My greatest regret at growing old was the fact that I must give up playing ball. Even while I could still play, I began to think how soon it would be when I could no longer take an active part, but must simply stand and watch the game. Somehow base-ball has always seemed to me the only thing in life that came up to my hopes and expectations. And thus it is by Nature’s fatal equation that the sensation that gave me the greatest pleasure has caused me the most regret. So, after all, in the final balance base-ball only averages with the rest. I know that, as a youth, I thought that nothing felt so good as a toothache—after it had stopped. Perhaps the world is so arranged that joys and sorrows balance one another, and the one who has the happiest life feels so much regret in giving it up that he comes out with the same net result 209as the one who feels pleasure in escaping a world of sorrow and despair.
But I meant to tell about my base-ball days. These began so long ago that I do not know the time, but I am sure they commenced as the game began, for base-ball was evolved from our boyish game of “two-old-cat and three-old-cat,” which we played while very young. Since I batted my last ball I have often sat on the bleachers of our great towns to see the game. But base-ball now is not the base-ball of my young days. Of course I would not admit that there are better players now than then, but the game has been brought to such a scientific state that one might as well stand and watch the of some great machine as a modern game of ball. There used to be room for individual merit, for skill, for blunders and mistakes, for chance and luck, and all that goes to make up a game.
The hired players of to-day are no more players than mercenary troops are . They are bought and sold on the open market, and have no pride of home and no town reputation to maintain. Neither I nor any of my companions could any more have played a 210game of base-ball with Hartford against Farmington than we could have joined a foreign army and fought against the United States. And we would have scorned to hire mercenaries from any other town. We were not only playing ball, but we were fighting for the glory and honor of Farmington. Neither had the game sunk to any such state that we were paid for our services. We played ball; we did not work at the trade of amusing people,—we had something else to do. There was school in the spring and autumn months; there were the grist-mill, the blacksmith-shop, and the farms in the summer-time, and only Saturday afternoons were reserved for ball, excepting such practice as we might get in the long summer hours. We left our callings on the day we played ball,—left them as Cincinnatus left his plough in the and rode off to war in to his country’s call.
At school we scarcely took time to eat our pie or cake and cheese, but them into our mouths, snatched the bat, and hurried to the ball-grounds, swallowing our in great as we went along. At we played until the last tones of the little bell had died 211away, and the teacher with patience had shut the door and gone back to her desk; then we dropped the clubs and hurried in. When school was out, we went home for our suppers and to do our few small chores, and then rushed off to the public square to get all the practice that we could.
Well do I remember one summer Saturday afternoon long years ago,—how long, I cannot say, but I could find the date if I dared to look it up. The almanacs, when we got the new ones at the store about Christmas, had told us that there would be an almost total eclipse of the sun that year. The people far and near looked for the eventful day. As I recall, some wise hired a special ship and sailed down to the equator to make observations which they could not make at home. We children smoked little bits of glass over a lighted candle, that we might look through the blackened glass straight at the dazzling sun.
When the day came round, there it was a Saturday afternoon! Of course we met as usual on the public square; we chose sides and began the game. We saw the moon slowly and surely throwing its black shadow 212across the sun; but we barely paused to glance up at the wonders that the heavens were revealing to our view. We did not stop the game until it grew so dark that we could hardly see the ball, and then sadly and reluctantly we gathered at the home-base, feeling that the very heavens had to cheat us of our game. Impatiently we waited until the moon began to drift so far past the sun that his friendly rays could reveal the ball again; and then we quickly took our places, and the game went on. It could not have been too dark to play for more than twenty or thirty minutes at the most, yet this sank into in comparison with the time we lost from our game of ball.
Our usual meeting-place was on the public square. This was not an ideal spot, but it was the best we had. The home-base was so near the hotel that the windows were in constant danger, and the dry-goods store was not far beyond the second base. Allen’s house and a of trees were only a little way back of the third base, and many a precious moment was lost in hunting for the ball in the grass and weeds in his big 213yard. The flag-pole and the guide-post, too, stood in the most spots that could be found. We managed to move the guide-post, but the suggestion of changing the flag-pole was thought to be little less than treason; for Farmington was a very town.
We played base-ball for many years before we dreamed of such extravagance as special suits to play it in. We came to the field exactly as we left our work, excepting that some of us would manage to get a strap-belt to take the place of suspenders. We usually played in our bare feet, for we could run faster in this way; and when in the greatest hurry to make first-base, we generally snatched off our caps and threw them on the ground.
We had a captain of the team, but his rule was very mild, and each boy had about as much to say as any of the rest. This was especially true when the game was on. Not only did each player have a chance to direct and advise, in loud shouts and words, but the spectators joined in all sorts of counsel, encouragement, and admonition. When the ball was struck particularly hard, a shout went 214up from the gathered multitude as if a fort had fallen after a hard-fought siege. Then ever............