Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1879 — Base Ball in Olden Times. [ARTICLE]

Base Ball in Olden Times.

Now approaches, the season of smashed fingers, slashed noses and mashed eyes. The time for “Red Stockings.” _ “Champion „ jlines." “Leather Overalls,” “Bruizers,” “Carmine Probosceses,” “Blue Racers,” “ Ginger Snappers,” “ Ruby Rangers,” and other euphoniouslynamed base-ball clubs has come. There was a time when base ball was fun. That time has long since passed away. There are probably remote portions of the country where there is still some amusement in a game of base ball—where the rustic inhabitants have not yet learned how awfully scientific the game has become. There, when the striker hits the ball a good, reliable whack he runs for ail he is worth. When the other fellow gets the ball he doesn’t place it quietlyon the base, but he hurls it with unerring precision at the runner and knocks two dollars’ worth of breath out of his body. The runner is then out. He generally goes and lies down on the grass to think over matters and rub tne spot where the ball hit. But balls in those days were not the globular bricks they are now. Any boy with a little ingenuity and an old stocking could make a ball. A piece of cork or a bit of rubber to make it “bounce” did to start on. .Then the old stocking was raveled and the yarn wound on this rubber basis until the ball reached proper proportions, when it was covered with leather. The boy who owned a nice, soft, covered ball was a King among his kind. Next to him came the boy with a good bat. The principal official in the old style of base ball was the fellow who sat on the top of the rail fence and kept tally. He cut the notches for one party on one edge of a shingle, and for the other party on the other edge. Sometimes a good tallyer would do more for his favorite side than its best batilnan. There were no umpires in those days for both Captains to .quarrel with. When the two Captains were ready to choose sides one tossed a ballclub to the other and they went hand over hand to the top; the last hand that held the club had the first choice of players. Sometimes a boy would insist that his hand was last, while it projected over the end of the bat. This was settled by another boy striking with another bat the end of the choosing bat. If the last hand could stand the strokes it was all right, but if the hand projected a little too high it was generally withdiTtwn after the first blow. Those were the days when base ball was not composed of four parts science to one of fun. —Detroit Free Press.