Twenty Years of Harvard Base-Ball.

Old graduates who witnessed the crowds on Holmes field last spring at the occasion of the Yale and Princeton games, exclaimed enthusiastically, "This is like the old games with the Lowells in '67!" And probably enthusiasm over the nine of a year ago was not any greater, if as great, as that over the "Champions" of 1867.

As I said in my last paper, the Harvard nine, confident of success, "went gaily to the fray" like the Knights of Old whom they so much resembled. Their defeat and humiliation followed, and with heavy hearts they began to labor anew.

The college expected little from them, and turned out on the Common on May 15th with gloomy hearts. The day was unfavorable, but the crowds were enormous, packing every inch of the Beacon street wall behind the ropes. The blue uniforms of the Lowells, and the red of the Harvard's made a striking contrast on the field. The crowd favored the Lowells, hooting and cheering, and on one occasion holding a hit to centre field "until the striker and one man got home." Harvard was badly rattled during the first four innings. During the last five, however, they turned the tables on their opponents, scoring twenty-five times to their twelve; but the game was lost, and the Harvard contingent went home very quietly and sadly. Lowell, 37; Harvard, 28.

The splendid play of the Harvard team in the last five innings, however, encouraged their supporters; their "unflinching pluck" in playing a losing game as they did, being loudly praised. "The fielders all did well," said the Advocate, "the captain worked hard and steadily, and will continue to do so. We firmly believe our nine is not irrevocably beaten yet."

This prophesy was happily correct, though it was made in much the same spirit as that which animated a freshman, who saw an unpatriotic classmate betting against the Harvard nine on the game of the 15th, to "run around, offering odds of two to one on Harvard to the muckers, at the end of the fourth inning." It was the "never say die" of Barnaby Rudge's raven over again.

The reorganized nine had several practice games in the meantime, the "Granite" club in particular being noted for its "friendly interest in Harvard," in "kindly consenting to come from Holliston to play practice games with us."

May 24th saw the rivals meet again, this time on Jarvis field. After "endless preliminaries" Lowell took the bat, a little after three o'clock, in the presence of an enormous crowd." The Harvard nine, although batting steadily, fielded miserably during the first three innings, the score standing 15 to 9 against them. Lowell is blanked in the fourth, and Harvard tallies one. Lowell piles up four in runs in the fifth, but Harvard makes eight, on heavy hitting; score, 19 to 18 in favor of Lowell. Lowell finds a goose-egg in the sixth, and Harvard scores two runs amid such "deafening applause" that the umpire calls for silence; score, 20 to 19 in favor of Harvard. "Ether-rending applause, and sun-darkening cloud of flying beavers." Lowell scores two runs and Harvard five; score, 25 to 21. In this inning "man or carriage in Jarvis street muffs foul badly off Smith; seeing which, Smith begins a series of fouls, one of which drops the ball in a swamp and renders necessary a new one." How like the playful habit of "our Clarence!" In the eighth, both sides score four runs, a "fat man in a carriage" stopped another hot foul. The ninth was short and gloriously decisive." Lowell makes one run and Harvard three. "Ecstatic joy and tumultuous congratulations for about five minutes." The nine is carried off in triumph. Mr. J. T. Harris presented it in its tent with a superb trophy in the shape of an ebony bat mounted with silver and gold. The umpire, Mr. Hayhurst, gave "perfect satisfaction!" Harvard, 32; Lowell, 26.

The third and decisive game of the series was played on the Olympic grounds at Medford, on June first. It began at 3.40 and ended at 7 p.m., being delayed by the "perverseness of the crowd, and the inability of the Medford police to keep them back." The Harvard nine went on to the field with their "tails up," took the lead at the start and kept it to a finish, blanking Lowell three times. The audience was partisan and disgusted with the game, and several times pushed into the diamond and stopped the playing. At one time, during the sixth inning, there was a long intermission for a fight between two egotistic and excited bystanders; cause of fight unknown, ditto, result." All this, though, had the effect of heightening the excitement of the Harvard contingent, when they saw the Lowell audience making every effort to bully them out of the game. Their enthusiasm at the end was boundless, and when they finally realized that the score, Harvard, 39, Lowell, 28, meant victory and the Silver Ball, there was, -

"One stormy gust of long-suspended Ahs,

One whirlwind chaos of insane huzzas."

The players who had principally distinguished themselves were presented with rosewood bats, silver-mounted, and made the heroes of the day. The Advocate "hates to make distinction in a game where all did so well," but feels bounds to call attention to the magnificent play of Shaw. Parker's fielding, and Hunnewell's, Shaw's and McKim's, "terrific batting."

Thus ended the great games with the Lowells, where excitement over athletics between town and gown rose to a higher height than it ever did before, and probably ever will again.