BASE-BALL.

I DESIRE to make known in the columns of your paper the true state of things in regard to the arrangement of games this year with Yale and Princeton. All the statements that I have seen so far have been erroneous. We shall play a game with the Princeton Nine on Saturday, May 15, in Princeton, not in New York. The Princeton Nine wish to play us a return game in Boston about the last of this month. The games with Yale have not yet been arranged. I have written to Yale, offering to go to New Haven or to Hartford on any day that will be convenient for them, but they say that all their Saturdays are taken up, and as Saturday is the only day on which they can play, there seems to be no chance of arranging a meeting. Mr. Avery, Captain of the Yale Nine, came up to see me early this year, and, after talking the matter over, we decided that it would be better not to go to Saratoga this year, and determined to arrange matters so that the games could be played as in former years, that is to say, during term-time, and on the grounds of the colleges.

Our arrangements were, accordingly, partially made, when I received a letter from Mr. Avery saying that the feeling of Yale was strongly opposed to playing the games anywhere but at Saratoga, or, at any rate, before the close of the term. I wrote back saying that we had gone so far here, that I did not wish to change; that, in fact, we could not change. Since that time I have received no definite answer as to whether they intend to play us this year or not. By the statement in one of the papers, the other day, that the Yale Nine had arranged to play ten games with professional clubs, I cannot understand why they could not find time to play two or three games with Harvard.

If, instead of friendly contests and pleasant visits between colleges, we are to have all the hard work of practice for no other purpose than to play against men who make base-ball a means of support, I am afraid that the old exciting times of base-ball are over.

S. H. HOOPER,Pres. H. U. B. B. C.