BASEBALL OR CRICKET.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10756, 30 April 1913, Page 4

BASEBALL OR CRICKET.

NATIONAL SUMMER GAME.

M. A. NOBLE'S PROPHECY

Thero are many who will ridicule the idea that cricket's position as the national summer game is threatened, writes a. convspondevit of the bvdney " Daily Telegraph.'' indeed, there are few persons who will not ridicule the idea. But there remains the fact that one of Australia's and the world's greatest nil-round cricketers is of opinion that cricket is threatened. M. A. Noble says that baseball is gain c: to be our summer game. He snys~ tliut the 'hall game is going to come and that onco it becomes known, the fascination which it holds for the public will do the rest. Talking of baseball recently. Noble said that the game was fast forcing its way to the front, llio one thing keeping it at little better than a standstill was the difficulty of securing grounds. The 'ball gome is full of exciting incidents. lhe marvellous fielding of the cricket field, wonderful catches and quick returns are part, and parcel of baseball. Per interest, rigour, fascination <ind sport cricket is regarded by him as dead when compared with baseball. There is new life being installed into the baseball game this season. Junior Cricket Associations -are forming baseball unions this year. Altogether there is a big move, forward. But when the game obtains the hold that its advocates claim it will secure, what is going to happen? Will baseball bo the summer or the winter game? The first argument is that baseballers are cricketers in most cases. Very few senior cricketers play football. It will therefore be seen that baseball will not affect the footballer. Most of our senior footballers would hardly know the way to handle a bat. Baseball is a game that appeals to the cricketer. The cricketer cannot secure grounds in the winter time. All available space is taken up by the men who indulge in football battles. A well-known junior secretary, giving reasons why the baseball game is likely to become a summer game, says: —"Any game tl;at is instilled' into players whilst they are young will stick to them, or they to it. Our Associations are forming baseball unions for the -winter mouths. But sooner or later the game will take the place of junior cricket on the parks, 'lhe New South Wales Cricket Association does not want us. That body has practically told us so. When we were entertaining visiting junior inter-State teams a little while back, the Junior Union incurred heavy expenses. The Junior Union represents members running into thousands. We applied to the head body for assistance, and received a niggardly donation. The Oricket Association can throw its money about in all directions on occasions, but when it comes to giving some to the nursery from whence all cricketers must come the purse-strings are tightened."

Going on in the same strain, the junior secretary mentions that senior cricketers deny that the Junior Associations are nurseries of the game. " Wait until baseball gets a grip of the juniors, then we'll see whether they are or not," he said. These observations, throwing as they do new light on the subject, seem to indicate that after all there may be reasonable ground for supposing that what Noble and other cricketers assert may come about. If the juniors are coached up to baseball, there are things more unlikely than that cricket will lind solid opposition as the summer game in the course of time. Baseball, with its exciting base running, wonderful pitching, hard hitting, and sometimes marvellous catching, its pace and quickness of action generally, supplies manv of the features that are lacking ui cricket in these days when the craving for exciting spectacles are more and more being looked for. Whether cricket will be ousted bv baseball or not, time alone will tell. Men whose opinions must be respected have made bold assertions.