Why baseball should be revived in the schools

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Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: Why baseball should be revived in the schools
Language: English
Source: The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume 8 (No. 11) November 1928
Year: 1928
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Fulltext: November, 1928 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 23 a bulky package and told me that it was in memory of Julian. Upon opening it I found a brightly decorated cup and saucer with the word Recuerdo upon it. She begged me to accept the poor gift! “I am ashamed,” she repeated over and over again, “because it is so poor.” "The little piece out of the saucer will not show when you set it on the shelf,” she said. I assured her that it was a very fine present, and thanked her as best as I could; but inadequately I felt, compared to her own fluency. “It is so little, and the saucer is broken. There’s a piece out of it, but that is the only reason why I could get such a nice one muy bar at o—for one peseta.” Ah, my peseta! Some day that cup shall adorn a home for the destitute in these islands. Governor Stimson approved two bills October 25 which had been passed by the legislature the previous day. One provides that the insular tariff on imported sugars and tobaccos shall be automatically that of the United States. It had not been changed since 1909, and meanwhile somewhat higher duties had gone into effect in the homeland. From now on, whenever the American tariff respecting sugars and tobaccos is raised the insular tariff will conform to the change without further action of the legislature. The other bill created positions for ten more judges of land courts in order that the lands bureau and registration offices may expedite action upon applications for public land, for the survey and registration of private lands, etc. There are about 115,000 applications for land pending in the lands bureau, and they concern some 2,600,000 hectares of the public domain. Out of 215,243 applications for land filed with the bureau in 24 years, 38,863 have been ap proved and patents have been issued to 23,363 applicants. Comparison will indicate how far the work is behind. From January 1 to Sep tember 30, the number of applications filed was 850. and Sturdiness Simplicity Willamette logging engines are leaders in the forest throughout the world Sturdy Construction: margin for the hardest work. This is responsible for the low maintenance cost and remarkably long life of Willamette Yarders. WILLAMETTE Offices and Bodegas in Manila and Zamboanga Address inquiries to 1 or Zamboanga Spare parts carried in stock in Manila and Zamboanga MEYER-MUZZALL COMPANY 221 Pacific Building, Manila Why Baseball Should Be Revived in the Schools Casimlro It is too bad that with the introduction of other outdoor games in the Philippine public and private schools, baseball, introduced by the American soldiers and sailors and popularized by the early American teachers, should have been allowed to decline. Unless the right sort of interest is taken in reviving the game, the islands will soon forfeit leadership in baseball in the orient, either to China or Japan. In those coun tries baseball grows con stantly more popular, as it should here. Other games have their merits, of course, but there is that about baseball which makes its players profi cient in other games too; so that, whatever stress may be laid upon the other games, baseball need never be neglected, much less abandoned. This paper will discuss baseball from the viewpoint of men of an elder generation who are, because of their position either in public life or in teaching, responsible for the training of Phil ippine youth. Their long neglect of baseball has deprived the game of recruits; though the islands can still muster a few good teams, the teams are made up of veterans; and though there is one first-baseman, Regis, whose skill is that of an American major-leaguer, he has been twenty years in the game and must soon give it up. There aren’t enough young pitchers, nor catchers, nor fielders; and league playing is confined to Manila. Instead of this situation, that which ought to prevail is a league in Manila, an interprovincial league and an international league—this last playing scheduled games through the season in China, Japan and the Philippines. Baseball, properly encouraged, could be the means of encouraging interisland travel; if Cebu, Iloilo, Leyte and Negros had the teams they could have, and these leagued with Manila, when games were to be played in Cebu, Iloilo, Bakolod and Tacloban many fans would take advantage of the opportunity to go and see the games and tour the Bisayas. Nothing could be more effica cious in drawing the two regions, Luzon and the Bisayas, socially together than first rate base ball. Out of such teams material could be culled to match against China, Japan and Hawaii and to tour the United States; and again, the social advantages would be tremendous. Prowess in baseball elicits the admiration of another element, and on the whole a better one, than prowess in boxing. It attracts no better element than tennis, but it does attract a larger element, while it is a less remarkable feat for an agile people, like the Filipinos are, to develop a star tennis player than it is for them to develop a star baseball team. In the past, baseball has done its part, and in the future it can do even more, in destroying the inferior complex that still affects the islands to their detriment. Tennis helps, boxing helps likewise, as do other sports and other activities, but baseball is first among them all. There are obvious reasons for this. The Filipino can excel in baseball, in the orient, and IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 24 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL November, 1928 also compete with the world. Baseball is played on such a large field, often quite an open one, that many spectators can witness the games. Even at fields completely fenced there are bleacher seats cheap enough to be within the resources of the workingman, and baseball is eminently therefore a working man’s recreation. The principles of the various plays are simple, the vernacular is monosyllabic; both the principles of the plays and the nomen clature of the game are quickly grasped and understood. In the Philippines, when properly sponsored, baseball evokes the keenest interest even from women. The plays are, for the most part, open; the spectator sees clearly everything that transpires and the liveliest interest follows the whole course of a game. Teamwork there is, and of the best sort. But it is open teamwork; each spectator can follow his favorite player, marking his record game after game and season after season. Thus should large crowds be entertained, in the healthful open air of baseball grounds, all summer long in at least every provincial capital of the islands. It is not too much to hope that the game receive the unstinted patronage of the govern ment itself. It did have such patronage under Governor Forbes, who killed two sparrows with a single pebble by giving baseball outfits to schools excelling in the savings-bank competi tions. It is a legitimate function of government to encourage the harmless wastage of physical energy. What more ready means has the Phil ippine government for this legitimate purpose than baseball? No baseball crowd ever did violence to anyone or anything but an umpire or a bleacher fence. The heroes of baseballdom are second to few whom youth may emulate, and it is well for youth to emulate them. In America, where baseball is the national sport, no less a personage than a Federal judge, Hon. Kenesaw Mountain Landis, thought fit to leave the bench and accept the post of supreme arbitrator of the game. In the entire history of the game, intense as its contests always are, with fortunes in the gate receipts of the national leagues, very few knaves have ever been players; and as against these few, literally thousands of men of the cleanest and most rigid honor may be cited. More scandal attaches in a single season to varsity football, than even to professional league baseball in a decade. Baseball Between Filipinos and Japanese in Manila—Left to right: Uwasa, Ikawa, Casimlro. Bejow, Daimon safe at third (left), and Dalmon out at home plate. There is absolutely no objection to a boy’s aspiring to be a Ruth, a Walter Johnson or a McGraw; on the contrary, such aspirations are as worthy of encouragement as aspirations for the learned professions, in which, with all the centuries of tradition back of them, professional ethics are no higher than those of baseball. Baseball, as distinct from all other games, has been professionalized successfully; the son of wealth can pursue a career in any department of the game with no more loss of social repute than the son of the mendicant. Then, too, nothing counts in baseball, in the final analysis, in comparison with character and skill. In these islands baseball was the first influence, as for a long time to come it will be the only effective one, to bring together on common ground the aristocract and the peasant. In the old Nueva Ecija team, which the writer has in mind on this point, a team which furnished several Olympic players, the players were recruited from the highest and the humblest families of the province. A Bantug was the crack pitcher, and his catcher was a peasant; the shortstop was, like Bantug, an ilustrado, and his plays were mainly with the secondsacker, another peasant. Something of the subsequent history of these young men is known, including the fact that interclass marriages are traceable to friendships among the girls of the Protect it with TAR PAINT Metal or wood can be made to render appreciably longer service when coated with our GAS TAR PAINT. Resists rust and decay; repels attacks by destructive insects; lasting, resilient, economical. Call or Write for Prices GAS COKE If your needs require steady heat, use GAS COKE. Prices on request. Write or call Manila Gas Corporation Calle Otis, Paco P. O. Box 1206 MANILA Tel. 5-69-34 A Popular Member of Most Good Clubs ROBERTSON’S SCOTCH WHISKY They will gladly serve you if you will take the slight trouble to ASK FOR IT KUENZLE & STREIFF, Inc. Exclusive Distributors 343 T. Pinpin Tel. 2-39-36 IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL November, 1928 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 25 high school which the poorer boys could never have made save for the repute they gained on the ball field. Another desirable outcome was that poor boys remained longer in school and qualified for careers their books and baseball made them fit to follow. It was even surptising to see provincial offi cials, imbued with the spirit of the game, will ing to lend every legitimate assistance to the poorer boys in order to keep them in school and on the team. Under any other circumstances they would never have deigned to speak to these boys. In baseball the boys had proved their worth. fundamental rule and play of the game. Thus, without the outlay of a centavo, any barrio school can promote interest in baseball and keep that interest alive. But indoor baseball won’t do this. Indoor baseball is played with a ball thrice the size of the regulation baseball—which won’t do at all. Boys may safely begin baseball with a rag ball or a yam ball, but it is requisite that such a ball be of the regulation size. It is the right-sized ball that must be spat upon and gripped and given the coveted english that makes it curve. It is in part to indoor baseball that the decadence of baseball in the Philippine Trust Company COMMERCIAL AND SAVINGS BANK Offers every Banking and Trust convenience. Genuinely conservative Banking is our aim, and we emphasize the Business-Building Service we extend to our Depositors. Frequently we are able to put our customers in possession of facts that bring them profit or save them loss. Per Annum on Savings Accounts Interest on Fixed Deposits upon Request We would be glad to meet you personally and talk over your banking requirements. We serve as: Financial Agents Executors Administrators Depository for Securities Rendering a specialized service in the management and settlement of estates, etc. Guardians Registrars Transfer Agents Receivers Attorneys-in-fact M. H. O’Malley, Pres. Monte de Piedad Building Plaza Goiti—Manila P. O. Box 150 Tel. 2-12-55 It is one of the eminent virtues of baseball that it detracts nothing from skill in other games. It is properly and safely to be selected as the star game on the school ground, around which all other games and field sports may be grouped. The Journal is for its early and widespread revival throughout the Philippines; not, of course, to the detriment of other games, or field sports, but to their benefit. Give these games, however, all their points of excellence, and base ball will remain the particular game in which the Filipino youth en masse can match himself against the youth of the world, and bank on his wits and the law of self-preservation to make up for his slight physique. How pleasant would be that day when news of league baseball games played at Cebu between that port and Manila should command front-page space in Manila’s newspapers and be covered by star reporters. Such a day ought to dawn within two years. Everyone with a spark of youth and civic in terest left in his entrails should turn in and help toward it. School officials who fail of doing so might well be presented sets of indoor baseballs for earrings. No—that sentence is withdrawn. The purpose of this paper goes no farther than to try to get baseball viewed in the light it deserves, and reestablished on the basis where the soldiers, sailors and empire-days teachers placed it. That the Filipino boys of that period took to it so widely and learned so quickly to play it well, is proof enough that the potentialities are as great here, by comparison, as in America, the country of the great game’s origin. —W. R. “Sunrise and Sunset in Manila” By WALTER ROBB That is the kind of influence which is lost when baseball, most democratic of all games, is permit ted to decline in public esteem. Endless illustrations of the merits of baseball in comparison with other outdoor school games present themselves. Take the mere matter of physique. Football, an excellent game, demands the biggest men available; every successful foot ball team is so because of its avoirdupois, and the rule is almost equally applicable to the indi vidual players. No good football team can have more than two or .three physically small men, and even this slight deficiency must be made up in the weight of the other men. It is this fact, of course, which always tempts varsity faculties to enroll muckleheaded giants and let them slide through their fictitious courses. Basketball more nearly approaches baseball, on this point, but far from equals it. In baseball, size does count, but skill counts more: a baseman, a fielder, a pitcher may be light or heavy, tall or short: the game offers not only wider opportunity to skill than other manly games in modem repute, but tries the mettle of every recruit and ultimately accepts or discards him upon this stubborn test alone. If a recruit has the right mettle in him, no matter how big or small he is, he has a good chance to make the squad. If he lacks mettle, there is no chance for him at all. Most meritorious of all, however, for school ground purposes, are the gradations of baseball. Other games lack this attribute entirely; foot ball is just football, always to be played in a certain way; and so with tennis, so with the others. Baseball is different, to its infinite advantage. Three boys furnishing themselves with a rag ball and a bamboo club, can play baseball—and play it according to rule. They can play work up, with the pitcher covering the plate and the field. Four boys can do a little better, and a larger number better still. But neither nine boys, with nine more to match them, nor the full diamond are essential for good practice in every islands may be traced;neither pitcher, basemen, fielders nor catcher can handle the indoor base ball in the way the baseball must be handled to win games. The indoor baseball is neither caught nor thrown in the manner of the baseball. General Wood is said always to have resented seeing boys at school in the islands playing in door baseball. If this is true, his resentment was justified. If baseball and indoor baseball were played, then there would be less ground for criticism. Pl.00 in envelope ready for mailing! On sale at Philippine Education Co., Inc. 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