The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-04-15
M E N {, w o M E N
 A ND T HIN c s

I thought when wrote about the open ing baseball game that would just cover it with bit of history, some gilt tering generalities, few feeble com ments and let it go at that.
 My excuse for staying off the real live play was that it would be covered in Henry vance's own inimitable way. and it would be presumptuous for a parson to butt in on 'Old Dollar Bill" But hay ing said this much to him, he intimated that it would delight him to learn how the game reacted on "a preacher.
 The first thing l rise to remark in these reflections is that l got about as happy before the umpire laid aside his mask as l used to get at the annual revi7als when I was boy, and anyone who has never enjoyed the old-time re- ligion which swept men, women and chill dren off their feet and made them shout at camp meetings has missed real thrill, for I know what I am taking about.
 Now, don't let any one get offended because I couple baseball and old-fash- toned arbor meetings together 1 know full well that there is world of differ ence between them, and yet they have likeness to each other in that people under the sway of great emotions forget themselves, time and place and give unic tr +b~ vuhi ment possess them.
 1 have been to revival services where have kept men and women from giving vent to the high emotions which blessed them in ordinary life were swept aside with an abandon which under different circumstances would have shamed them and caused unfavorable comment In these quieter days it seems to many a strange thing to hear any one shout in meeting, but I well remember the days when it was done without causing the congregation to think anything about it. It IS therefore easy to see why dig nified men and stately matrons, under
 
 the excitement of close score, forget their surroundings and jump up and down like unrestrained children as they yell at the top of their voices to encour- age the home team, or go into vertable paroxysms of rage if the umpire seems ing it with strike when to them it seemed ball, or calling a man out when they calculated that he was safe, or otherwise using poor judgment in giving their favorites the hot end of the de- cisions.
 1 have said this much to lead up to the confession that on Wednesday after noon at the opening game I completely forgot myself and was bobbing up and down like cork in mill race, or hol- lering at the top of my voice like Co., manche Indian on the war path, or otherwise deporting myself not as one of the cloth but just human being who was having the time of his life and didn't care who knew it, but was rather proud that in middle life he was able to get up so much steam
 .s I have been a fan all of my life sometimes think l must have cut my teeth not on the usual rubber ring, but kind that we used to play hard socket with before baseball had displaced "townball," or Father Chadwick had been able to sell it to the public as the greatest of all outdoor sports for exhi- bition purposes. I played it as a boy. kept it up in. my college days, and 1 even used to go from here while a prac- ticing lawyer to line up with my home team at Eufaula when it had matches with the surrounding towns.
 l lived in St. Louis as a lad in the days when the St. Louis Browns were the stars of the west. I have made New York my home and seen the best teams of the east; but take it from me, I never saw better baseball game than the one between Nashville and Birmingham. 1 leave it to any one who witnessed it
 
 the Dodgers to say which played like big sleaguers and which played like the bush variety. It was a game never to be forgotten, and will be spoken of as, long as Redwood park is in existence.
 
 During some of the exhibition games | sat in the press box with Henry Vance and Zip Newman and they were so list less that I was afraid that they would go to sleep during the play and be unable to give correct account of what hap pened. But Wednesday afternoon at the opening game l sat between them, and believe me neither of them needed a dope to keep their eyes open, for they were keyed up to a high tension, and just as jubilant over the great perform ance which was going on down On the diamond as if it were the deciding game in a worlds series
 l am not going to even try to give the, game in detail, for Henry Vance took care of that end of. it; but I do want to compliment both teams on the marvellous, exhibition which they pulled off Thepe wasn't dull minute in the nearly three hours it took to play it. but during the whole gruelling IA innings it was so close that every one was on tiptoe to watch each man as he went to bat and each player who had to handle his strike. The tension was so great that during most Of the game the crowd was silent. It was only when miracle play like Emery's left-feld stab gave them a