Page:America's National Game (1911).djvu/281

 CHAPTER XVIII.

1888-89

N EVENT of considerable importance in its influence upon the American national game was the world's tour of Professional National League Base Ball Players in the winter of 1888-89. Base Ball had been advancing in popularity with such rapid strides in our own land during preceding years, that I felt the time had come when this great pastime should be introduced wherever upon the globe conditions were favorable to our peculiar form of outdoor sport. The first Base Ball tour abroad, it will be remembered, had been to the British Isles in 1874. It was quite natural, therefore, that, in mapping out this new enterprise, attention should be diverted to the opposite direction. It was known that many Base Ball lovers lived in the Hawaiian Islands, and that the British colonists of the South Pacific Isles, New Zealand and Australia, were nearly all devotees of field sports, for they had a racial love for outdoor games and enjoyed a climate that made their playing possible nearly the entire year. To the Antipodes, then, the tour was first proposed, and Mr. Leigh S. Lynch, who had wide experience as a manager of dramatic enterprises, was sent to Australia, via 251