The month in sports can baseball come back

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Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: The month in sports can baseball come back
Language: English
Source: The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume 8 (Issue No. 6) June 1928
Year: 1928
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Fulltext: 14 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1928 then, if lambs and horses were nowadays imprac tical, the obligation still remained and the aid to happiness had to be given in some way. Daddy believed he had found the right way, and when they had all agreed, and learned to what purpose he had been thinking—trying to do in this gen eration what his father had done in his—he gathered up the insurance policy and locked it into the family safe. “That’s that,” he said, twirling the combina tion and turning to his smoking table. And so it was. The Month in Sports: Can Baseball Come Back? By Carroll D. Alcott A prominent local fan, Miguel Cuaderno, told the writer not long ago that in his opinion athletics of all descriptions are visibly fading in the Philippines, with the exception of golf and a few of the amateur sports. Mike said: “A dozen years ago, baseball was being played throughout the provinces. One could not take a Sunday motor ride without passing through barrio after barrio without finding baseball games in progress. Today, one can motor for hours without hearing the whack of a bat.” Mike had no concrete reason to offer for this apparently deplorable state of affairs. He chose to regard it as something unavoidable and let the matter drop. Others questioned presented varied opinions as to what is wrong. They were principally interested in baseball and boxing and the amateur sports held little attraction for them. Most of them dispatched the matter with the belief that “folks are more interested in tea parties than in athletics, so why bother if bother causes one to lose sleep?” Not having lived in the Philippines ten or twelve years ago, it is impossible for the writer to ascertain accurately whether or not the moans one in the sport writing profession listens to every day are merely pipe dreams, hang-over ravings or well-meaping wails. It is true that baseball needs some sort of a severe jolt to awaken it, but what it requires more than anything else is new faces. Unless something is done to develop the talent in the Philippines on a wholesale basis, the national pastime of the United States as concerns these islands will remain much as it is. An effort is now being made to place the amateur league on a permanent foundation and a step has been made in the right direction by entering a team com posed of American youths. If the amateur league is successful, it may produce an ivory mart in the Philippines that will improve the professional game. After all, baseball is fundamentally a professional sport. But it will be two or three years at least before the amateurs can be expected to produce another Birtulfo or a youth with the promise of a Regis. The success with which the Philippine Base ball League was conducted this year indicates that it will not be a difficult problem to reorgan ize in November for the 1928-1929 season. All-Filipino Team Which Outplayed the Daimai The army this year, as in 1927, has proved the backbone of the loop with one of the four teams flying the banner of Fort McKinley, and another, the Eagles, largely composed of army men. Of all the Filipino talent in the city, which is good, what there is of it has been able to produce but one good club, viz., Meralco. It would have The Daimai (Japanese) Team: Good Players and Lots of Sportsmanship been an impossibility to find another local group of players outside of Bilibid of equal ability, when Judge Ingersoll and Colonel Gambrill were organizing the loop last year. It will be the same way at the start of the coming season. In brief, the fans will watch the same men, with but one or two exceptions, play ball against the same competition they faced this year, and the usual agony that starts about the middle of the last half of the scheduled will be endured by all public spirited persons who attend the contests. The series held last month between the Daimai and selections from the Philippine league proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the game can be placed on a paying basis almost overnight when new competition and new faces are brought to town. It is the same on any other spot of the globe. The first three games of the series were witnessed by crowds that filled Nozaleda park to overflowing. Even after the Daimai were discovered to be below the standard of the local teams, large crowds continued to turn out until the fatal eighth game, when the All-Stars fell victims to the jingle of silver and then failed to realize their ambition of playing before a packed grand-stand on the last day. The Daimai won that hectic encounter, 9 to 5. Regis mis judged a pop fly over first for the first time in months, and complained that the sun was too strong for his eyes. Bernales muffed four, Cruz bungled two, and the Daimai won handily. Even the umpires, after not rendering a break decision in favor of the Daimai during the seven previous games, caught the spirit of the party and acted accordingly. In spite of the few.unconventional events of the series, it might be profitable in more ways Electricity anywhere from your own Electric Plant The Westinghouse Electric Light and Power Plant is a sup ply station entirely within itself. MACLEOD AND COMPANY 154 M. DE COMILLAS, MANILA ILOILO CEBU VIGAN DAVAO The Philippine Guaranty Company, Incorporated (Accepted by all the Bureaus of the Insular Government) Executes bonds of all kinds for Customs, Immigration and Internal Revenue. DOCUMENTS SURETYSHIPS For Executors, Administrators, Receivers, Guardians, etc. We also write Fire and Marine Insurance Low rates iberal conditions ocal investments oans on real estate repayable by monthly or quarterly instal ments at low interest Call or write for particulars Room 403, Filipinas Bldg. P. O. Box 128 Manila, P. I. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1928 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 15 than one to stage a similar series each year. Let a local team be sent to Japan once a year under the banner of the Philippine Baseball League. It should not be a hard matter to secure a Japanese baseball team to play here year after year. The best teams in the country could be obtained, and, with the exc‘ hospitality and hostilities, the game given a decided boost. With such a series in sight, the impetus given the ambitious youth of the Philippines should work out exactly as it does in American colleges where making the team means trips that could not possibly be made otherwise. It would furnish a reason for local youngsters to put forth some effort in their ball playing, hence the benefits reaped would not only be financial, but productive of new talent as well. Another plan that might work out satisfactori ly would be the conducting of series with outof-town teams. Baguio supports a baseball league from which an All-Star team can be formed that should compare favorably with the Manila clubs. Camp Stotsenburg and Corregidor contain plenty of good material and have produced fair teams in the past. I realize that many problems would confront such a move. However, it is only a suggestion, if an earnest Returning to the first paragraph of this effort, relative to the decadence of athletics in the islands, which many say exists, baseball and boxing are not the only forms of sport that are prominent in the Philippines. They were the first two sports introduced at the start of American Occupation and naturally they thrived for more than twenty years. With the rapid expansion of the public school system, appeared the need for forms of sports other than baseball and boxing. Playground substitutes were provided that could be participated in by all. Track and field gained prominence, the amateur world thrived. Today, the Philippines are actually producing better all around athletes than they did a few years ago, a fact proved by the constant lowering of amateur records. Tennis has gained such a foothold that it is now the most popular sport among the masses in the Islands, and, judging from the countless meets that aYe being held, it has supplanted baseball in the provinces. The net sport is probably the real reason for the condition de scribed by Cuaderno. On the whole, the condition of athletics in the islands is not so deplorable as many believe. The masses have taken to sports in keeping with the school programs; although baseball has lost some of its popularity, tennis, golf, and track and field are gaining in strength. Boxing, here as in any country in which it has been intro duced, will make money for its promoters. Boxing.— Last month produced one out standing event in the fistic game. A fun-loving negro boy from Buffalo engaged in a fistic duel with a local product, Irineo Flores, and won by miles. Hall is the best boy in the boxing line who has visited this particular city in months, and has received all credit due him. In other words, the local sporting fraternity has accepted him without dispute, and if he maintains a normal balance outside the ring, he should prosper in a financial way during his stay in Manila. vador’s sensational swim from Cavite to Paranaque beach. The plucky Filipino youth, who developed his art in the United States, covered of be The Most Important Shot in Golf is probably the pitch to the green—“the nearer the cups the fewer the putts”—and every stroke counts. Learn to play this shot accurately by using the right club for distance. Come in today. Let us show you some grad uated clubs that are designed to lower scores and heighten enjoyment of this “King of Sports.” BURKES GOLFRITE GRADUATED CLUBS Sold by SQUIRES BINGHAM CO. 15 Plaza Goiti Manila, P. I. effects, the skeptics have changed their attitude and have accepted him with the credit he de serves. His threat to swim from Corregidor to Paranaque is not being taken as an idle boast. He may do it. TN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL