Base-Ball as a Classic.

“The St. Paul Globe” must not be too severe on the class of people whom it stigmatizes as base-ball cranks; for base-ball is our national game, and it includes among its admirers many of the wisest and the best of our citizens. Love of the game of ball is no new thing: it is as old as history itself. It is a pity that old Izaak Walton knew nothing of the sport; for how he would have enjoyed it, and how charmingly he would have written of it! It is a particularly desirable game, because it calls into, and keeps in, the open air a large number of people who otherwise would remain cramped up indoors. It is the enemy—call it rival, if you please—of billiards and other house-sports, and we are heartily glad that it is so successful. It has charms not only for those who participate in it, but also for those who are spectators simply; and it is rapidly acquiring those scientific excellences which will ultimately place it far above other athletic sports. A certain class of writers (who cannot know what they are talking about) inveigh against what they are pleased to term the “ball-craze;” and the circumstance that Mike Kelly recently got a large sum of money for leaving the Chicago to join the Boston club, is dished up in every style to prove that these are degenerate times, and that humanity is on the 263highway to idiocy. But the truth of the matter is, ball-playing isn’t made nearly so much of as it was many centuries ago, when even Homer delighted to weave its praises into his immortal verse. Athens had its Mike Kelly. Of course, he was not as good a man as our own Mike Kelly is; but the world was comparatively young then, and we think we can safely say that Aristonicus the Carystian was a worthy representative of our national game at that time. At any rate, Aristonicus won the admiration of King Alexander; and his majesty was not satisfied until he had bought Aristonicus’s release from the Carystian Club, and had signed him with the Athens White Buskins. The sum which Alexander paid for this release is said to have been four didrachms and three tetrobolons, a prodigious price for those days, but a comparatively small amount for modern times. Money was scarce then: if the cashier of an Athenian bank had tried to abscond with four dollars’ worth of money, he would have required thirty elephants and sixteen four-horse chariots to transport the coin. The money which King Alexander paid for Aristonicus’s release was equivalent to a dollar and twenty-five cents in our money; but it was esteemed such an extravagant sum at that time, that the contemporary press of Thrace pounced upon it, and paraded it as an instance of preposterous profligacy. But his majesty felt more than repaid for the investment: his ball-club won 264the championship, and held it until the death of Aristonicus. This famous player became very popular with the Athenians: they made him a free man, and they erected a statue to him! Now, just imagine the Boston people erecting a Monson granite statue to Mike Kelly on the banks of the frog-pond in Boston Common,—ay, and under the very shade of the classic gingko-tree!

Demoxenus, who seems to have been the Browning of Athenian poesy, has left us this word-picture of the Grecian ball-player,—to be more explicit, a picture of the third-base man of the Athens White Buskins:—

“The youth I saw was playing ball,—

Seventeen years of age, and tall;

From Cos he came; and well I wot

The gods looked kindly on that spot,

For when he took the ball, or threw it,

So pleased were all of us to view it,

We all cried out. So great his grace,

Such frank good-humor in his face,

That, every time he spoke or moved,

All felt as if that youth they loved.

Had I staid long, most sad my plight

Had been to lose my wits outright;

And even now, the recollection

Disturbs my senses’ calm reflection.”

It appears, however, that, even among the ancients, there were those who thought that too much attention was being paid to ball-playing. One of the grumblers was a person of the name of Chærephanes, 265who, notwithstanding his blatant and persistent decrying of the sport, was in the habit of attending every game to which he could get a free pass. This inconsistency irritated the alleged base-ball cranks of Athens; and one day, while a match-game was in progress in the park at the base of the Acropolis, Demoteles, who appears to have been the Baby Anson of the White Buskins aforementioned, addressed Chærephanes rather testily. “Tell me, O Chærephanes! how comes it, that, not liking this game, you are always on hand whensoever you can get a free pass?” To him Chærephanes responded, “Because I enjoy seeing you boys play it, think not that I approve the game.”