Our Baseball Club and How It Won the Championship quotes

Dr. Selby, the staid and dignified village town apothecary, who was walking by the carriage, heard the indignant outburst, and looking up, said with a smile,

“We’ve got the timber here for a first-class nine, Miss Alice, but the thing is to get the timber together.”

Judge Howell, with his grandest manner, said, “If there is any movement to retrieve the honor of Catalpa in the baseball field, please count on my assistance and support.”

And do you pretend to tell me that any light-waisted young fellow, like Will Sprague, for instance, could ever, by all the training in the world, make such a catcher or such a pitcher as Bill?”

It was the old question over again⁠—skill against muscle.

But Judge Howell, whose opinions on all subjects whatever commanded respect, probably gave voice to the average public judgment when he said, “What we want, gentlemen, is muscle and training.

I always thought you had more sense into you than most of the boys around here. You are older than your years, Larry,” and the plain-speaking blacksmith looked admiringly in the young man’s face, “older than your years.”

“Older than your years.”

These words rang in Larry’s ears as he swung himself lightly into his saddle and ambled down the river road to Sugar Grove.

… North looked from the windows with languid interest as the lusty young fellows made a final rush for the cars, followed by the irregular cheers of the bystanders and accompanied by a goodly number of their old associates who were “going to see fair play.”

The conductor, with an affectation of indifference that he did not feel, disdained to look at the surging and animated crowd, but turned his face toward the engine, waved his hand, and shouted “all aboard!” just as if he did not carry Catalpa and its fortunes with him.

The train rolled away, innumerable handkerchiefs and caps waving from its windows, and hearty and long resounding cheers flying after it.

just as if he did not carry Catalpa and its fortunes with him. The train rolled away, innumerable handkerchiefs and caps waving from its windows, and hearty and long resounding cheers flying after it.

A cloud of yellow dust, a hollow rumble of the train on the culvert beyond, a tall column of blackness floating from the engine over the woods, and the Catalpa Nine were gone.

“I never felt so wrought up in all my life,” said Alice Howell, confidentially, to her friend Ida Boardman, as they descended the hill toward the town.

Ben Burton grumbled to himself, and, as he saw how his fellows clustered around Larry, whose brown and shining curls were only now and again visible among the lads who pranced about him, he said to Bill Van Orman,

“Thinks he’s the biggest toad in the puddle; don’t he, Bill?”

Bill, whose nickname was “The Lily,” because he was so big, and red, and beefy, only opened his eyes in surprise.

“Ah!” sighed Alice, as the Catalpas lost the toss and went to the bat at the direction of their antagonists, “that is a bad sign; but I have made up my mind not to notice any more signs, good, bad, or indifferent.”

“A sensible conclusion, child,” said the aunt. “I have heard that baseball players are as superstitious as sailors, and that is one reason why I think that the game must be debasing to the morals of the players.”

Alice laughed loud and long at this, and even the Judge relaxed his face into a smile as he heard the sage observation of the elderly lady before him.