Show I League Baseball BaseballS S Farthest st North I BY ROBERT BARNES Baseball at 40 degrees and anti more below zero Impossible I By no means Here are the facts In the winter months of 1894 while the sporting columns of or the newspapers were filled with boxing baseball polo and other indoor sports while league diamonds were covered with ice and snow and the stars were hibernating or limbering up in ill snug gymnasiums with medicine ball and punching bag in preparation for their spring trip south most people would have been greatly surprised to learn that a thousand leagues northwest of New York at a little island OO miles Inside the Arctic circle a baseball league was flourishing and six or seven clubs were playing nine-inning nine games on ice seven feet thick over four fathoms of salt water Yet this was actually the case On September 21 1893 a steam whaling whaling whal whal- in ing fleet consisting of seventeen ships each carrying between forty and fifty men or almost seven hundred bundred in all was frozen in for the winter st t Herschel Hersche island in the Arctic ocean ocean not not far from the mouth of the Mackenzie river river The vessels esses were owned by two San Francisco Francisco Francisco Fran Fran- cisco concerns the Pacific Steam Whaling Whaling Whal Whal- in ing company and Roth Both Bh m company com corn pany and by two New Bedford firms William Lewis Co and J. J R. R Win Wing Horatio the Among them were the the the Karluk J John ohn and Winthrop tho the Jeanette and the Grampus From November ember 28 to January 12 was unbroken night whiled away away by the customary Arctic diversions But Rut when the tho low how sun be began an to peep leep above the I southern horizon the minds of the imprisoned im irn men turned to dut dat of door i sports and naturally to the one ono great reat game ame with which almost all were familiar fa Ia- baseball They had played it a little in the fall faIl after the ships were frozen in Now Kow with the returning sun they be began an ana a again ain with fresh zest By tho the 1st of March with It a ten hour day day before before them the sport was in full blast On the white frozen surface of the ocean stretching north to the horizon a ball field w was s laid out with bases made of canvas s ba lags bags filled with saw law sawdust I dust home plate pate pitchers box foul flags flats and all the tho accessories of the game tame Another field was laid a l out on the island The Tho snow was hard and dry and smooth as a floor Several teams were formed amon among the officers and crews of the different ships There were the tho the tho Hoodlums hoodlums Hood hood- lums the tho Fat Men Mens Men's e ii club the tho Roar Roar- log ing Gimlets and a number of others The captains had bad a nino nine of their own And now the tho game was on in good tood earnest The crack of the bat the decisions decisions de de- de of the umpire the exhortations of the tho coachers from the side lines and the rooting of the crowd seemed as natural as in New INca York or Philadelphia Philadelphia Philadel Philadel- phia phin instead of at 70 degrees north latitude S Seven hundred men always ahva's furnished good tood material materia for an ID audience which often contained five ladies wives wi of the captains Eskimos encamped in the vicinity of the ships hips swelled the crowd rowel roweland and later on took part in sonic some of f t the HIP h scrub scrub games gaines the women u as RII well as the themen themen themen men joining in ID The players pr were clothed d in rt in inand line and sealskin which was wan warm ami They The had Jn md bul and could run catch and throw as well as players in a more temperate climate The only man seriously bothered was as the pitcher whose fingers were of ot course hampered by his mittens and who had to depend mostly on a straight ball One man wore gloves glo under the deerskin and used to take off oft the mittens at critical moments but after arter he had pitched two or three balls the cold compelled him to put them on again again- The Tho catchers did very well one ope In particular being celebrated for his ms speed and accuracy in lining the ball down to second base When the players came to bat they generally took oft off their coats for more freedom The diamond was quick and the ball traveled fast and far tar when it was hit The fielding was as sharp some games being played through without runs on either side Three of the teams two being the In and the Roaring Gimlets were very evenly enly matched and soon Boon formed a regular league with Ith games twice a week But almost every day there were scrub games between different nines and challenges were freely treely given Iven and ac so- The wrangles were Just jUt as Intense Intense in In- In tense and the umpire came in for his share of blame Just as aB often as In a a. warmer clime One mild overcast day In April the themen themen men were playing In their shirtsleeves when suddenly a a. furious blizzard bUzzard broke It came so q quickly k t that the man at the tC bat couldn't d t see the e pitcher The teams a broke and ran for the ships and all got Jot safely aboard but two tu-o sailors and five natives who were on the higher part of the island were not so fortunate and were frozen to death The It league aguE season SEaROn lasted four months the final game ame being played on the Fourth of Jul July on the seventh the men went out of winter inter quarters The diamond on the Ice had to be bo given gI up about the middle of May on of Its softening under tinder the sun Bun and afterwards the games were played on land Winter V i t the whalers whaler's playtime la e and r nt eat lC ia th the American rl n national game m went far far to dispel tho the black vapors that hang over the mind of the man Ice fettered in the Arctic When rhen we realize that for much I of the tue time these teams were playing the temper temperature averaged a forty five degrees below blow zero or considerably more than one hundred degrees under the temperature tempera tempera- ture at which the game is usually played we can see Bee that baseball in our own winter winter winter win win- ter season is III b by no means mean an It ity The dry cold of the high latitudes however Is of ot course cours much less perceptible percept ble than it would be in our own climate In the winter of 5 1891 the same ships were frozen In at the same spot and a similar season of sport enjoyed e But ut that year sear probably marked the end of Arctic baseball oll on a large scale for the conditions conditions condi condi- Lions of the whaling Industry are such that In all likelihood so 10 many ships will I never IH be he Icebound tog together again Hereafter Here Here- I lifter after th the era crack k of th the bat hat and the shout If of the till umpire will be bp rai- rai sounds Inside the iii Arctic Artic circle ir irl unless the lh- Eskimo I ith the till fever and nd gin begin to play pla the io 4 L on Oil their own wn account |