"Of course the game has kept on improving all the time. I ain't denying that. There used to be a good deal of 'rough stuff' in the old days. The gamblers started in to spoil it, and sometimes as much as $20,000 would be in the mutual pools that used to be their way of betting. Then, too, the players didn't use to get much pay and, with so much money up, it was a big temptation to 'throw' games. It got to be so, after a while, that you wouldn't know whether the game was on the level or not. The only salvation of the game was to have some good strong men organize and put it on a solid footing and weed out the grafters. They did this and got a gang of them 'dead to rights' in the old Louisville team. They expelled four of them and barred them from the game forever, and, although they moved heaven and earth to get back, they never did. And since that time the game has been as clean as a hound's tooth. As a matter of fact, it's about the only game in America, except perhaps football, that you can count on as being absolutely on the square. "It's a great sport, all right, and I don't wonder it is called the national game. It's splendid exercise for every muscle of the body and every faculty of the brain. Rich or poor, great or small, everybody with a drop of sporting blood in his veins likes it, even if he can't play it. At the Washington grounds a box seat is reserved for the President, and I notice that no matter how heavy the 'cares of state,' he's usually on hand and rooting for the home team. Why, I've heard that when the committee went to notify Lincoln that he was nominated for President, he was out at the ball ground, playing 'one old cat,' and the committee had to wait until he'd had his turn at bat. It may not be true, but it's good enough to be." "And not only is it our national game," put in Ainslee, "but other countries are taking it up as well. They have dandy baseball teams in Cuba and Japan, that would make our crack nines hustle to beat them, and, in Canada, it is already more popular than cricket." "I've heard," said Tom, "that not long ago they made a cable connection with some island way up in the Arctic Circle. The World's Series was being played then, and the very first message that came over the cable from the little bunch of Americans up there was: 'What's the score?'" "Yes," laughed Ainslee, "it gets in the blood, and with the real 'dyed in the wool' fan it's the most important thing in the world. You've heard perhaps of the pitcher who was so dangerously sick that he wasn't expected to live. The family doctor stood at the bedside and took his temperature. He shook his head gravely. "'It's 104,' he said. "'You're a liar,' said the pitcher, rousing himself, 'my average last season was .232, and it would have been more if the umpire hadn't robbed me.'"