The "When Baseball Was Free Of Problems...Allegedly!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a story titled "The Thrill Of Baseball" which was fist published as an editorial in The Saturday Evening Post on October 13, 1908.  In 1908, the game of baseball was so different than it is today.  There were no cheating scandals, players were smaller in stature, there were no drugs and only whites played the game of professional baseball.  

Jackie Robinson was the first African American major
league baseball (MLB) player.  Jackie Robinson is credited
with breaking MLB's color barrier in 1947.  However, back in
1881 in the American Associaton, a major league at the time,
 Moses Walker and his brother Welday Walker played for the
Toledo Blue Stockings.

The superior edition of the game, which is played today, has made many needed changes to make the game more interesting, dynamic and available to all good players no matter what color, race, or religion they may worship.  But, with the updated version of the game are some unwanted items such as drugs and cheating, but it sadly is a part of our universal society today.  The song, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", was a big hit in the early days of the game and the following editorial was part of the Saturday Evening Post.  I have printed it as it appeared so you can see how important the game of baseball was at the time.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

     In an imperfect and fretful world, we have one institution which is practically above reproach and beyond criticism.  There is no movement afoot to uplift it, like the stage, or to abolish it, like marriage.  No one claims that it is vulgar, like the newspaper, or that it assassinates genius, like the magazines.  It rouses no class passions, and, while it has magnates, they go unhung with our approval.
     This one comparatively perfect flower of our sadly defective civilization is, of course, baseball - the only important institution that the United States regards with a  practically universal, uncritical, unadulterated affection.  The fact doesn't fit any theory, for baseball is somewhat of a trust and monopoly and is operated with an eye to the gate receipts.  
     The strength of baseball is simply that it gets results.  Politics bores, the newspaper irritates, the drama frequently, at best, leaves you in doubt as to whether you have had a pleasant evening, a cold in the head takes the perfume from the rose of matrimony.  But there is no doubt, no bar, no discount upon the thrill of the double play, or the deep joy of the three-bagger.
     "Our One Perfect Institution, " Editorial, October 31, 1908.