Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1905 — PLAY BALL. [ARTICLE]

PLAY BALL.

It’s now up to the Reds to get busy and wear diamonds. The upper ten now consists of the winding nine and the umpire. Baseball players are always looking around for a change of base. If it wasn’t for baseball cranks the players would soon cease to go round. In winter baseball players swap lies about what theyAidn’t do in summer. In a game of baseball two nines are usually matched to play against one umpire. There is as much kicking in baseball as there is in football, only it is different. A baseball player isn’t necessarily insane because he gets off his base occasionally. It is a popular belief among baseball players that a home run in time saves the nine. This is the season when the office boy has a mania for attending funerals—of umpires. The baseball season now being on. the wise pitcher has ceased to enact the role of “growler.” One hundred years ago not a single game of baseball had been played in the United States. Now look at us. There is something wrong when a minister gets the princely salary of S4OO per year and a baseball pitcher gets only $4,000. Old Noah was evidently a ball tosser; the Good Book says he pitched the ark without and within—then the game was called on account of rain.