Page:The Sunday Eight O'Clock (1916).pdf/169

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Playing the Game

I HAVE always liked sport and sportsmen. I have never admired the man who goes into a game of any sort and who does not play it squarely and who does not take the results without whining and detailed explanation of how it all happened.

The man who takes a chance, or makes a bargain, or accepts a condition, or gives his word, and who then resorts to subterfuge or who shirks his obligations because the cards turn against him or conditions prove unpleasant or more strenuous than he had counted on, is a poor sportsman. He plays the game badly. It has seemed to me a not unimportant part of a man's training to learn to lose and not to snivel.

The fellow who calls a fault when his opponent's ball just cuts the line, the golfer who surreptitiously shoves his ball over