San Antonio Light and Gazette · San Antonio, Texas · 1909

The only thing we don't like to do is to umpire

San Antonio's amateur scene, May 1909: the Government Hill Tigers played three games in one Sunday, the paper volunteers to arrange games and even organize a league, and draws exactly one line. The only thing we don't like to do is to umpire.

By May of 1909 San Antonio’s amateur game was running hot: “The faster amateur clubs of the city are adopting the fashion of playing two and even three games on Sunday. Yesterday saw several teams in more than one game, and the Government Hill Tigers played three.” Three games in one Sunday. The Tigers went 2 for 3 on the day, if the results column is read charitably.

The paper then makes an offer of real civic generosity. It “would be glad to act as an intermediary between amateur clubs and will handle challenges, arrange games, etc., upon request,” and asks every captain in the city to send in his name and phone number: “let us know who you would like to play next Sunday, and we will do our best to arrange the game.” It will even help found a league: “we are at your service in calling meetings, arranging schedule and organizing.” And then the sentence that proves the sporting editor had been to a ball game: “The only thing we don’t like to do is to umpire.”

Below, the Sunday results roll by like a census of 1909 San Antonio: the Government Hill Tigers, the San Antonio Drug Company, Battery C, the Viaduct Reds, the Jokers and the Saps (Jokers 16, South Flores Streets 5), the Household Furniture Company over Stowers, and the Rieden Blues sweeping a doubleheader from the Red Tops. Somewhere in town the Saps beat the Jokers 5 to 2, and no headline writer touched it. Restraint like that is gone from journalism.