Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1919-07-22
NATIONAL GAME
COMES BACK, is
WRITER'S WORD
Universal Resumption Of League
Play Marks Golden Age Of
the National PaStime.

Washington, D. c., July 22.-
Baseball is coming back into its
own. The national game is fac
ing its golden age" Is the state
ment Of the baseball writer's as
they have watched the universal
resumption of league baseball in
the United States. Send US base
ball material. The camp is base
ball mad" is an insistent appeal of
athletic directors in the army
camps to the athletic division, COM
mission on training camp activi-
ties. Two thousand five hundred
teams have commenced play for the
championship of the A. E. F." is
the word from overseas. Base
ball is now being played between
the university of Paris and the
university of Lyons" In every
avenue of play the great national
game is appealing to it's followers
again this year, after a season in
which it was popular in the army
camps only.
King Of Sports.
without question, baseball was
and is the king of sports in the
army camps. Last year two mil
lion men over two continents"
played the great national game
while wearing the khaki. This
year 22,500 men are playing as the
official representatives of some
unit of the expeditionary forces in
the championships of different
camps and bases, the winning
teams to meet later in Paris. Hun
dreds of baseball teams in addition
to these are playing around the
different camps. In the camps of
the United States baseball is being
played at every opportunity. Ira
Wis, from it's southern advantage
reported 124 games of baseball in
one week and in most of the camps
from two to twenty games are play
ed weekly by officially constituted
league teams. On the average two
and three wildcat" games are
played for every league game con-
tested. More men are at present
playing ball in the army, than have
played in the organized leagues in
the last five years.
Even good friends of baseball,
however, are inclined to doubt II
the term of golden age of base
baIl'' can be applied to the future.
It is their opinion that the zenith
of the game was reached last year
and that it will be many years
before the total of players again
reaches that of 1918. 1t seems GER
tain that league baseball Will flour
ish, as the opening days have been
those of large attendance This is
due in some measure to the small
er economic pressure for workers
and the number of new lovers OF
the game developed in the camps.
Baseball had its first introduction
to the country at large from the
men who returned from the ranks
in the sixties and this war seems
to be destined to add a new phase
to not only baseball but all ath-
letics. This is that baseball, as
we'll as all athletics, is for the
physical development of all men and
not for q few. From this angle,
the game that gains the most men
as its players is in the highest as
tendency.
Soldiers Play.
Even this year, with the reduced
number of men in the different
camps, more baseball games will
be played in the camps than in all
the leagues under the national
agreement. The numbers will not
compare with the figures Of year
ago. In the records of the war
department commission on training
camp activities, Camp Devens led
in 1918 with a league in which 4O4
teams took part. Another league
was in operation in the same camp
at the same time with 1872 teams.
Some Of the same men played in
both leagues. Camp Beauregard
had 141 teams, Kearny 1872, Sheri-
dan 104 and Lewis 1913. Few of
the national guard and national
army camps, 81 in all, had less
than 90 teams. Something Of the
volume of play can be deducted
from the fact that one camp, Dodge,
used up 1892 baseballs in the regu-
lar league season. Dodge was stu
ated on smooth alluvial soil where
q ball would last for some time
In the line Of playing fields, Kearny
q =