Baseball and the Bible Endure

Last updated on: November 2, 2017 at 3:05 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

Baseball and the Bible Endure 2017-11-02T15:05:04-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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A7891DDB-5D11-4C44-B1D2-6B9B4F6136ED The young people of the 1907 The Daisy are all gone now, but once they were the future and they could not wait to create the new world. But be warned innovators and revolutionaries, these young women and men wanted to make sure the old ways were preserved too.

They knew change was coming, embraced it, and then looked to see what they could save from the lives of beloved teachers and parents.

This literary monthly of a fine high school in Brooklyn reflected the best they had or could borrow from other sources.

In the fall of 1907, Teddy was President and the kids were bully, but in a good way. Why not? As was explained in great detail in their literary magazine, both the girls and boys of the Dear Old School were making a mark at some of the Very Best Schools of Higher Education. They were proud of Brooklyn where the lads could get a fine suit in the Bourough that might teach Manhattan a thing or two about style, yet at a better price. (Stop and buy at Abraham and Straus!)

The lads and lasses of The Daisy left long ago for other adventures in other worlds, but as we celebrate one of the best World Series of my lifetime, let’s see what the kids thought about baseball in 1907. They published this wonderful piece:

Proof of the Ancient Origins of Baseball

In Genesis we hear much of the beginning.

Eve stole first, Adam stole second.

Cain made a base hit.

Abraham made a sacrifice.

Noah put the dove out on a fly.

The Prodigal Son made a home-run.

David struck out Goliath.

We hear much of foul flies in Pharoah’s time.

We know that Rebecca was in company with a pitcher.

Judas was a base-man.

Jehu’s team in highly praised.

We hear of the Egyptians’s short stop near the Red Sea.

Ruth and Naomi did good work in the field.

A slave fanned Pharoah.

I knew people in Bible College who would not have gotten the Jehu joke, though the young rogues at Eastern missed any easy crack when they used “beginning” instead of Big Inning. The jokes are not very good, but literate. Read The Daisy and the innocence is overwhelming along with the erudition. The times were bad for the folks trapped in the margins, but if you made it to a place like Eastern, then you were set and plenty of people made it to Eastern.

Much they valued is lost and much they took for granted is gone, but baseball and the Bible endure. I am listening to a 1937 (or so) Philco that the Eastern lads would have thought high tech, but that my adult children find charming.

I have no doubt that if time could be torn and the girls and boys of Eastern could come here, they would be excited and disgusted. The Philco would fascinate, but the morality of our time would horrify. We fixed some obvious errors, but burned up the twentieth century in world wars and cold wars. Did we incinerate all their sincerity and many of their lives so we could consume our days with Facebook? Are we so sure that our innovations have made us better? Or is our progress simply an excuse for decadence?

Maybe. Maybe not.

They would have been too polite to mention it, too manly to snigger, and we might not catch the literary reference they made in response to our problems. We do still have the Bible and baseball.

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We first looked in on the fast times at Eastern here.

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