What can present a more attractive picture to the lover of out door sports than the scene presented at a base ball match between two trained professional teams competing for championship honors, in which every point of play is so well looked after in the field, that it is only by some extra display of skill at the bat, that a single run is obtained in a full nine innings game? If it is considered, too, that base ball is a healthy, recreative exercise, suitable for all classes of our people, there can be no surprise that such a game should reach the unprecedented popularity it has. THE PROFESSIONAL SEASON OF 1888. The season of 1888, in the professional arena, was marked by several events which placed it on record as the most noteworthy, known in the thirteen years' history of the National League. In the first place it was the inaugural year of the grand movement made by the President of the Chicago Club, to extend the popularity of our national game beyond the American continent; an event which exhibited the characteristic energy, pluck, liberality and business enterprise of Mr. Spalding, in a very marked manner; the grand success which the venture met with being a well merited reward for the large financial outlay which he incurred in the experiment. Secondly, the struggle for the championship of the League, resulting as it did in the success of the New York club, gave to the East a lead in the pennant races which they had not held since 1884, when the Providence club won the championship, Chicago having held the honors in 1885 and 1886, and Detroit in 1887. The past season, too, excelled all previous years in the vast assemblages of spectators who were gathered at the grounds of the prominent clubs on holiday occasions; as also in the immense aggregate of people who patronized the professional contests of the year. It was also an exceptional year in regard to the close and exciting contest for the League pennant, between the four leading clubs of that organization; and at the end of the championship season the sequel of the contest for the base ball championship of the world finished off the campaign of 1888, in a manner that greatly added to the honors won by the victorious League club from New York. The contest for the American Association championship was also one of the interesting events of the season, and one, too, which taught aspiring clubs a lesson which they can well profit by; and that is, that success in championship contests is due far more to able management, competent captaining, and thorough team work, than to the gathering together of the strongest of star players in a club team. In the League, in this respect, while the Boston club had invested, at great financial cost, in securing the services of noted star players, the Chicago club, though weakened by the release of players from their team who had done yeoman service in their ranks for years, were yet able