Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 254, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1912 — AZTEC BALL PLAYERS [ARTICLE]

AZTEC BALL PLAYERS

MAD GAME REQUIRING HIGH - DEGREE OF BKILL. Star* of the First 'Magnitude In the ' Big Leagues Today Would Have £ Found Nothing Easy About Those Contests. -"No, the first game of ball eve/played on the American continent did not take place the first Bine the home team walloped the visiting “ginkp” way back in the last centnry. That “game’* seems to have been played several centurlds ago. - It was an Aztec game and it was played somewhere out on the mesas of Mexico* long before the Spaniards arrived in their search for gild. ~ The sort of ball - that the Aztecs played was very popular with the public, just as the Dig league draws attention today. They had no “regular league balls’* at $1.25 each, but used one of rubber or elastic resin, and in another sort of contest used those made of gold. The ancient Aztec game was called totoloque and was played in a court known as a tlachco, not so large as the present day diamond. The players were clothed only in a maxtlati or girdle around the loins. There Were pitchers, "but not catchers, and the fielders were few. When pitched the ball was struck by au upward movement of the thigh or elbow, according to how it wan aimed, whether high or low. After being struck the sphere, In order to count, had to pass through a hole in one Of several stone disks hanging just in front of the wall of the court. The feat of bunting that ball with the thigh and sending it throngh one of those-holes required a great deal of skill, as mfeht be imagined. Agility was one of the prime requisites of an Aztec big leaguer. Any player touching the ball with the hand lost a point. The emoluments of the game were quite as interesting from a pecuniary standpoint as they are today. Things of great value were usually given to the winners. And not only the prize. The vletors were often presented with jewels, fine cotton stuffs, feather work or plumes of great value. The game with the gold balls waß a favorite of Montezuma. It is Bald that when Cortez staged his little hostorical skit known as the Conquest of Mexico and took Montezuma prisoner the royal captive spent a great deal of his time In durance playing the game with gold balls. He often challenged the Spanish general to a contest. These yellow “pills’’ were thrown at targets of the same precious metal. History shows that Montezuma had the makings of a pitcher who might have been in fast company had he delayed the date of his birth a few centuries. He could lean them against the home plate with unerring regularity. The Spaniards never could learn to play ball any way, and Cortez was not one two three with the first great American pitcher, so he lost frequently. The Aztec emperor usually insisted upon having high stakes placed on the game and won precious stones, Ingots of gold and other more or less desjrable property, which he promptly distributed to his attendants with the wonted generosity of his emperorship. Cortez probably played a clever game on “Old Moate” for he was the captor, you know. He probably relieved those same attendants of their evidences of Montezuma’s liberality as fast as the old fellow loaded them up, and thus kept up a clever triple monetary play, Montezuma to servants to Cortez. —New York Sun.