Clipping:A defense of professional athletes
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| Date | Thursday, January 23, 1868 |
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| Text | ...Ministers, Physicians and Lawyers who have earned their degrees and diplomas at College are professionals of the highest class, as are Editors, reporters, lecturers and actors, each and all of whom are professionally skilled in certain mental attributes, the results of natural ability trained to excellency by judicious education. The second class of professionals includes those who excel as Gymnasts, Equestrians, Acrobats, Pedestrians, Jockeys, Rowers, Cricketers, Billiardists, Ball Players, and of late years Skaters, all of whom may be as justly termed professionals as the former, the difference between them being that the one class excel as practical exponents of the highest degree of educated skill in mental attributes, while the other class are specimens of physical excellence, fully developed by thorough training. As with the Lawyer or Physician, whose professional status is degraded by the actions of the pettifogger or quack, so it is with the professional athlete, whose reputation suffers from the class who lower their occupation by degrading association, dissipated habits, and too frequently dishonest practices. With the higher class of professionals whose working capital is based upon mental talent, the black sheep of the flock are the exception and not the rule. With those who excel in physical attributes, however, the contrary, unfortunately, is the case, and hence the term “professional,” which in the one case is an honor, in the other is too frequently applied as a title, almost the very reverse of honorable. How frequently do we hear the remark, “Oh, he’s only a professional,” applied to men who use God’s gifts of physical talent, in the place of the higher gifts of the mind, to earn their bread. Now this reproachful sentence is simply the result of the fact that the majority of those who excel in physical prowess or skill, are not men of moral habits or integrity of character, but a class to easily led into evil habits and degrading associations. We do not see the justice of making the minority of a class suffer for the evil practices of the majority, and therefore we enter our protest against the injustice of making this term “professional,” as applied to those excel naturally or by judicious training in any physical sport or exercise, one calculated to lower them in the estimation of the community. ... It is in this connection that we regard the question of “professionals” in the ball playing fraternity, and hence our efforts to remove the stigma upon this class, applied by the rules of the National Association in their enactments against “professionals” as a class of players. Why should it necessarily follow that, because one ball player, out of a number who use their skill to earn money, is an ignorant fellow, vulgar in manners, low in language, and dishonest in his practices, all should be so? As well charge all doctors with being quacks, and all lawyers with being legal swindlers. On the contrary, it should be the object of the Association to give this class of players an incentive to honorable conduct, and not, by degrading the position, drive them into the arms of those whose whole efforts are used to secure recruits for the army of criminals which is rapidly overrunning the land. |
| Source | American Chronicle of Sports and Pastimes |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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