Clipping:A vision of the future; an encomium to sport

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Date Sunday, June 20, 1869
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It requires no great stretch of the imagination to see in the future enclosed grounds of vast extent, surrounded by seating accommodations for twenty-five or thirty thousand people, where the public will gather to witness the play of athletes trained and skillful to a degree not yet reached. There is no reason why such a result should not be reached. ... A dozen years ago there was here and there a base ball club; but very few people went to see the matches, and but little honor attached to the performer. He might be a star of the first magnitude, but his light was obscured; and altogether there was something unbusinesslike and unpractical about the whole affair that debarred all but a select few from taking part in it. But, during the interval between that time and the present the gospel of Muscular Christianity has been more fully preached and expounded. It has been shown that a man who can play a good game of ball, run, jump, box, and ride, is a much more agreeable fellow, and much more likely to get on in the world, than another who can only shut himself up in his study and read dull books; that, if a large amount of brains is a good thing, a large biceps is better; and that, though it may be a fine thing to understand the Differential Calculus, or to be able to elucidate obscure–and usually improper–puns in Aristophanes, it is far more profitable to comprehend the full use of your arms and legs, and to avail yourself of them with ease and dexterity.

Source New York Dispatch
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Submitted by Richard Hershberger
Origin Initial Hershberger Clippings

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