Dennis P
08-09-2008, 03:45 AM
The ball players of the later 19th Century did not always use the King's English. But apparently it could be just as bad in the stands. This report from the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1898 tells such as a story.
CHECK BAD LANGUAGE
Now that the magnates have adopted rules to hold rowdy ball players in check, they should turn their attention to rowdy spectators and take measures to place a quietus on the flow of indecent language which last year rendered some sections of the left bleachers at Milwaukee Park untenable. Epithets of the vilest sort were applied to players, and even in the course of ordinary conversation the loafers who occupied bleacher seats shocked the sensibilities of their neighbors by addressing each other in terms of the most vulgar nature.
Not alone in Milwaukee did this state of affairs exist, but from every city in the Western League similar complaints were received. It is the same way in the National League and in fact every place where baseball is played self-respecting patrons are obliged to listen to a stream of billingsgate as obnoxious as it is unrestricted. No reason can exist for permitting this state of affairs to continue, and the owners of every club in the league, individually and collectively, aided by President Johnson, should make a determined effort to stamp out obscenity among the spectators as well as the players.
A regular patron at Milwaukee park said on the subject yesterday: "For three years I have taken my boys to the baseball games played here, but last year I left my seat in the bleachers and took refuse in the grand stand to avoid listening to the obscenity a number of the spectators fairly reveled in. At every game thirty or forty policemen occupy seats in the grand stand, but hereafter I will advocate placing them in the bleachers to hold the rowdies in check. At no other place of amusement would such a state of affairs be permitted to exist, and why should the baseball club allow loafers to insult the ears of decent people with their vile language? I am not only voicing my personal opinion of the damage this evil is doing baseball, but the sentiments of people who have attended games in Milwaukee for twenty years, and if the magnates want us to patronize them they must hold the rowdy spectators in check."
Dennis Pajot
CHECK BAD LANGUAGE
Now that the magnates have adopted rules to hold rowdy ball players in check, they should turn their attention to rowdy spectators and take measures to place a quietus on the flow of indecent language which last year rendered some sections of the left bleachers at Milwaukee Park untenable. Epithets of the vilest sort were applied to players, and even in the course of ordinary conversation the loafers who occupied bleacher seats shocked the sensibilities of their neighbors by addressing each other in terms of the most vulgar nature.
Not alone in Milwaukee did this state of affairs exist, but from every city in the Western League similar complaints were received. It is the same way in the National League and in fact every place where baseball is played self-respecting patrons are obliged to listen to a stream of billingsgate as obnoxious as it is unrestricted. No reason can exist for permitting this state of affairs to continue, and the owners of every club in the league, individually and collectively, aided by President Johnson, should make a determined effort to stamp out obscenity among the spectators as well as the players.
A regular patron at Milwaukee park said on the subject yesterday: "For three years I have taken my boys to the baseball games played here, but last year I left my seat in the bleachers and took refuse in the grand stand to avoid listening to the obscenity a number of the spectators fairly reveled in. At every game thirty or forty policemen occupy seats in the grand stand, but hereafter I will advocate placing them in the bleachers to hold the rowdies in check. At no other place of amusement would such a state of affairs be permitted to exist, and why should the baseball club allow loafers to insult the ears of decent people with their vile language? I am not only voicing my personal opinion of the damage this evil is doing baseball, but the sentiments of people who have attended games in Milwaukee for twenty years, and if the magnates want us to patronize them they must hold the rowdy spectators in check."
Dennis Pajot