Enthusiasm at Baseball Games.

(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest, but assume no responsibility for sentiments expressed under this head.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

When we go out to the baseball field, let us show the team and the visitors that we are interested in our college, interested in the players, and interested in the game. We should show it by staying through the game; we should show it more by signs of life and enthusiasm.

I am as great a believer as anyone in the idea of courtesy to visitors, no chattering on the field, no attempts to confuse the other pitcher, and the abandonment of the old style idea of continuous organized cheering. But in getting away from unsportsmanlike methods, aren't we leaning too far the other way?

When a finely played game goes through with hardly a sign of approval, it looks as if those repeated warnings to the Harvard undergraduate about organized cheering were taking the life out of him. The team ought to be cheered when they start in, and cheered lustily and heartily; the team ought to be cheered when they get through the game, whether they win or lose, and it should not be left for the eleven or twelve men on the squad alone to raise their cheer for the other team. Good plays ought to be cheered, and good attempts at plays ought to be cheered. Even little Amherst, with a bunch of twenty or twenty-five men, showed more life and enthusiasm than the whole of Harvard at the Amherst game on Soldiers Field.

It's a great mistake not to have Harvard get into the game. If there is anybody in the spectators' seats who is expert at ping-pong or bridge-whist, and does not appreciate the hard work and intense interest the coach and the players are putting into the game, whatever the result, let him at least stop coming down to the field simply to criticise and offer namby-pamby suggestions. Let him show rather that he has some spirit, energy and enthusiasm.

Simeon Ford, when they applauded him at an after-dinner speech, said: "That applause warms the cockles of my heart. I don't know what the cockles of the heart are, but it warms them." Every player and every Harvard man has got cockles of his heart that can be warmed by applause. Don't be afraid of what the other fellow thinks because you are enthusiastic, but show your own interest-get the ball rolling. You don't need organized cheering, but it doesn't do a bit of harm to have some leader out in front to start the applause. We do not want the old talk about Harvard indifference to revive. It will, if you don't get into the game more. OLD GRADUATE.