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Show BASEBALL. When the big league clubs essayed forth upon the diamond and began the momentous struggle f or supremacy for the year 1907, it was the formal announcement an-nouncement that the season for America's greatest outdoor sport was begun. Professional baseball seems to be as well established as any other feature fea-ture of American life, but the great hold it ha- upon the mind of the American public cannot be said to have developed from the big leagues. Rather do the professional clubs reflect the love which grew . into the hearts of the people when they were young t-and t-and played the game or one of its numerous modi- j fications on the commons, the school yard or the ( vacant lot long since filled with residences or apartment apart-ment houses. From coast to coast and from the farthest ends of Texas and Maine, in the cities, towns and rural settlements, the boys are developing develop-ing their muscles by the fine sport and are incidentally inci-dentally developing a deep affection for the gam'1 which in future years, if the opportunity is present, will cause them to seek the bleachers and roar and yell and root for their favorite team. They are growing up to perpetuate the present race of "fans." No wonder the American people like baseball. The game is clean and healthful; it develops quick perception and rapid and accurate action, and professional pro-fessional playera need some moral as well as physical physi-cal strength to successfully play the game. All the fine points in the play the people who love baseball base-ball know and understand because they learned the principles of the game when they were young, and the changes made in rules are easily understood. As long as boys play baseball and dream of some day joining the ranks of the professional players -there is no danger of the national game becoming any less popular. Rather will it become more and more a part of our national life; and if. as Wellington Wel-lington is reported to have said. Waterloo was won upon the cricket fields of England, the great battles for peace and international tolerance of the future may well be considered as founded upon the diamonds laid out wherever a bunch of boys can find a vacant place to enjoy their favorite pastime. The game, too, has added to the beauties of the language, or ha3 developed a language of its own. ' which cannot be more than half understood by those fiedgings who pass up the sport pages of ihe j daily newspaper for the poetry of Browning or the tragedies of Shakespeare. When the baseball reporter re-porter tells how some one plowed up tLe left garden to catch a long fly or another whanged off a lulu to deep center bringing home two men, he knows what he is talking about and so do the fans, even if it is all lost on the student of the language and literature of the age. The successful baseball reporter re-porter must be a master of simile and metaphor, and there seems no end to the high-sounding phrases with which he may adorn his reports of games. Grammar and rhetoric are but hindrances to his pyrotechnic imagination. His dope he must peddle up to the printer in time to have a complete report of the game on the street before the crowd has returned from tho ball grounds, and be does it. every day the home team appears on the local diamond. dia-mond. The professional season is always opened to.r early for good weather conditions. Rain, cold and i untimely snows interfere with the early-season j games, but the people can't be expected to wait till . f June to enjoy the sport. That would be asking too I much. Besides, the reporter's vacation has already strung out too long to suit him, and baseball without with-out the reporter would lose much of its charm to j those who can't go to see the games. i I |