Norwich bulletin., 1918-02-27
BASEBALL ODDITIES
Frekish Fact in Connection With the
 National Game.

was contested between the Reach AL Americans and the Waseda College nine. Precisely forty minutes were consumed in playing The score itself is somewhat of a surprise, not because the collegians scored nothing but that the professionals made only three runs. It is possible they had to make a train.
 A baseball game in forty minutes! It is almost too good to be true. Our Cerberus of Records says naively: Even so, it was reported that about five minutes were lost by the Japs kicking on F1aherty's rapid delivery, they claiming he did not give thene time to get into position to bat'
 Patrick F1aherty should be ashamed of himself. The little sons of Nippon were all set for an afternoon of pleas ant pastiming. only to face a pitcher who wouldn't give them time to get into position to bat. It is small won der they got neither a hit nor run off the unfair Patrick Flaherty.
 Speaking of peculiar reasons why ball games have been postponed, did you ever head of the scheduled contest between the Allentown and Lancas- ter clubs that didn't come of? It was back in the good old days of 1885, on May 25, to be exact.
 According to the club secretary the game was to be started that afternoon promptly at 3:39 o'clock Three o'clock came and not a solitary spec tator wss in the grandstand. At 8: 15 D. n1 .he park still WAS deserted as a graves ard at midnight. At 3:30 o'clock it was the game. Imagine the modification of the. Allentown and ] Lancaster clubs! Here it was playing 4s -I- T.
 No Spectator, No Game. i In those days baseball was played i more informally than it is now. So 1 the ball players, still in their uni | fodms when down the street to see what was holding the crowd back 1 They found a circus parade. The ball l playe CTS made it unanimous by watch l ing the procession themselves. l In 1893 Washington and St. Louis | became involved in a peculiar record. i The teams played twelve innings 1 without scoring. Even in those early days St. Louis and Washington show 1 ed great reluctance in crossing the l home plate. At the end of twelve il,- {! nings the rival captains gave up hope | of sighting land, and they decided to call it off for the day with the hope that on the morrow one or the other | of the clubs might accidentally score l a run.
 So the two teams crossed bats as l they used to say then, the following day and began blasting for run. It was a difficult job. There didn't seem to be a run anywhere on the prop erty. They drilled deeper and deeper and had all but abandoned hope when in the fourteenth inning, Washington scored. The run was later stuffed by l a taxider1nist and may now be seen I in a St. Louis museum. The teams l went tWenty-si innings before a tally was made.
 This was all very well, in a way
 but it had a sinister influence on the
 teams ever afterward. The St. Louis
 Browns along about 1915 got so they could go fifty innings without scoring
 run, and do it easily, at that 1 Three Games in. One Afternoon.
 On September 47, 1908, in the beautiful little city of Tacoma a league
 record was set when the Tacoma anG
 Spokane teams played three games in row. Up to that time and gen
 orally since it has been held by base
 ball servants that the limit of human
 endurance is reached at the conclu.
 sion of two games.
 But the Pacific Coast breeds strong
 upstanding citizens capable of assimi
 lating great punishment, and it is bu
 reasonable to suppose that sooner o4
 later some records will go West. S<
 far as this particular record is con,
 cerned, it is to be hoped they vii keep it there.
 T Tacoma won all three games by tn, scores of 4 to 1, 2 to 0 and T to 5. W,
 suppose Spokane promptly claimed
 that if another game had been played
 that day the result would have beel different.
 II It might be parentheticalfy state, ] here that these records that have beel cited are authentic.
 We should not have bothered to in duct this testimony were it not for tn fact that the record which we ar about to spring almost passes the well
 known MT. B. Leaf. Here it is: { 'aThe Athletics of Philadelphia, in | game against an amateur team in Mex Castle, Del, on May g, 1866, made n less than 1s home runs and scored n less than 1S1 runs"
 We should say this Is no less thal
 enough!
 Back in 1s62-you remember wha | a warm summer we had back in1S
 1.-the general price of admission to al ] ball games was 10 cents. Most of . was worth that.
 A few years later some of the boy
 got together in the annual leagu
 meeting down at the Waldorf and owe . the second bottle they decided that i : the future it would be permissible t f charge 25 cents for admission. It wa
 feared at first that the public woul
 not meet this stupendous advance, bu
 even in those days the public wa
 getting the old advance tagged on Ter I and the price went through.
 It was in 1869 that Cincinnati be
 came the aristocrat of the baseha world by charging 50 cents admissio