In preparing this issue of SPALDING'S OFFICIAL BASE BALL GUIDE for the season of 1913, it has occurred to the Editor that the season of 1912, and the period which followed its completion, have been filled, with a great deal of unusual and uncommon vicissitude.

In the first place the personnel of the National League, the oldest Base Ball organization in the world, has been greatly changed by reason of death and purchase of one franchise. New owners have brought new faces into the game, and when the National League starts on this year's campaign there will be some younger but equally as ambitious men at the heads of some of the clubs.

The players have effected an organization. That, too, is an incident of interest, for it is well within the memory of the Base Ball "fans" of this day what happened when another organization was perfected in the past. For this organization it may be said that the members promise that it will be their object to bring about better deportment on the part of their own associates and that they will work their best for the advancement of Base Ball from a professional standpoint. If they do this they will be of benefit to the sport. If they work from selfish motives it is inevitable that eventually there will be a clash, as there was in the past.

The last world's series which was played was the greatest special series of games which has been played in the history of the national pastime. There may have been single games and there may have been series which have attracted their full measure of interest from the Base Ball "fans," but there never has been a special series so filled with thrills and excitement as that between the New York and Boston clubs. The GUIDE this year enters into the subject thoroughly with photographs and a story of the games and feels that the readers will enjoy the account of the contests.

Some innovations have been attempted in this number of the GUIDE which should interest Base Ball readers. Attention is called to the symposium by prominent Base Ball writers which brings up a subject of interest in regard to future world's series. There are other special articles, including something about the Base Ball writers of the South, who have decided to organize a chapter of their own.

The year 1912 was one of progress and advancement on the part of Base Ball throughout the world. To-day it not only is stronger than ever as America's national game but it is making fast progress in other countries because of the attractiveness of the pastime.

The Editor of the GUIDE wishes its thousands of readers an even more enjoyable Base Ball year in 1913 than they had in 1912. This publication is now one of worldwide circulation, and carries the gospel of Base Ball, not only across the Atlantic ocean, but across the Pacific ocean as well. One of these days it may be its province to report a series for the international championship, and then Base Ball will have become the universal game of the world, a place toward which it is rapidly tending.

THE EDITOR.

EDITORIAL COMMENT

Table of Contents

BY JOHN B. FOSTER.

PROGRESS OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL GAME

Two more nations have been conquered by the national game of the United States; a whole race has succumbed to the fascinations of the greatest of all outdoor sports. Both France and Sweden have announced their intention of organizing Base Ball leagues. That of Sweden is well under way. Indeed, they have a club in Stockholm and there are more to follow, while the French, who have gradually been awakening to the joys of athletic pastime in which they have hitherto chosen to participate in other ways, hope to have a new league by the expiration of the present summer.

There is no doubt as to their intention to play Base Ball. They are making efforts to procure suitable players from the United States to coach them and the French promoters of the sport are determined that their young men shall be given every opportunity to take advantage of the game of which they have heard so much, and have seen so little.

Last year in the GUIDE it was the pleasure of the editor to call attention to the fact that the Japanese had so thoroughly grasped Base Ball that they were bent on some day playing an American team for the international championship. It is not probable that such a series will take place within the next five years, but not improbable that it will take place within the next decade. When the Japanese learn to bat better, and with more effect, they will become more dangerous rivals to the peace of mind of the American players. They have grasped the general theory of the game amazingly well, and they field well, but they have yet to develop some of those good old fashioned "clean up" hitters in which the "fans" of the United States revel.

This season it comes to the attention of the editor of the GUIDE that more progress has been made in China in regard to Base Ball than in any fifty years preceding. True, there was not much Base Ball in the fifty years preceding, but now there is. There is a league at Hong Kong. There are Base Ball teams at Shanghai and other cities.

Dr. Eliot, former president of Harvard, who recently returned from a trip around the world, holds that Base Ball has done more to humanize and civilize the Chinese than any influence which has been introduced by foreigners, basing his statement on the fact that the introduction of the sport among the younger Chinese has exerted a tremendous restraint upon their gambling propensities.

It is a rather queer fact that where the civilizations are older in the countries of the Occident there is a greater tendency to gamble, especially among the young, than there is in the newer America. Doubtless this is largely due to the lack of athletic pastime. The young of those countries know little or nothing about simple amusements which are so popular in the United States, and acquire

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