Charles William Eliot on the curve ball (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Garson O'Toole]

Bill: Great thanks for looking carefully at the report in the Harvard
Magazine and determining that it was a summary.

The post I made originally also included links to what appeared to be
President Eliot's full report of 1892-1893. Here are the links again.
They point into the HathiTrust database:

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015013773679
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015013773679?urlappend=%3Bseq=20

I searched this instance of the report in HathiTrust for words such
as: curve, curved, and pitch; however, I was unable to find a relevant
passage.

The report discussed base-ball, boat-racing, foot-ball, track and
other athletic activities.  Foot-ball and base-ball seemed to receive
the greatest criticism.

[Begin excerpt]
This evil, which is comparatively new, has rapidly increased within
recent years. It is due to an exaggeration of training and practice,
which is caused in turn by an extreme and irrational competition.

This exaggeration of the true function of athletic sports in a
university is in itself a great evil; but other evils have accompanied
the rapid development of interest in the highly competitive sports
both within and without the University. The public interest in
base-ball and foot-ball has made it easy to collect large sums of
gate-money, both on college grounds and on public grounds convenient
to New York and other cities.
[End excerpt]

[Begin excerpt]
The evils which result from the prevailing exaggeration of training
and practice for boat-racing, base-ball, and foot-ball - it has
already been stated that this evil exists to only a slight degree in
track athletics — are therefore confined to a small percentage of the
students.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 2:27 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
<Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: Charles William Eliot on the curve ball (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
>> >> ________________________________________
>> >> From: American Dialect Society
>> >> [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Garson O'Toole
>> >> [adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM]
>> >> Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2012 6:05 AM
>> >> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> >> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Charles William Eliot on the curve ball
>> >>
>> >> Below is a book excerpt that refers to Eliot's supposed statement
>> >> about the deceptive nature of the curve ball. The passage has a
>> >> footnote that points to a precise report authored by Eliot that is
>> >> available in Google Books and HathiTrust. Unfortunately, the report
>> >> does not appear to mention "curve" or "curveball". (The GB search
>> >> seems to be malfunctioning, but the HathiTrust search seems to be
>> >> functioning properly.) Eliot's report is very critical of some
> sports
>> >> at the college level.
>> >>
>> >> Cite: 2000, College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy by
> John
>> >> Sayle Watterson, Quote Page 28, Johns Hopkins University Press,
>> >> Baltimore, Maryland. (Google Books Preview)
>> >>
>> >>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=KFDCUPCIU7kC&q=%22curve+ball%22#v=sn
>> >> ippet&
>> >>
>> >> [Begin excerpt]
>> >> In his 1894 report for the previous school year Eliot let loose his
>> >> first cannonade against college sports, namely baseball, crew, and
>> >> especially football. Like his Puritan forebears, Eliot preached a
>> >> gospel of simple and unadorned truth. He rejected the competitive
> and
>> >> deceptive spirit in college athletics, criticizing, for instance,
> the
>> >> curve ball in baseball because it was designed to deceive the
> batter.
>> >> He also showed extreme distaste for the win-at-any-cost commercial
>> >> spirit of college athletics~what he called "an unwholesome desire
> of
>> >> victory by whatever means." He deplored the way in which
>> >> intercollegiate athletics put colleges in the business of
>> >> entertaining the non-collegiate public. Eliot also criticized the
>> >> amount of time that competitive athletics took from a student's
> daily
>> >> life and the false image of university life which college sports
>> >> projected, a point to which he frequently returned. [Footnote 6]
>> >>
>> >> [Footnote 6 is Ibid and footnote 5 is the following]:
>> >>
>> >> "President Eliot's Annual Report, 1892-93," Harvard Graduates'
>> >> Magazine 2 (Mar. 1894): 376-83. The report was released in February
>> >> 1894.
>> >>
>> >> [End excerpt]
>> >>
>> >> HathiTrust contains Eliot's report of 1892-1893 and it also
> contains
>> >> the issue of Harvard Graduates' Magazine that reprinted the report.
>> >> GB also contains the issue of Harvard Graduates' Magazine. The
> report
>> >> does discuss sports and tricks and surprises. But I could not find
>> >> the saying about the curveballs. Below is an excerpt mentioning
> tricks.
>> >>
>> >> Cite: 1894 March, Harvard Graduates' Magazine, President Eliot's
>> >> Report: 1892-1893, Start Page 374, Subsection: Athletic Sports,
> Start
>> >> Page 376, Quote Page 377, Harvard Graduates' Magazine Association,
>> >> Boston, Massachusetts. (HathiTrust)
>> >>
>> >> http://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101075889087
>> >> http://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101075889087?urlappend=%3Bseq=412
>> >> http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015013773679
>> >> http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015013773679?urlappend=%3Bseq=20
>> >> http://books.google.com/books?id=XoEfAAAAYAAJ&
>> >>
>> >> [Begin excerpt]
>> >> Again an unwholesome desire for victory by whatever means in
>> >> intercollegiate football has perverted the judgment of the players
>> >> and the college public concerning the propriety of 'tricks,'
>> >> surprises, and habitual violations of the rules of the game as
> means
>> >> of winning a victory. In war, stratagems and surprises are
> consistent
>> >> parts of that supreme savagery; but in manly sports new 'tricks'
>> >> practiced in secret sudden novelties, and undetected violations of
>> >> the rules should cloud the joy of victory, and aggravate the
> mortification
>> of defeat.
>> >> [End excerpt]
>> >>
>> >> It is possible that the statement about the curve ball appeared in
>> >> another report form Eliot in this timeframe. I have not looked at
> the
>> >> other reports yet. Alternatively, Eliot's remarks may have led to
> the
>> >> creation of a parody that was later accepted as an accurate
> quotation.
>> >> This is, of course, speculation.
>> >>
>> >> Garson
>> >>
>
> The article that Garson located in  _Harvard Graduates' Magazine_ says
> that it only reproduces a summary that "contains the most important
> matter" of the report that Eliot gave to the Board of Overseers on 10
> Jan 1894.  So the sought-for statement may appear in a full transcript
> of the report.
>
> Of course, that still doesn't explain how the statements took on a
> public life.
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org