A Ball Player's Career: Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson — John Shaqi
A Ball Player's Career: Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. AnsonAnson, Adrian C. (Adrian Constantine)
History
A Ball Player's Career: Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson
Anson, Adrian C. (Adrian Constantine)
Baseball
Between sight-seeing and base-ball and cricket playing the thirty days
allotted to our visit passed all too quickly and when the time came for
us to start on our homeward journey there was not one of the party but
what would gladly have remained for a longer period of time in "Merry
England," had such a thing been possible. It was a goodly company of
friends that assembled at the dock in Queenstown to wish us a pleasant
voyage on August 27th, which was just one month to a day from the date
of our arrival, and we were soon homeward bound on board of the
steamship Abbotsford. The voyage back was anything but a pleasant one
and more than half the party were down at one time and another from the
effects of seasickness. Old Neptune had evidently made up his mind to
show us both sides of his character and he shook us about on that return
voyage very much as though we were but small particles of shot in a
rattle-box.
We arrived at Philadelphia Sept. 9, where we were the recipients of a
most enthusiastic ovation, in which brass bands and a banquet played a
most important part, and after the buffeting about that we had received
from the waves of old ocean we were glad indeed that the voyage was
over.
The impression that base-ball made upon the lovers of sport in England
can be best illustrated by the following quotations taken from the
columns of the London Field, then, as now, one of the leading sporting
papers of that country:
"Base-ball is a scientific game, more difficult than many who are in the
habit of judging hastily from the outward semblance can possibly
imagine. It is in fact the cricket of the American continent,
considerably altered since its first origin, as has been cricket, by the
yearly recourse to the improvements necessitated by the experience of
each season. In the cricket field there is at times a wearisome monotony
that is entirely unknown to baseball. To watch it played is most
interesting, as the attention is concentrated but for a short time and
not allowed to succumb to undue pressure of prolonged suspense. The
broad principles of base-ball are not by any means difficult of
comprehension. The theory of the game is not unlike that of 'Rounders,'
in that bases have to be run; but the details are in every way
different.
"To play base-ball requires judgment, courage; presence of mind and the
possession of much the same qualities as at cricket. To see it played by
experts will astonish those who only know it by written descriptions,
for it is a fast game, full of change and excitement and not in the
least degree wearisome. To see the best players field even is a sight
that ought to do a cricketer's heart good; the agility, dash and
accuracy of tossing and catching possessed by the Americans being
wonderful."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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