Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1886 — A Great Game of Base-Hall in Japan. [ARTICLE]

A Great Game of Base-Hall in Japan.

A young American teacher in Japan initiated his pupils into the mystery of the game, and then invited a friend in Yokohama to get up a nine from the Amencan clerks and play with the boys. The friend thus describes the game: The umpire was a Jap, who spoke no English. That was the first difficulty under w hich we labored. When a disputed point arose the whole of the other nine wou.d splutter classic Japanese at him by the yard, evidently quoting all the fathers from Confucius down, while our good old Anglo-Saxon, expletives were lost on him. This, with the fact that my men were rusty and lather out of trim for running, soon put us on the wrong side of the tally sheet. Matters grew worse until in the fourth, inning, when I hit upon a bright idea. I knocked a grounder and started for first base at my best stop-that-car speed. The fat little shoit-stop fell on the ball in his usual hap-hazard but lucky fashion, picked it up and let it drive at Sumi Toko, the black-eyed first baseman. Sumi caught it like a little man and stood squarely in my path, with his artless Japanese smile and the ball. Acting under a sudden inspira ion, I dodged to the left, executed a flank movement, and reached the base before Sumi realized the situation. Then (here was a hub-bub. The almond-eyed Japanese umpire stood to his guns, however. He said tnat I had reached the base without being touched, and that I w r as therefore safe to all law and precedent. My men. were so convulsed with laughter that the next one that came to the bat knocked a feeble “daisy cutter” into the second baseman’s hands, and then ran me off my base. I started for second, however, fully deter•miued to steal that base if Yankee ingenuity could do it. Sumi, the black-eyed first baseman, was hot on my' trail. 1 dodged to the right, but the second baseman was prepared and headed me off. Finally I outmaneuvered him, and got between him and the base. But a neu T difficulty awaited me. The center fielder had played up in good shape and covered the base. The ball was thrown to him by the now breathless baseman and I was again headed off. I circled about in the hope of luring the fielder from the base and succeeded. But this profited me nothing, for by that time the whole Japanese nine was gathered about that base in a state bordering on insanity. After two or three revolutions in my orbit I broke away to a neighboring rice field, with the whole nine at my heels, and the umpire running along to see fair play. Finally laughter and an unseen obstacle brought me to the ground. The second fielder jumped upon me and pounded me triumphantly with the ball, while the umpire officially and will as much solemnity as his lack of breath permitted, declared me “out.” That broke up the game. My men were fairly doubled up with laughter, and my friend the schoolmaster raged up and. down, filled w'ith scorn and wrath against his unfortunate pupils, into who te heads ho had labored three months to inculcate the principles of base-ball, wiff this ludicrous result.