If the play might have been better, the weather could not, and the enthusiasm and enjoyment of the immense crowd of spectators knew no bounds. Almost every one was decorated either with the blue of Yale or the orange of Princeton, for, as every boy who lives in the neighborhood of New York knows, the population of that great city and the neighboring cities, towns, and villages is divided into two parties, which are as enthusiastic about their favorite colleges as Republicans and Democrats are for their candidates at a Presidential election. "Are you Yale or Princeton?" one boy asks of another, and then, if the two boys prove to be of different parties, there follows a long argument about the merits of the two colleges, and however strong may be the facts brought forward, it always ends by one of the boys being convinced—that the other does not know much about foot-ball or base-ball, as the case may be, anyhow.
The rules of base-ball are very long and elaborate, and moreover, they are frequently altered. If we were to print them all, they would occupy at least six times as much space as this article. That being the case, we will not print them, and even if we did, very few of our readers would care to read them, for every American boy knows the principal rules, even though he may not be able to pass an examination in the whole code. Nor shall we attempt to describe the game as we have done with other less-known games. Like the Constitution, base-ball is one of the institutions of the country, but it has an advantage over that important document in the fact that the citizens of this country have mastered the art and science of base-ball (or think they have) long before they know anything about the Constitution. And so we will not describe or attempt to teach it, and if any of our young readers think that we are not treating them fairly by keeping back the valuable information with which, if the editor would allow it, we could fill the paper, we shall be much obliged if those young gentlemen will send their names and addresses to this office, when we will endeavor to refer them to some good authority on the subject.
Everybody knows by this time that in the great college game played on Decoration-day Yale beat Princeton easily. The fact is, the Princeton men were sadly wanting in sharp fielding, and fielding is the real science of the game. Your good fielder is always on the move. No matter where the ball may be, it will be in-field in a few seconds, and neither basemen nor short-stop must be caught napping.
Each man must be ready to support his fellow, and he must not think that because the ball does not come in his particular part of the field he need not trouble himself about it. Every player plays not for himself alone, but for his side, and it is in the perfect working together of the whole nine that the highest art of ball-playing consists. The basemen have their regular positions, but it must be remembered that the game is where the ball is, and that the fielder who can best reach the ball is the one who should field it.
One of the most important positions is that of short-stop. He is a kind of Jack-of-all-trades. He must be able to do the work of any of the in-fielders, to occupy a baseman's place when that person is fielding a ball, to "back up" the basemen, so as to cover any swift or widely thrown balls which they may be unable to reach, and to back up the pitcher, and so save him extra work in fielding balls returned to him by the catcher. The most eminent positions in a nine are, of course, those of pitcher and catcher, but the short-stop may have just as much enjoyment out of his part, and may do his side as much service as the more prominent players of the "battery."
It is not every one that can be a catcher. Like poets and wicket-keepers at cricket, the catcher is "born, not made." Because there is a catcher on every nine, it does not follow that every ninth man is one of these much-valued creatures whose excellence is due to instinct rather than to education. It is by no means the case that every person who writes verse is a poet, nor that every cricketer who stands behind the wicket is a wicket-keeper. A man may catch, but he is not therefore a catcher. If he has not a hand that acts directly with the eye, and an eye that sees almost before it has time to look—above all, if he shrinks from the swiftly darting ball, or winces as the bat is swung within a very few inches of his head—he will not make a catcher.
The kind of courage required for this position is very peculiar. It is not necessarily the sort of courage that would lead a man to jump into a mill-race to save another from drowning, nor is it especially the calm bravery that carries a soldier up to the ramparts behind which the enemy and perhaps death are lurking. But it is an admirable quality, and the chances are that the man who can control his nerves in the hazardous position of a base-ball catcher would not be found wanting when the time arrived for the exercise of his courage under even more trying circumstances.
The great Duke of Wellington said, as he watched the Eton boys playing cricket, "It was here that the battle of Waterloo was won," and though Waterloo is in Belgium and Eton in England, there was much truth in what the great commander said. The qualities which cricket brings out and educates (and it is fully as much so with base-ball) are qualities that make a man or boy courageous, quick to act in emergency, and loyal. These are the three qualities that are most desired in a soldier, and especially in one who is set over others.
When the American boy shall have become a man, and shall be placed in a position to test himself to see what kind of stuff he is made of, and finds that his courage, his resolution, his faithfulness, do not fail him, he may look back upon those happy afternoons spent on the base-ball field, and think how valuable an education he was working out for himself when he thought he was merely "having a good time."