There is a difference in playing at summer resorts for the sport of the thing and in playing for the advantage of it. Young men who like to play baseball, and who can get up a nine wherever they happen to be this summer, should do so by all means, for there is nothing healthier than sport of this kind. But they should not allow any one to let them derive any kind of financial advantage from the fact that they know how to play baseball, and they should not allow any of their friends or admirers to induce them to go to any certain resort because they know how to play baseball.
Young men usually want to do what they consider the right thing, and what their older brothers and their friends among older men consider the right thing. College men have come to the conclusion that playing on summer nines is a bad thing for amateur sport, and if there are a number of young men, readers of this Department, not yet in college, who have not given sufficient thought to the matter, and who very possibly cannot see the serious side of the question just now, let them, for the present, rest upon the judgment of the college men, and abide by their decision, and when they get to be college men themselves they will appreciate the situation as they cannot now, and they will be very glad that they left playing on "summer nines" to others who were not such thorough sportsmen as they, and who by so doing lose much that they can never regain in after years.
This Department prints again this week a table of the Interscholastic records of the United States, and also a table of the National Interscholastic records, in order that many who have not made a distinction between these two classes of figures may see what this difference is. As was stated last week, a National Interscholastic record is one made at the National Games, whereas an Interscholastic record is one made at any interscholastic field-meeting. We may feel perfectly sure that the figures as printed in the National table are absolutely correct, for there has been only one National Interscholastic meeting, that of June 20 of this year.
The Berkeley School nine, which won the Interscholastic Championship this year, is undoubtedly one of the strongest baseball teams ever developed at any of the New York city schools. This team earned the championship of the Association by 167-10. The team was an unusually hard-hitting one, and in one game alone the Berkeley players pounded out eight home runs. The best individual work of the team was done by Wiley, Pell, and Huntington. Wiley will undoubtedly be known in a few years as one of the best amateur catchers, and if he goes to college he should make a record for himself on the diamond.
"TRACK ATHLETICS IN DETAIL."—Illustrated.—8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.
The Graduate.
