Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1883 — A Word for the Umpire. [ARTICLE]

A Word for the Umpire.

If there is any position held in this world by mortal man in which the holder’s life is in constant danger, and for performing the duties of which a man should receive a salary second only to the President, and be retired on. a good fat pension at the end of a month’s service, it is that of the base-ball mpire. There is probably no position that is surrounded by as many dangers as that held by the umpire, and the time is not far distant when a boileriron, tire and burglar-proof safe, with a timelock on it, will have to be provided to hold the umpire during the game, and to preserve his head intgot, so he willbe in the physical and mental condition to perform the duties of his position the next day. It requires a good deal of nerve, a 3 keen perception, a good command of language, and a head that wiN withstand a clip from an occasional stray brick, to successfully fill the position of umpire. A man to stand behind the batter, dodge stray balls, catch the fly-tips on his ear, and at the same time be able to have one pair of eyes see all points of the field, and when he declares &man ‘lout” to be able to tell at once from which direction to look for a brick or a flying bat aimed at his head, must be a man of sudden movements, sharp eyes, and a good, hard, tough head. For this, and other reasons, the base-ball umpire should receive & magnificent salary, and be retired on full pay for life, as soon as he has proven that he possesses the nerve to stand the racket for a week or two. The President of the country is supposed to be in a very responsible and important position, full of peril from the hands of unscrupulous politicians, but he does not stand for two or three hours a day and dodgp base-ball bats and cobble-stones, and sultry epithets, and he can thank his stars that he don’t. If this country must have umpires to stand up and take the curses, and other deadly missiles of the players in the great national game, let the umpires be picked from among the ranks of old, tough war Generals, and let them be placed in stone forts at intervals throughout the country, and protected by frowning cannop looking ominously over high stone walls, apd loaded (with grape and cannister, ready to sweep the field and paralyze the first player who makes a kick. Bold, fearless men, who are willing to take their lives in one hand and a flask of commissary whisky in the other, and sit up in a watch tower of an armed and equipped fort, where there is comparatively little, danger, are wanted to act as umpires in the future. — Pech's Sun. A BINCW.E apple orchard of eleven abres, near Seneca Falls, N. Y., has produced in the past twelve years $12,848, One-half the orchard was planted in 1846 and the other in 1856. The metal fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity. Johnson.