Page:America's National Game (1911).djvu/419

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AMERICA'S NATIONAL GAME
387

of the best material in the big States leagues came from over there. He mentions Arthur Irwin, Tip O'Neill, Bob Emslie, Dr. Pete Wood, saying that these were all old-timers who made good when the game was young. But now the good ones, like bargains at a country auction, are "too numerous to mention." Catchers Clarke, of Cleveland; Gibson, of Pittsburg; McLean, of Cincinnati, and Archer, of Chicago, are all "Canucks." Pitchers Grohan, Hardy, Graney and Hollingsworth all claim Canada as their native heath. Congalton, of Boston; O'Hara, of Baltimore, and Jimmy Cockman, of Newark, belong across the border.

The opposition of Britons everywhere to professionalism in the realm of sport has militated to some extent against the quality of the game in Canada, for the reason that ambitious youngsters, as soon as they prove fit, come to the States, where, if they are up in the game, they find ready employment at good salaries.

The trip of the Chicago and All-America teams to Australia, in 1888, planted Base Ball seed in a fertile soil, where the sport has been growing in popularity ever since. It is difficult for one who has not visited the provinces of Great Britain to understand how slow the people of those countries are to take on any new thing, especially anything that had not its origin and development in the mother country. The peoples of Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania are nearly all of British derivation. Either English, Scotch, Welsh or Irish, they know little else than that which they have derived from British sources. Taught from infancy to revere and play the sports of