Life, 1913-07-10 · page 16 of 44
Life — July 10, 1913 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous dialogue between "Life" magazine and personified "Baseball," complaining that Life doesn't cover the sport adequately despite its popularity. **The Setup:** Baseball calls Life's editor demanding more coverage, claiming other publications feature it daily with scientific articles. **The Satire's Point:** Life's editor explains they won't cover baseball extensively because: 1. It's become **too scientifically analyzed**—every move is calculated like trigonometry problems, leaving nothing for satirists to mock 2. Baseball is **too smooth and scandal-free**—there's no controversy to exploit 3. **Baseball isn't "saving the country,"** unlike genuinely dangerous social causes that invite lampoons and cartoons **The Joke:** Life magazine, a satirical publication, exists to mock and criticize. Baseball is too well-organized, too popular, and too uncontroversial to satirize effectively. The editor politely tells Baseball its virtue is actually its weakness—good behavior makes for bad satire. The accompanying illustration shows a futurist home run, playing on the scientific language discussed in the dialogue.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
On Life's Wire “HE LO, is that Lire?’ Yes. Who is it speaking?’ “Fhis is the Baseball Fax “Glad to hear your voice, but you scem a bit hoarse. Must have been an exciting game to-day, What can we, do for you “Well, what 1 want to know is this: Why don't you have more in your paper about baseball? Don't you consider it respectable?” “Oh yes. Most assuredly. Perfectly respectable and honorable.” “Then why don't you give us a page cach week?” casily explained. You ss SW AAS aS aN BS It looks to me as if you had it in for us somehow. All the papers notice us with several pages daily and the magazines have regular scientific articles about us.” “Ah, that’s it exactly. Don't you “What's it? Now don’t give me any hot air. I'm onto your curves. Come right out and tell the truth like a little man, Why is it?” “You shall certainly have the truth, old chap, if you will just give us time to state it, It’s this way ou have become too scientific for us. That is proved beyond a doubt by those maga- zine articles. Every move is more care- fully figured out than a problem in spherical trigonometry.” don't jolly me.” “We're not jollying you. Far from it.” “Do you mean to say that that’s the only reason?” A FUTURIST HOME RUN “Oh, no. We have lots of other reasons. For instance, your baseball affairs go along too smoothly. There is no chance for us to break in.” “Well, I will surely admit you have a good reason there. What else? While you're at it, have you any more reasons?” “Oh, yes. Thousands of them. Here's another. You're not trying to save the country, That's a very important rea- son. There is no man so dangerous as the man who is trying to save the country. That's because the country is too big to be saved all at once. If we thought that of you, we should be after you instanter with lampoon and cartoon, stiletto, dirk, pen point, quip and any other weapon we happened to have handy.” “Um, Lire! There may be something in what you say, but after all, you will have to admit that we do considerable THE UMPIRE ABROAD good.” “yer out!” “OF course you do, but the good is secondary and you comicbooks.com