Starting this evening, the New Market Rebels will play the Woodstock River Bandits in Valley League action three times this week. It seems only appropriate then, to present the following nugget, mined from the archives of the Northern Virginia Daily, concerning a contest between the Woodstock Rotarians and the Woodstock Athletic Club. I found this gem while conducting research for Shenandoah Summer: Safe at Home in New Market, Virginia. Penned by one W. B. Allen for the May 25, 1933 edition, this account is clear illustration that they just don't write 'em like they used to!
The score was 4-3 in favor of the Woodstock Rotarians against the Woodstock Athletic Club in a hot game of baseball played on Seibert Field in Woodstock yesterday. And when we say hot, we mean thermometrically and temperamentally caloric, for the sun beat down pitilessly on the quasi-decrepit players of other years and caused plays which would make Connie Mack enter a monastery. It was a good game however, with plenty of thrills from long drives toward the cemetery which was the deadline, to the bursted pants of Third Baseman Rotarian Tavenner and the attempts to retrieve the pill by Rotarian Ott Pence, whose movements were as pachydermic as they were graceful . . . Johnny Luther Lytton, who knows more about baseball than Mugsy McGraw, and whose vocabulary was acquired outside of a Sunday School, with B. W. Coffman umpired the game.
I'm not sure that we conclude anything about how baseball was played in 1933, but it is obvious that the fans of that era had a much better vocabulary than we do!
"...quasi-decrepit players of other years..."---what a classic! I'm going to quest for moments to use that little gem!
Posted by: Melissa Dodge | June 15, 2009 at 09:48 AM