layers.
They do not want strength, but agility and suppleness; besides, the
straining of some small muscle or tendon may incapacitate one for the
entire season, or even permanently. Right here is the objection to
turning loose a party of ball players in a gymnasium, for spring
practice. The temptation to try feats of strength is always present, and
more than likely some one will be injured.

The best preliminary practice for a ball player, outside of actual
practice at the game, is to be had in a hand-ball court. The game itself
is interesting, and one will work up a perspiration without noticing the
exertion; it loosens the muscles, quickens the eye, hardens the hands,
and teaches the body to act quickly with the mind; it affords every
movement of the ball field except batting, there is little danger from
accident, and the amount of exercise can be easily regulated. Two weeks
in a hand-ball court will put a team in better condition to begin a
season than any Southern trip, and in the end be less expensive to the
club.

But whatever preliminary work is found advisable or necessary to adopt,
the player should be particular in the following: Having determined the
amount of exercise best suited to his temperament, he should observe
regular habits, keep the stomach, liver, and skin healthy, attend
carefully to the quality of food taken, and if he takes any stimulant at
all let it be with the evening meal.

CHAPTER III. THE PITCHER.

Of all the players on a base-ball nine, the pitcher is the one to whom
attaches the greatest importance. He is the attacking force of the nine,
the positive pole of the battery, the central figure, around which the
others are grouped. From the formation of the first written code of
rules in 1845 down to the present time, this pre-eminence has been
maintained, and though the amendments of succeeding years have caused it
to vary from time to time, its relative importance is more marked to-day
than at any preceding period. In a normal development of the game the
improvement in batting would unquestionably have outstripped the
pitching, and finally overcome this superiority; but the removal of
certain restrictions upon the pitcher's motions, the legalization of the
underhand throw instead of the old straight-arm pitch, the introduction
of "curve" pitching, and, finally, the unrestricted overhand delivery,
have kept the pitching always in the lead. At several different times,
notably in the rule