Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 185, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1918 — Baseball Has Accomplished More for American Boys Than Any Other Game [ARTICLE]

Baseball Has Accomplished More for American Boys Than Any Other Game

By ADDISON C. THOMAS

Probably there is no athletic game in America that has accomplished more for American manhood than the great game of baseball, as it is largely responsible for making of the youth of this land athletes that will help win the war. Millions of such men will be on the firing lines fighting for the freedom of the world. The game of baseball is a miniature battle from the time the men are sent into the field to the skirmish lines of the right and left. When the batters are placed in position at the plate and the pitcher is in ths box, when she order is given by-the captain “to fire” (play ball), from start to finish every hard-contested game must be a battle to the death. The writer predicts for our soldiers that were first trained on the diamonds in their schoolyards, town lots, club grounds and with the professionals, victory from the time the war game, is called until the result is chalked up on the bulletin boards of the world: The Americans, 100; the Kaiser 0. No better authority on this subject can be found and quoted than Prof. A. A. Stagg, the director of physical culture of the University of Chicago. ’ To secure his views I called on him at his office at the Chicago umversity. In a most forceful statement he says: “The Anglo-Saxon race-is the most civilized and the most progressive of all laces. It is also the most athletic and the best fighting race on earth. It is not quick to pick a fight, but it is the gamest and the most resourceful foe when a fight is on. Courage, intelligence,-alert-ness, initiative and staying power are predominant characteristics of the

race and always win for it. “The great duke of Wellington said that the battle of Waterloo was won on the football fields of Rugby and Harrow and Eton, which was merely saying that the love of the British boys for athletic sports and the practice of athletic games developed the effective fighting qualities and stamina in them which won that great and decisive battle. “What the duke of Wellington said after the victory at Waterloo President Wilson or General Pershing could fairly prophesy for our American soldiers in .this world’s war, for there are thousands of American schools and vacant lots and prairies which have trained our present soldiers into fundamental effectiveness for becoming the greatest fighters the world has ever seen. No army has ever been drawn from such a wealth of material, and no army has ever possessed so many thousands of superb, individual elements. .Veritably hundreds of thousands of our soldiers have had the preliminary.fundamental physical v and mental and moral development which comes through boyhood participation in athletic games. ■ , . “If Great Britain has had tens of thousands of athletes, America has her hundreds of thousands, trained on her baseball and football fields, on track and river, on tennis court and golf links, on wrestling mat and in

boxing room. “These and other sports have been the superb training schools from which our soldiers have come. These have developed the splendid physical specimens which compose our army, giving them the strength and stamina and -endurance, the muscular co-ordination and control, the speed and agility and accuracy of movement which presents the finest physical basis for military training. _ - “From the practice of these same sports, also, have come a choice type of mental development for war, namely, facility of observation, quick perception, instantaneous reaction and decision, prompt initiative, ability to think accurately in emergencies, to be strategic and to outwit strategy, also to value co-operation and team play, to obey authority as well as to be the leader. “With hundreds of thousands of such men, militarily trained, and supported by the consciousness of the holy cause of freedom and democracy for which they are fighting, the final punch for victory is sure to be given by Unde Sam’s heroes.” The canning season is on and 20 pounds of sugar is to be the limit that, a consumer may obtain at one time; but there does not seem to be any limit on the number of trips. /'■. ■ *■