Year: 1872

pase BAH and Cricket.


The coming of the All England
Eleven to this country TO play twice
that number of our cricketers is likely
to provoke comparison Of the rival
merits Of these great games. In age
and popularity cricket has the advan-
tage. While base ball in its present
form can hardly be traced back for
more than fifteen years-many would
be inclined TO restri CT this limit con-
siderably-cricket has been generally
played for 200 years, and for the last
century has been the most


POPULAR ErGLfsIf spoRT.


IT is sometimes urged in prejudice
to the home game that it is not so
popular as its English rival. This ~
true; but it must be remembered that
the tastes OF the mother country" for
athletic sports are much stronger than
ours, and that the relative ages of the
games as now played stand in about
the ratio of 10 to 1. Cricket an d
base ball are strictly comparable, as
with many differences the spirit is
FUNDAMENTALLY THE SAME.
In each one side bats ball pitched
or bowlcd by the other, and the latter
eudeayors TO take the ball before it
reaches the ground. Ifit falls, the stri-
ker runs, and the play Of bis opponents
is to put him out by touching him off
base in the one game and by knocking
down his wickets in the other In
base ball the batsman stands in an
erect and natural position and uses his
muscles freely. The cricketer
at the bat is slightly crouch4d, and he
uses


TIE MUSCLES or HIS ARMS


Unnaturally--that is, in way which
he seldom or never has any other oc-
casion to use them. The attention of
the former is directed to making a
good "drive" to an unprotected point
OF the field, while that of the latter is
not only intent on making good hit,
but to watching lest his wickcts be
bowled down. The mind is more ex-
crcised in the English game; the body
is better exercised in the American.


MOST OF THE CRITICISMS


Which have been passed upon base
ball pitching do not apply to the new
rules. IL is not too much to say that
the decisions in first-class games of
base ball have been usually SO strin-
gent that it now requires as good eye
sight and as thorough command of
the muscles of the arm to be a good
pitcher as to be good bowler. We
are free TO confess that it was former
ly different, but we are dealing with
base ball as il is and not as it was.


FIELDING PROPER


Requires more Judgment in base ball
than in cricket. The base play COM
plics tes the problem considerably
Ii gives animation to the scene which
cricket does not possess. To proper
ly ''cover" the bases and TO prevent
unearred runs requires n division of
labor and working together among
the members of the nine which it is
hardly disparagcment TO cricket to
say it does not possess in the play at
and between the wickets. Very many
persons whose judgments have been
properly cultivated think that base
ball develops better and prompter
STYLE OF oUT-FIELDING


Than cricket. This is an open ques-
ton; but no one who has seen the
out fielding of the Bostons, Mutuals,
Athletics. and Baltimores in their best
games this season will be inclined to
think that anything sharper has ever
been done in. cricket.


Cricketers who saw the game yes
terday admitted that the fielding of
the twenty-five was as near perfect as
the fielding of the eleven, and the
best, of it, at least the most conspicu-
ously good, was done by the base ball
players in the twenty-five.


Or the whole il must be apparent
to every unprejudiced critic that these
games are about equally balanced
one is weaker in one place and strong
er in another than its rival, and there
is no very decided superiority or infe-
riority at any point in either.