Page 72 - 1901 Pinakidia

Baseball tn the F. A. C.

Ba~eball is probably tlu: mo~t popular of all out-door sports among the .\merican people and it i~ always
true that in a community \\here nine boys can be gathered together that there is some kind of a baseball team
organized.
En•ry true Atnerkan is a lover of baseball, fori~ it not our national game and cid it not originate on our
soil > So it cannot he expected that att enkrprising edttcatiottal institution of to day can get along without a
baseball team .
. \sin years and e,·erything dse though. the F. A. C. is young in baseball. It has always lx.~n a difficult
m·ttter for our h.>ys to in luce the Faculty to allo\\ them to go away from Lake Cit~· to play baseball because it
w.ts thought that it broke into the regular military routine too much. HO\\'e,·er, as far as we ha,·e gone, we ha\·c
always held up our side of the ar,:-untcnt pretty \\·e. I.
The first tinte the [.' ,\. C. di~tinguished itself in the baseball world was in the fall of '97 when under the
management of Lieutenant E. ::\'.Calhoun, and with the well known jot· ,Jfori/1 as captain, our team played a
series of games here with the " Roselatt<b, · of Jacksott\'ille, winning from them three times in succession. This
was during the "Tobacco Fair ' held here at that time, and it is said that the boys of the JackSOIH'ille team ha,·e
refused to smoke cigarettes from that clay to this. lluring the same season, itt the spring of 'g8, a war broke out
\\ith Spain and nutty of our bovs being resolved not to be behind itt helping" l'ttcle Sam," enlisted in the army
and tints our baseball ~tn:ngth was ~adly diminished, and a~ a result, only one more game was played, but itt that
one, the East Florida Seminary met defeat ott our grounds.
l>urittg the next school year, in the fall of gX, very little was done in the way of org.lllizing a baseball
club, but itt the spring following, the old F. A . C. came out with one of the strongest teams they ha,·e ever had .
\\'hen the team was first organized, it seemed that we were short a pitcher, but after a little experimenting,
Rogero, of St. A ugnstine , a man who had ne\·er played in the in-field before was put in the box, and tmly he
developed into a latter day wonder.
The first game of the season was played late in ,\pril in Tallahassee. \\'e went to the Capital expecting
to play the \\'est Florida Seminary boys, but the fact was we played Leon County. The \\'e~t Florida Seminary
bo,·s acknowledged that we \\·ere their ~uperior~ and so, rather than come home without a game we consented to