, and hoots, and slangy chaff are very different to the decorous
applause of the cricket field, and rather recall an association
football crowd in the Midlands. As a rule not much sympathy or
courtesy is extended to the visiting team, and the duties of an
umpire are sometimes accompanied by real danger.[14] Several features
of the play seem distinctly unsportsmanlike. Thus, it is the regular
duty of one of the batting team, when not in himself, to try to
"rattle" the pitcher or fielder by yells and shouts just as he is
about to "pitch" or "catch" or "touch." It is not considered
dishonourable for one of the waiting strikers to pretend to be the
player really at a base and run from base to base just outside the
real line so as to confuse the fielders. On the other hand the game is
rapid, full of excitement and variety, and susceptible of infinite
development of skill. The accuracy with which a long field will throw
to base might turn an English long-leg green with envy; and the way in
which an expert pitcher will make a ball deflect _in the air_, either
up or down, to the right or left, must be seen to be believed. A
really skilful pitcher is said to be able to throw a ball in such a
way that it will go straight to within a foot of a tree, _turn out for
the tree_, and resume its original course on the other side of it!

The football match between Yale and Princeton on Thanksgiving Day
(last Thursday in November) may, perhaps, be said to hold the place in
public estimation in America that the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race
does in England. In spite of the inclement season, spectators of
either sex turn out in their thousands; and the scene, except that
furs are substituted for summer frocks, easily stands comparison with
the Eton and Harrow day at Lord's. The field is surrounded in the same
way with carriages and drags, on which the colours of the rival teams
are profusely displayed; and there are the same merry coach-top
luncheons, the same serried files of noisy partisans, and the same
general air of festivity, while the final touch is given by the fact
that a brilliant sun is not rarer in America in November than it is in
England in June. The American game of football is a developed form of
the Rugby game; but is, perhaps, not nearer it than baseball is to
rounders. It is played by eleven a side. American judges think that
neither Rugby nor Association football approaches the American game
either in skill or in demand