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Show THE RICH COUNTY REAPER, RANDOLPH, UTAH The True Story of Baseball "GAY GADGEK" Associated Newspapers By GRANTLAND RICE about the real storyot baseball, including its origin. Very few among the millions who follow it today. So I am bringing to you one of baseballs' greatest historians, Will Irwin who also happens to be one of the best writers and one of the top reporters this country has ever known. To me, this is the true story of baseball: Fsaturaa. By NANCY PEPPER DO AND DYE Dean of Sports Writers is known as our I the second edition, probably issued BASEBALL game. But how n 1829. The text notes that this is Whats your favorite color? Youll it in a package of dye and you can spread it through your wardrobe just by following the directions on the box. Weve seen lots of keen teens lately dressed all in one color from 'head to foot and weve been find he name of the game in western anything WNU L Is played more throughout the world than anj other? This is one of the queriea you get from servicemen billeted in Europe and the South Pacific. And then they lead you on to a compariNow, the mysterys son of tennis and golf. This includes wondering. solved. One of our soda fountain courses, courts and all other sleuths reports that it all comes out that make up an argu-- I of a package of dye. ment. I put this debate up to one of our leading tennis statisticians Skirt and Sweater Harmonies Youre burnt to a crisp if you have and here are the facts: a sweater and skirt Why compare tennis with golf? that exactly match. Why not compare tennis with any Take any old sweatother national or er and dye it to pair international sport? up with the skirt. You wont find any Monotone but not other game even monotonous. close, in an internaHot Feet tional way. Dye your Robert socks Heres something any color to match that may shock nasweaters or comtional and interna-- I plete outfits. Its easy! tional sport follow-- I Colored Cords Even the boys are ers. dyeing! Have you seen those T.D. before & Gs with two tone corduroy-slacks- ? world war broke the Internation- out, one the They dye leg red, GrantlandEice other green. Perish forbid is what al Lawn Tennis we always say in a case like this. had a membership of 59 headed for the Davis cup. nations, Singin in the Rain Thats what No other even come close has sport be doing if you dye your old youll tan raincoat a bright color. Dont to this mark. This entry list embraced every envy those slick chicks with their continent and every civilized counnew purple, green or try 'from the U. S. to Kenya and rain coats. Just do and dye. China. And each of these 59 nations has a tennis governing body. Fugitives Without any argument, the most We slink around the corner. famous international sporting trophy We rush into the show; is the Davis cup, donated in 1900 by were praying that we dont meet Dwight Davis from St Louis. No Anyone we know. other international cup is in the same class. What are we girls ashamed of? . Fifty-nin- e nations what other Oh, anyone can see can equal that? Or even come sport Its Friday night and we are close, including soccer, golf, basketW. A. D. a. D. means without ball, or track and field? a date.) Strangely enough the two most famous cups the Davis cup for tennis and the Walker cup for golf came from two famous St. Louis sportsmen Dwight Davis and George Herbert Walker. Dwight Davis and Bert Walker, both from inland St. Louis, were main factors in putting tennis and golf on the international spbrting map. There may have been two finer sportsmen, but I cant recall their names. Their international appeal reached to more than millions it moved close to the billion mark. fee(jer or pitcher, two catchers, the second to chase what the first had missed, four bases arrangec diamond-for. the home base and the plate beside which the batsman stands being identical, three strikes and out, a ball caught on the fly is out, a point scored whenever a man safely circles the bases. But here comes the tant point when a batsman hi Dear Grant: This year is the a fair grounder or a runner was i hundredth anniversary of New caught between bases, the fielder Alexander Cartwright, first presYorks Knickerbocker Baseball put him out by HITTING HIM WITH club, and I understand that there is A THROWN BALL. A missile like ident of New Yorks Knickerbocker to be some kind of celebration this our modern baseball would have Baseball club is credited with being summer. But judging from prelimi- caused the players to commit may- the real originator of modern basenary notices, we seem likely to cele- hem or involuntary homicide at ev- ball. He introduced one revolutionbrate the right event in the wrong ery game. So they had to use a ball ary change the putout by tagging way. The Knickerbocker was not the of yarn, not wound too tight, or, with the ball. Previously the base-mathrew the ball at the runrtwivr. v.wi mtyu'wtinw later, the standard hollow, ner. Cartwrights innovation perrubber ball. mitted the use of the hard ball. Following the cheerfully unmoral practice of the time, a Boston pub- or whatever you wish to call it, with lisher pirated that book, verbatim, one great, vital exception. The fieldin the early 1830s. In 1835, a pirate er put out a runner between bases of Providence, R. I., republished not by him with a thrown it as The Boys and Girls Book of ball but burning BY HOLDING THE BALL He had probably played IN HIS OWN HAND AND TOUCHSports. the game here, for he revised the ING HIM WITH IT. The variation rules slightly and changed the chapter-he- of this play, in the case of a bats ading from to man Rounders making for first base or of a Base, or Goal Ball. That was four force play, came later. That was the years before Doubledays alleged stroke which transformed baseball. stroke of genius at Cooperstown. Henceforth, the players could use a Both Lady Hervey and Jane hard ball. The boys liked it. The Austen spent most of their lives in and sting on their hands was a slap southern England. And the greater and the challenge to their part of our English immigrants smack of the bat fortitude, on this solid but came in Colonial times from that elastic ball a most satisfactory sendistrict. It seems probable that the sation. Further could throw it they boys of Sussex and Hampshire and with the speed of a bullet. The Dorset called it baseball, as those game had grown up, become one of of west England called it round- the manly sports. ers and of London, feeder and that And even if this story about Cartalong with the game they brought wright be only false tradition, the the name to America, act is that by 1845, when those Henry Chadwick devised the first in Popular Early 1800s. same founded the Knick boxscore and compiled the first ofThat game, then at least a cen- erbockerboysBaseball club, the boys of ficial baseball rules book, which tury old, is what Abner Doubleday lew York City and the nearby New was printed in 1857. His efforts did taught the boys of in Jersey towns were Cooperstown playing the much to promote uniformity of play 1839 if he taught them anything. game in the new way. Here, let me throughout the country. Some writ- Even that is doubtful. In 1839, he mention two links with the parent ers call Chadwick The Father of was a cadet at West Point and it At that game. time, the modem Baseball on this account. was not the year of his leave. The method of nine innings, scoring main in his favor came with the team making the most runs first baseball club in the United from atestimony very old man named Abner he winner had not yet come in. States, but it was nevertheless the Graves. And a commission, workhe first team making 21 runs won founder of the modern game. And not to establish the truth but to he ing game, as in handball. And this, Alexander Cartwright, its first prove that no English hand had ever found president, may have been the young sullied our national game, made a was the by correspondence in 1912, rule in Enggenius who by one simple improve- fatal when it let him testify lish rounders. The in 1845 ment transformed a venerable Eng-is- h that inslip pitcher, the game revealed to Coop- and for some had years afterward, game, now called rounders, the fielder put a runner out to throw underhand without bendfrom a childrens sport to a game erstown, hitting him with the ball! his elbow. And the pictures in for hardy young athletes and a na- by There is evidence to show that ing old the books cited above show the tional institution. As for Gen. Abner this form of the game some or feeder doing exactly pitcher Doubleday, the notices seem to en- times called beTown ball that. dorse the carefully fostered myth came popular in and about Boston New Yorls Game was Rugged. Use fresh, crushed strawberries, that he invented the game at the 1820s and 1830s. Then, during 'The game spread to upstate New beaten into your big jar of cold Cooperstown, N. Y., in 1839; where- in the early 1840s, the modern game York and to Pennsylvania. New cream. Strawberries have a as he has no valid claim whatever made a appearance in England, however, continued to play bleaching effect on the skin. gentle either as inventor or improver of New York dramatic Th6 City. An early tradition of baseball in the old way. By the fresh fruit has a baseball. frawonderful e the baseball players tells time of the Civil War the and if newspawill grance Old Game Called Rounders. you keep your the story about as follows: In that pers and certain crushed strawberry cold cream in t About 1912, and while many play- period, Madison was a sporting weeklies wererudimentary the ice box Square it will last and last! publishing ers who went back to baseballs pleasant, level field at the edge of items about it, including scores of Ledger Syndicate. WNU Features. inwere still town. There the adolescent boys and the early days alive, I important matches. Always they vestigated the origins of the game the young men used to kick foot- distinguished, a little contemptuous- children, who are for a national weekly and pub- balls or play such playing it yet. as The Baseball museum and Hall lished the conclusions stated above. the whip. Then one gamesin the crack ly in New York, between the Bosday early ton game where no one took of Fame At that time, Abner Doubleday 1840s Alexander a worthy institution. said to chances with damaging his pretty But it is is Cartwright in the wrong place. It passed only as a hero of Gettys- some of them: hands and the New York game should stand on Madison burg the myth of Cooperstown had Square, Fellows, Ive got a new game where knotty fingers were scars of New York. Most of the not yet gained its adherents. Then to show you. Help me basepioneer out. it lay for it was a point ball players whom I knew in glorious wounds in 1939, Robert W. Henderson, of the At his direction, the laid out a dia- of honor not to wear gloves. During 1910s revered that spot as the New York Public library, after mond with basesthey early at the corner, of the war, the New York regiments cradle of the game. Whenever Sam painstaking research in the old about the dimensions of our modplayed it in camp and taught it to Crane passed it, he took off his books of that great collection, pub- ern infield. He a round lished a pamphlet which knocked and a hard butproduced leather-covere- d bat men of other states, even to Con- hat and said, There was planted elastic, federate prisoners on parole. These the little acorn from which the Doubleday legend higher than the ball, and taught them round- novices carried it home; and the oak grew. one of Babe Ruths pop fouls. By ers, town-ba- ll or early-da- y baseball Boston game went back to the great Will Irwin. document evidence, he proved that a game called baseball was played in England in the days of Abner m, all-imp- or n air-inflat- ed what-have-y- WHAT game ou :w. - ' time-honor- , ed old-tim- I .. Doubledays great - grandfathers, that it was known in America before the Revolution, that it was identical with what the English have for the last century called rounders and that with a number of minor changes and one major one, it was the game which our big leagues are playing today. I will begin with his data, supplemented by my own. One of the earliest known references occurs in the lively letters of Our tennis expert then began to get eloquent. As you may know, he said, there are about 5,000 golf courses in the country. But dont forget there are 14,800 municipal tennis courts in 983 towns and cities of the U. S. There are 2,300 municipal courts located In as few as 10 cities, and New York isnt one of them. There are 706 tennis clubs, members of U.S.L.T.A., and 777 others not members. And this doesn't include the enormous number of 'tennis courts at private homes. Golf claims around 3,000,000 players In the U. S. We happen to know that tennis can claim around 5,000,000 players possibly more. After all, golf requires from 100 to 130 acres for a course. Tennis requires far less. The main point is that tennis and golf belong largely to competitors, not to spectators. And thats the way It shonld be. We have had entirely to many spectators in this country and far too few actual players or competitors. This goes especially for football, baseball and boxing. These are largely spectator games. But these conditions may also change later on. Millions of spectators only mean box office receipts. They mean nothing in the way of physical condition. Now back to tennis. Our expert continues Tennis is the only sport played in countries all over the world under the same rules and regulations. Tennis is an international matter, not a local affair. We figure there are something like tennis players in the world, men and women. No other sport can even approach this mark. Before the war we had something like Mary Lepell, Lady Hervey. Under date of November 18, 1748, she takes a fling at the frivolous habits of the Prince of Wales and his court, 800,000 who waste whole days playing baseball, a play all who are, or have been, schoolboys, are acquainted with. Then comes Jane Austen. In the first chapter of Northanger Abbey, composed in 1798 but not published until 1818, she wrote: It was not very wonderful that Catherine . . . should prefer cricket, base ball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of 14, to books. Used Soft Ball. But the clincher is The Boys Own Book, which was published in London in 1828 and ran through sev-e- n British editions by 1849, a deYork Ntaf,SyTa' HoUktnGNJ scription of Rounders appears in andethand pitchu, awkWstaa.es ef batter, catch.,. 15,000 Tennis Courts tennis rackets turned out each year. This will be doubled after the war. Tennis will be one of our greatest games. It takes up far less space and gives far more action than golf. To forestall any wild squawks from bowlers, softball players and basketball players, wed like to step aside on this part of the argument. The bowlers and the basketball players claim around 20,000,000. The softball players over 30,000,-00Well let them fight this out. But people dont read so much about their stars or their teams. The four major reading sports in the United States are baseball, football, boxing and racing with golf next. 0. P')-- be!""n tte and the New |