
on the horizon in which simplicity II
completely"