question: Is any argument required to prove that the standard of Base Ball has steadily been elevated? answer: Maybe paragraph: While the Base Ball writers of the cities which comprise the Southern Association have no organized membership similar to the Base Ball Writers' Association of the major leagues and the organizations which are best known as the class AA leagues, they are a clever, hard-working group of young men, who have labored in season and out of season, not only to build up Base Ball but to build it up on the right lines.  Experience of more than a quarter of a century has most abundantly proved that the standard of Base Ball has steadily been elevated.  It needs no compilation of fact nor any dogmatic assertion on the part of the Editor of the GUIDE to attest that fact.  It is a present condition which speaks for itself.  The general tone of the players is far higher than it was and there has come into evidence a marked improvement in the spirit of the men who own Base Ball clubs.  In the earlier history of the sport there was a tendency to win by any means that did not actually cross the line of dishonesty.  Later there came a season when the commercial end of the game tended to encroach upon the limits of the pastime.  This has been repressed in the last two seasons and to-day the morale of Base Ball is of a higher type than it ever has been in the history of the pastime. 