On a bright afternoon of last summer I suffered all the thrills described in the sestet of Keats's sonnet, "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer." I discovered a new art-form. I felt like that watcher of the skies. I stood upon a peak in Darien. But I was not silent, for what I had discovered was the game of baseball, and—incidentally—the soul of America.

That match between the American Army and Navy teams was my first glimpse of a pastime that has captivated a continent. I can well understand its appeal to the modern temperament; for it is more than a game: it is a sequence of studied, grotesque poses through which the players express all the zest of the New World. You should see Williams at the top of his pitch. You should see the sweep of Mimms' shoulders at the finish of a wild strike. You should see Fuller preparing to catch. What profusion of vorticist rhythms! With what ease and finish they were executed! I know of no keener pleasure than[Pg 177] that of watching a man do something that he fully knows how to do—whether it be Caruso singing, Maskelyne juggling, Balfour making an impromptu speech, a doctor tending a patient, Brangwyn etching, an engineer at his engines, Pachmann at the piano, Inman at the billiard-table, a captain bringing his ship alongside, roadmen driving in a staple, or Swanneck Rube pitching. Oh, pretty to watch, sir, pretty to watch! No hesitation here; no feeling his way towards a method; no fortuitous hair's-breadth triumph over the nice difficulty; but cold facility and swift, clear answers to the multiple demands of the situation. Oh, attaboy, Rube!

I was received in the Army's dressing-room by Mimms, their captain, who said he was mighty glad to know me, and would put me wise to anything in the game that had me beat. The whole thing had me beat. I was down and out before the Umpire had cried his first "Play Ball!" which he delivered as one syllable: "Pl'barl!" The players in their hybrid costumes—a mixture of the jockey and the fencer—the catcher in his gas mask and stomach protector and gigantic mitt, and the wild grace of the artists as they "warmed up," threw me into ecstasy, and the[Pg 178] new thrill that I had sought so long surged over my jaded spirit.

Then the game began, and the rooting began. In past years I attended various Test Matches and a few football matches in Northern mining districts, when the players came in for a certain amount of barracking; but these affairs were church services compared with the furious abuse and hazing handed to any unfortunate who made an error. Such screams and eldritch noises I never thought to hear from the human voice. No Englishman could achieve them: his vocal cords are not made that way. There was, for example, an explosive, reverberating "Ah-h-h-h-h-h!" which I now practise in my backgarden in order to scare the sparrows from my early peas. But my attempts are no more like the real thing than Australian Burgundy is like wine. I can achieve the noise, but some subtle quality is ever lacking.

The whole scene was barbaric pandemonium: the grandstand bristling with megaphones and tossing arms and dancing hats and demoniac faces offered a superb subject for an artist of the Nevinson or Nash school. A Chinese theatre is but a faint reflection of a ball game. I had never imagined that this hard, shell-covered, business[Pg 179] people could break into such a debauch of frenzy. You should have heard the sedate Admiral Sims, when the Navy made a homer, with his: "Attaboy! Oh, attaway to play ball! Zaaaa. Zaaa. Zaaa!" and when his men made a wild throw he sure handed them theirs.

Here are a few of the phrases hurled at offending players:—

"Aw, well, well, well, well, well!"

"Ah, you pikers, where was you raised?"

"Hey, pitcher, is this the ball game or a corner-lot game?"

"Say, bo, you can play ball—maybe."

"Hey, catcher, quit the diamond, and lemme li'l brudder teach yeh."

"Say, who's that at bat? What's the good of sending in a dead man?"

"Aw, dear, dear, dear! Gimme some barb' wire. I wanter knit a sweater for the barnacle on second."

"Oh, watch this, watch this! He's a bad actor. Kill the bad actor!"

"More ivory—more ivory! Oh, boy, I love every bone in yer head."

"Get a step-ladder to it. Take orf that pitcher. He's pitching over a plate in heaven."

[Pg 180]

"Aw, you quitter. Oh. Oh. Oh. Bonehead, bonehead, bonehead. Ahhhh."

"Now show 'em where you live, boy. Let's have something with a bit of class to it."

"Give him the axe, the axe, the axe."

"What's the matter with the man on third? 'Tisn't bed-time yet."

An everlasting chorus, with reference to the scoring-board, chanted like an anthem:—

"Go-ing up! Go-ing up! Go-ing up!"

At the end of the game—the Navy's game all the way—the fury and abandon increased, though, during the game, it had not seemed possible that it could. But it did. And when, limp and worn, I shuffled out to Walham Green, and Mimms asked me whether the game had got me, I could only reply, with a diminuendo:—

"Well, well, well, well, well!"

I shall never again be able to watch with interest a cricket or football match; it would be like a tortoise-race after the ball game. Such speed and fury, such physical and mental zest, I had never before seen brought to the playing of a simple game. It might have been a life-or-death struggle, and the balls might have been[Pg 181] Mills bombs, and the bats rifles. If the Americans at play give any idea of their qualities at battle, then Heaven help the fresh guys who are up against them.

When the boys had dressed I joined up with a party of them, and we adjourned to the Clarendon; where one of us, a Chicago journalist, not trusting the delicacy of the bartender's hand, obtained permission to sling his own; and a Bronx was passed to each of us for necessary action. This made a fitting kick to the ball game, for a Bronx is concentrated essence of baseball; full of quips and tricks and sharp twists of flavour; inducing that gr-r-rand and ger-l-lorious feelin'. It took only two of these to make the journalist break into song, and he gave us some excellent numbers of American marching-songs. He started with the American "Tipperary," sung to an air of Sullivan's:—
Hail, hail, the gang's all here!
What th'ell do we care?
What th'ell do we care?
Hail, hail, the gang's all here,
So what th'ell do we care now?

Then "Happy-land":—
I wish I was in Happy-land,
Where rivers of beer abound;
[Pg 182]With sloe-gin rickies hanging on the trees
And high-balls rolling on the ground.
What?
High-balls rolling on the ground?
Sure!
High-balls rolling on the ground.

Then the anthem of the "dry" States:—
Nobody knows how dry I am,
How dry I am,
How dry I am,
You don't know how dry I am,
How dry I am,
How dry I am.
Nobody knows how dry I am,
And nobody cares a damn.

After this service of song, brief, bright and brotherly, we moved slowly Eastward, and in Kensington Gardens I learned something about college yells. For suddenly, without warning, one of the party bent forward, with arms outstretched, and yelled the following at a pensive sheep:—

"Alle ge reu, ge reu, ge reu. War-who-bar-za. Hi ix, hi ip; hi capica, doma nica. Hong pong. Lita pica. Halleka, balakah, ba."

At first I conjectured that the Bronx was running its course, but when he had spoken his piece the rest of the gang let themselves go, and I then[Pg 183] understood that we were having a round of college yells. Respectable strangers might have mistaken the performance for the war march of the priests, or the entry of the gladiators, or the battle-song of the hairy Ainus; for such monstrous perversions of sense and sound surely have never before disturbed the serenity of the Gardens.

I understand that the essential of a good college yell is that it be utterly meaningless, barbaric and larynx-racking. It should seem to be the work of some philologist who had suddenly gone mad under the strain of his studies and had attempted to converse with an aborigine. I think Augustana's yell pretty well fills that condition:—

"Rocky-eye, rocky-eye. Zip, zum, zie. Shingerata, ............