It may be hazardous to one's reputation for sagacity to predict the downfall of any fashionable thing on the ground that it lacks the basis of good sense; still, I will say that the modern bubble has been blown so big, that it seems to me that it must collapse before long. If I mistake not, there are already signs of decay. Many young men, whose names are on the roll decline to play, and are active members of the club only at the supper-table. They pay their share of the expense of public games, and attend, but find it pleasant and politic to perch themselves daintily on the fence, to smoke and applaud in the shade, while their hired substitutes do the hard work in the hot sun. In due time the novelty of the whole thing will be gone, and then comes the end.
But if its having become an overgrown piece of folly were the only charge which may be made against it, base ball, even as cultivated by the clubs, might survive for a time. The expense is not in its favor. We know of a club where the regular annual dues are twelve dollars for each member. Besides this there is an initiation fee to be paid by beginners, and I presume extra expenses for extra occasions. The club has a hundred and fifty members, and the aggregate of regular dues can not be less than two thousand dollars a year. No doubt there are clubs whose annual expenditure amounts to three times the sum named. This certainly is a liberal price to pay for all the good gained.
There is, however, a much worse objection to base ball than the waste of money. The vices which cluster about the race-course begin to haunt the ball-ground. Thievish men find that bets can be made, and money lost and won, at a ball match as well as at a horse-race, and the same frauds and stratagems are employed. Sometimes money to the amount of fifty or even a hundred thousand dollars is staked on the result of a single match. Men do not need to bet large sums many times before they are ready for any trick, however infamous, which will enable them to win. We have seen, in a former chapter, how a horse-race is sometimes secretly sold beforehand, the parties to the fraud betting accordingly, and winning every thing. The same thing is not unknown, I am told, among the ball clubs. A match is in contemplation. A club of "champions" challenge another champion club, and all possible appliances and devices are employed to attract attention, draw a crowd, and create an excitement. While the rivals are apparently burning with intense desire for victory, and determined to contend for it with heroic energy, a few members of the clubs, without the consent or knowledge of the rest, agree so to manage that the victory shall go in a certain direction, and for a share of the spoils thus surrender the one side to premeditated defeat, and crown the other with false laurels. I have heard of one case, where a match game was played and many bets were pending, and interested parties secured a given result by paying the moderate sum of three hundred dollars.
In fact, so many vices are beginning to gather about the "great national game," as some foolishly term it, that every one connected with it seems to be regarded with a degree of suspicion. Merchants and others, who employ numbers of young men, are doubtful about members of ball clubs, and reject candidates who are connected with them. This looks a little hard, but we must remember that business men want reliable, trustworthy clerks, salesmen, and book-keepers. When we are trying to learn the character of a stranger every hint is of value, and a thing about which so many things cluster can not be a recommendation.
[CHAPTER VI.]
DANCING AND BALLS.
"They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance." Job xxi, 11.