Harper's Round Table, July 14, 1896

by Various

Our discussion of National I.S.A.A.A.A. affairs last week was closed over the question of suitable grounds. As I said at the time, there are so many factors which enter into this that we should be careful about coming to a hasty conclusion, and whatever is said here on the subject should be understood as coming without prejudice. The grounds of the Columbia Oval do not seem to be so good, either from the point of view of the athlete or from that of the spectator, as those of the Berkeley Oval or Manhattan Field. I think that if the National games had been held at either of the latter places the crowd would have been three or four times as large. New-Yorkers are familiar with, and know how to reach, both Manhattan Field and the Berkeley Oval; but there are very few occasions that call them to the Columbia Oval. Many persons who are more or less interested in athletics might have gone to the Columbia Oval if they had known just where it was and just how to get there; but they did not go because so few athletic events are conducted at Williams Bridge that this class of spectators did not take the trouble to find out where the Columbia Oval is.

It is important to have as large a crowd as possible at a National Interscholastic meeting, and every effort should be made, therefore, to secure such a crowd. If we believe that a larger crowd would go to Manhattan Field or to the Berkeley Oval than to the Columbia Oval, we ought to have the National games at one of these two places, unless the expense of hiring the grounds puts them out of the question. It has become a sort of tradition in and around New York that the Berkeley Oval is the place to hold school and college sports. School and college sports have been held on the Oval almost exclusively for the past ten years, until this last spring, when the Intercollegiates went to Manhattan Field. The latter place, however, would not be the best one for interscholastic matches of any kind, for many reasons. No crowd that an interscholastic event could draw would ever fill those stands, and the expense of hiring Manhattan Field would doubtless be much greater than any interscholastic association could afford.

Ingalls. Bradin. Luce (Capt.). Strong. Wolfe. Morris. Blakeslee.
Sturtevant. Condon. Brown.
CONNECTICUT TEAM AT THE N.I.S.A.A. GAMES, 1896.

The Berkeley Oval, however, can be secured for less money for school games, because Dr. White is usually willing to meet school-boys half-way. Furthermore, the Berkeley Oval, although within the limits of New York city, is more or less in the country, and the atmosphere of the place savors less of professional baseball and horse-fairs. There is more of a lawn-party air about the Berkeley Oval than could be obtained under any conditions beneath the elevated railroad station at 155th Street, and there are lots of green trees and plenty of grass, and many other advantages which one associates with field days and similar events.

It may justly be said that for rural advantages the Columbia Oval can hardly be placed second to the Berkeley Oval; but there is a line to be drawn somewhere, even in rural advantages, and I think it is well to draw that line at climbing over stone walls in Williams Bridge. But this question of choice of grounds is so much entangled with the other question—that of having the games conducted by a club—that it is difficult, when discussing one, not to take the other into account. The school-boys ought not to criticise the convenience of the Columbia Oval when they consider that they were there by the courtesy of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club (which, by-the-way, is the name by which the New Manhattan Athletic Club is henceforth to be known).

It may be well to state, therefore, that whatever has been said in this Department about grounds for next year's National meeting has been said without any intention of reflecting in any way whatever upon the Knickerbocker Athletic Club's position at this year's meeting, and without any consideration whatever for what either Dr. White or Mr. Freedman may think of the advisability of leasing their grounds next season to the N.I.S.A.A. The question of advertising or of personal interest does not come into this discussion at all.