Plan to Play Ice Baseball

1915

Big Leaguers Get a New Idea — Scheme In the Making

Winter baseball played on the ice by major leaguers will be offered to New York fans who can't get enough of the old ball game in the summer, if plans of the promoters pan out.

"Wild Bill" Donovan, Heine Zimmerman, Rube Oldring and Harry McCormick are the promoters, and they reason it this way:

The winter rent on the Polo grounds could be paid from the proceeds of the skating ball game; the games would be played on skates with an indoor baseball; the ice would benefit the sod of the field, and the tariff on pleasure skaters when games are not in progress would leave a nifty profit.

The plans are only in the making, however.


Athletics Sign Boy of Seven?

The claim has often been made that Connie Mack, manager of the Philadelphia American League team, signs his ballplayers when they are infants, and Jack Doyle, Chicago White Sox scout, claims to have the dope in one case.

"I got a tip on Davies, an outfielder," says Doyle, "watched him in several games and decided to sign him.

"I found he had been signed by Connie Mack when he was only 7 years old. He is only 17 now and was with Mack's team last season."

Signature of the Cross, Signing with an "X"

1874

The mark which persons, who are unable to write are required to make instead of their signatures, is in the form of a cross; and this practice having been formerly followed by kings and nobles, is constantly referred to as an instance of the deplorable ignorance of ancient times.

This signature is not, however, invariably a proof of such ignorance. Anciently the use of the mark was not confined to illiterate persons; for among the Saxons the mark of the cross, as an attestation of the good faith of the person signing was required to be attached to the signature of those who could write, as well to stand in the place of the signature of those who could not write. In those times, if a man could write, even read, his knowledge was considered proof that he was in holy orders. The clericus, or clerk was synonymous with penman; and the laity, or people who were not clerks, did not feel any urgent necessity for the use of letters.

The ancient use of the cross was therefore universal, alike by those who could and those who could not write; it was indeed the symbol of an oath, from its sacred associations, as well as the mark generally adopted. Hence the origin of the expression, "God save the mark," as a form of ejaculation approaching the character of an oath.


The Friendship of Men

I know nothing which life has to offer so satisfying as the profound good understanding which can subsist, after much exchange of good offices, between two virtuous men, each of whom is sure of himself and of his friend. It is a happiness which postpones all other gratifications and makes politics and commerce and churches cheap. For, when men shall meet as they ought, each a benefactor, a shower of stars, clothed with thoughts, with deeds, with accomplishments, it would be the festival of nature which all things announce. — Ralph Waldo Emerson.