| The very symbol, the outward and visible
expression of the drive, and push, and rush and struggle of the raging,
tearing, booming nineteenth century! - speech at Delmonico's, April 8, 1889 |
 Illustration by Homer Davenport in Albert G.Spalding's America's National Game |
| It was a project of mine to replace the tournament with something which might furnish an escape for the extra steam of the chivalry, keep those bucks entertained and out of mischief, and at the same time preserve the best thing in them, which was their hardy spirit of emulation. I had had a choice band of them in private training for some time, and the date was now arriving for their first public effort. |  |
This experiment was baseball. In order to give the thing vogue from the start,
and place it out of the reach of criticism, I chose my nines by rank, not capacity.
There wasn't a knight in either team who wasn't a sceptered sovereign. As for
material of this sort, there was a glut of it always around Arthur. You couldn't
throw a brick in any direction and not cripple a king. Of course, I couldn't
get these people to leave off their armor; they wouldn't do that when they bathed.
They consented to differentiate the armor so that a body could tell one team
from the other, but that was the most they would do. So, one of the teams wore
chain-mail ulsters, and the other wore plate-armor made of my new Bessemer steel.
Their practice in the field was the most fantastic thing I ever saw. Being ball-proof,
they never skipped out of the way, but stood still and took the result; when
a Bessemer was at the bat and a ball hit him, it would bound a hundred and fifty
yards sometimes. And when a man was running, and threw himself on his stomach
to slide to his base, it was like an iron-clad coming into port. At first I
appointed men of no rank to act as umpires, but I had to discontinue that. These
people were no easier to please than other nines. The umpire's first decision
was usually his last; they broke him in two with a bat, and his friends toted
him home on a shutter. When it was noticed that no umpire ever survived a game,
umpiring got to be unpopular. So I was obliged to appoint somebody whose rank
and lofty position under the government would protect him....The first public
game would certainly draw fifty thousand people; and for solid fun would be
worth going around the world to see. Everything would be favorable; it was balmy
and beautiful spring weather now, and Nature was all tailored out in her new
clothes.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Baseball illustration
by E. W. Kemble from the Dave Thomson collection. Kemble was the artist who
illustrated the first edition of ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
Also see the Special Feature at this site: Mark Twain and Baseball
Quotations | Newspaper Articles | Special Features | Links | Search