Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-12-31
Base Ball Barely Survives.

physical exercise, about the only pur-
pose they accomplished.
Base Ball Barely Survives.
Base ball, one of the three spring
sports. almost died a natural death.
but after some mighty gasps' and
great laborings ON the brink of the
chasm il rallied and lived long enough
to prevent absolute stagnation on
college diamonds. Track and field
the South Atlantic Intercollegiate
Athletic Association championships.
succumbed to the prescription taken
by Wilhelm in his effort to cure his
thirst for power. And collegiate
tennis-it is hard telling just when it
was lost by the wayside.
In scholastic spring sports Central
VS.. the other high schools babe fair
for while to develop such a fight as
would have made a Hohenzollern mad
with jealousy However, Central
kindly withdrew to .,l prevent such a
enough ruction about that time with
out anything added from this side of
the pond that Left the Lucky first
negotiated. In the abbreviated set of
championships held with the Blue and
White squad. Tech took upon itself
trounced the other schools.
Mailed fists were in order at that
time, and Central evidently wanted to
keep abreast the times, judging by
the way it's batters lambasted oppos-
ing pitchers in the base ball series.
hitting 'em back faster than they
were thrown" and Schafer pitching
the kind of ball that the Marines
kicked up at Chateau-Thierry, the
other schools had about as much
chance to keep the Blue and White
Germans had to capture that Ameri-
can company the captain of which.
upon being invited to surrender,
politely sent word that the gentleman
who sent the invitation should visit
certain regions wherein there no
such individuals as German army
officers.
With the carrying into the colleges
in the fall Of the realities of army life.
it was thought there would be a
general revival of something of inter
orders and before the teams had
started practice an edict went out
that practically eliminated competi-
tive sports between colleges in
October Also the orders curtaileS
time for practice into such short
run down to the field and see what
member of the squad could first get
back to the dressing room. Twenty to
thirty minutes per day was the actual
average of real practice, and foot ball
teams are not developed in that
number of minutes.
Great Year for A1ibis.
1t was a great fall. though, for
alibis. Coaches never had more
propitious season, inasmuch as. no
matter what went wrong, they could
blame it on the military department
or the war or something more or
less tangible. But, even so, George
town played several games which it
won. and then, in the only collegiate
contest it took part in, allowed Ford
ham to recapture the goat which the
Hilltoppers have had penned up some
where on the hill for the last nine
years.
" until it met Hopkins Thanksgiving
day,, a team the Baltimore papers
freely predicted it would beat by
80 points. and then spent the after
noon wallowing around in mud and
rain that would have made some of
the Yellowstone geysers look as clear
as water on the Bahama banks. AT
the end of the battle Of muddy creek
both sides retired with honors even.
to renew the struggle next year. CAL
laudet and Catholic University played
through the best schedules they could
get together, but lacked much of the
power that two years ago made them
avoided by lot of teams that want
ed to preserve regulations.
scholastic foot ball-spanish infu-
enza did. The epidemic did not quite
win a complete victory. but the wallop
them SO groggy that they could not
have survived another round. Any
way, Western and Central played
game that was said to be informal,
but. judging by the expertness with
which some of the young fellows
could suddenly sit down on some
other young fellows head, the whole
thing was quite formal indeed.
And just at the end of the foot ball
season, to add a final encouraging
touch. the District intercollegiate
Basket Ball League blew so high it
won the altitude record. Some hopes
of pulling the bubble back to earth
in the fore part Of 1919 seem to exist,
and, as it seems that lot is likely to
happen in 1919, that is not impossible.
Each year 1t is customary for sport
writer's to hand to the public some
pened during the year which ends
today" Hence the foregoing ram
bling account of events and near
events. If the account is little more
rambling than usual the reader will
realize that it has been a rambling
wear and that the writer got we'll
used to rambling all the year to 11nd
stuff to fill sport columns. What an
awful tragedy could be written under
some such title as The Sport Writer
of 1915"