University of Virginia Library

Uncle Josh Plays a Game of Base Ball

I HAD heered a whole lot 'bout them games of foot ball they have in New York, so while I was thar I jist cum to the conclusion I'd see a game of it, so went out to one of their city pasters to see a game of foot ball. Wall now I must say I didn't see much ball playin' of any kind. All I got to see wuz about fifty or sixty ambulances, and I think about that many surgons and phisicians. Wall, from what I could see of the game I calculate they needed all of them. I saw one feller and 'bout fifty others had him down, and it jist looked as though they wuz all trying to get a kick at him. They had a half back and a quarter back; I suppose when they got through with that feller he wuz a hump back. Anyhow, if that's what they call foot ball playin', your Uncle Josh don't want any foot ball in his'n.

I never played but one game of ball in

[Description: Image of Uncle Josh being rammed by a billy goat]

my life that I kin remember on, and don't believe that I ever will forgit that. You see it wuz along in the spring time of the yeer, and the weather wuz purty warm and sunshiny, and the boys sed to me, "Uncle, we'd like to have you help us play a game of base ball." I sed, "Boys, I'm gittin' a little too old fer those kinds of passtimes, but I'll help you play one game, I'll be durned if I don't." Wall, we got out in the paster and wuz gittin' ready to play; we got the bases and bats put around in thar places, and a buckit of drinkin' water up in the fence corner, whar we could get a drink when we wanted it. We didn't have any bleechers, but we had thirty or forty hogs, and they wuz the best rooters you ever seen; jist then I happened to look around and thar wuz the biggest billy goat I ever saw in all my life. You ought to seen the boys a-gittin' out of the paster; I would hav got out too, but I got stuck in the fence. Wall, you ought to hav seen that billy goat a-gittin' me through the fence. He didn't git me all the way through, cos I wuz half way through when he got thar; but he got the last half through. I didn't make any home run, but I wuz the only feller what had a score of the game; I couldn't see the score, but I had it. Every time I'd go to sot down I knowed jist exactly how the game stood.

They hav a good many new fangled games now, but when they git anything that can beet a game of base ball with a billy goat fer a battery, durned if I don't want to see it.