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This incident opens anew a topic that has created considerable discussion for several years, and which was brought most forcibly to the public eye by a number of cases that occurred during the season of 1894, namely: Has the rough, rowdy, disreputable, hoodlum element increased or decreased in the professional arena in the past five or ten years? Further on he adds:
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Any intelligent, unprejudiced student of the game cannot but reach the conclusion that in recent years the excessive drinkers, the foul-mouthed talkers, in short, the worst element in the professional ranks, has been gradually weeded out, until the evil has been reduced to almost a minimum, while the intelligence, manliness and exemplary habits of the players have increased correspondingly; where, even five years ago, a ball team could be found where a majority of its players were of the drinking, gambling, disreputable class, to-day can be seen the results of a great and gratifying reform in the personnel of the teams, brought about largely by the efforts of the management, who have had their eyes opened to the trend of public opinion, and have gradually gotten rid of this unpopular element, and secured in their places players of a far different plane of morals. Judging from reports of contests in the League arena in 1894, the reformation above referred to has been far too slow in its progress for the good of the game. Witness the novelty in League annals of men fighting each other or striking umpires on the field, the use of vile language in abuse of umpires, and the many instances of
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ball playing recorded against the majority of the League club teams of the past season.
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The time was, says the same writer,
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The growth and development of our national game as been wonderful. Its success has been unparalleled in the world's history of athletic sports, and stands to-day a living monument to the courage, energy and perseverance of the American people. When we pause a moment in our contemplation of the brilliant future of our game and turn a glance back over the past, and try to realize that less than one generation has lived since the birth of base ball, and our fathers guided its first feeble steps, even we Americans, familiar with progress unequaled in the history of the world, are forced to marvel at the rapid growth of this athletic sport. Further on, on the same topic, Mr. Bell says very truly:
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While base ball has advanced with great strides, its growth has been normal and healthy. Its success is not the result of a boom, giving it a fictitious value, its prosperity is not as an inflated balloon that will collapse when torn by the knife of adversity. It is but a creation of man, and while its life has been one of unequaled prosperity it has suffered, as do all things of this earth. One factor has ever been potent in its success and that is honesty. The honesty of the game has always been its motto, and though often assailed has still remained intact. This, alone, has gained for baseball a foothold in the hearts of the American people that nothing can dislodge. Americans are known the world over as lovers of fair and honest sport, and to base ball they have given their unswerving allegiance. Here is a merited compliment to the National League from the same able pen:
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Our national game was never so firmly established in the hearts of the people as at the present time. It is safe in the hands of true and tried men, who are devoting their lives to its success. It is dominated and controlled by that grand old organization, the National League, which for twenty years has been the great exponent of the game, and has done more to advance the game than any other factor. The League has, during its life, stood on one platform, honesty and purity in base ball,