1872.2

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Pro Players Disparaged in Newspapers As Worthless, Dissipated, Buyable

Salience Noteworthy
City/State/Country: Titusville PA, New York NY, United States
Game Base Ball
Immediacy of Report Contemporary
Age of Players Adult
Text

"The professional player, aside from his personal character, is not precisely a majestic object . . . .  Not to put too fine a point upon it . . . is usually a worthless dissipated gladiator; not much above the professional pugilist in morality and respectability. . . . It is only necessary for the gambler who has large sums at stake to buy him, in order to make certain of winning his bets."

Sources

 Base Ball: The Professional Player, Titusville (Pa.) Herald March 12, 1872.  Ascribed to the  the New York Times of March 8, 1872.

Comment

 

Richard Hershberger' FB commentary, 3/12/2022:

"150 years ago in baseball: A discussion of professional ball players. It is not complimentary. It would take decades for this attitude to disappear entirely. Note in particular the assumption that of course a professional will throw a game if you pay him enough." 

Richard Hershberger, subsequent email to Protoball,  3/12/2022: "Titusville adapted this from the NY Times of March 8. Some other papers also picked it up. T t is hard to say just how widespread this] the attitude was, but it certainly [was] in the air. In Zane Grey's [1906]novel The Shortstop, when the protagonist tells his mother he has decided upon a career as a professional baseball player, she bursts into tears at that ruination of her son."
 

 

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Query

Any idea who might have written this little barb at the NYT?  Was it widely quoted in the US?

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Source Image
Worthless dissipated pro 1872.jpeg
Submitted by Richard Hershberger
Submission Note FB posting 3/12/2022



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