 Cavalcade of America, presented by DuPont. Within a glass-enclosed case in the British Museum is an ordinary-looking object, small and round. Thirty centuries ago, an Egyptian youth squeezed some papyrus and grass into a hard, practical mass, wrapped two strips of leather around it and sewed them together to make the first ball. And down in the mudflats of the Sluggish River Nile, that Egyptian boy unwittingly laid the foundation for an American game which would bring enjoyment and the ideals of sportsmanship to generations of men, women and children. A game whose centenary we celebrate this spring, the 100th birthday of our national sport, baseball. As an overture, Don Voorhees and the DuPont Cavalcade Orchestra salute the great national to the ball game. Story of baseball and the Cavalcade of America. A sunny spring day 100 years ago in Cooperstown, New York, a half-dozen young men in their late teens sporting gaily-rippin' straw boaters and peaked-up trousers, were standing on a level grassy field near the Cooperstown Grade School. The oldest, after double bay, picks up a stick from the ground. This field's about the right size. Yeah, it's big enough for a town ball or four-hole cat. Let's get the boys to get it for a game. All right. No, wait a minute, boys. I've got an idea for a new game. Oh, is that why you brought us out here, Ratner? Yes. I've been thinking about it for a long time. I'm going to measure off a square right here. Now, like this. Now, we'll call this home base. Ratner, what is this game of yours? It's like town ball. Only there aren't as many rules and you don't need a crowd of players. Just 11 men to a side. First team to score 21 aces wins. What do you call it? Baseball. It's not a whole lot different from town ball, is it? Well, it could be. What's the most important thing in any game? Strategy. And if we can get rid of some of the rules we have to play by now, like soaking the base runner by throwing the ball at him. That's the best way to put a man out, though. Maybe. But a lot of boys get hurt that way. Listen, if we're going to have a game, let's put some safety and intelligence in it. And let's make it strategic. Make the offensive and defensive elements equal. Lengthen the bases. Allow the team at bat only three out. Sounds a lot better than town ball. Well, I think so. Come on. Let's have a game. So, 100 years ago, out of four old cat and town ball, Baseball was born. When Abner Doubleday was admitted to West Point, he took his idea of Baseball with him. He became captain Doubleday. And there was a Baseball in his match stack when he sighted the first gun in the bombardment of Fort Sumter, almost a quarter of a century later. And during the war between the states, Baseball was one bond which brought the Confederate grade close to the Union Blue. But during the long summer days in the Union prison camps on the Potomac... We're all ready, Yankees. But we've signed a couple of prayers since Randolph and Jackson were released. Do you reckon we could borrow a bowler and a fielder from your home? Why, sure, Johnny. Take your pick. You're carrying the bat first today, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. And I'll turn to choose the umpire, too. Now, we'll choose Gardner again, because he's wounded and can't play anyway. How about it, Gardner? It's all right with me. He's a northerner. Well, what of it? The job of umpire and yes, if we all... Anyway, the war's one thing and baseball's another. Let's go! All right? Play ball! The police surrendered to Grant in Appomattox Courthouse. It was a signal for thousands of soldiers to turn back to their homes. To the new frontier of the West, down to the warm South, and back north to the shops and mills of New England. And to their hometowns, they took a game by now America's own, spreading it wide over the land, and spreading it truly national. In every town square, groups of boys learned to hit a ball and catch it. Learned to get their way behind a pit. They formed their own clubs. In Washington, a national. In Columbus, a capital. In Piscarata, the Buckeyes. In Indianapolis, the Westerns. In St. Louis, the empires. In Chicago, the Excelsior. In Rockford, the borough city. In Brooklyn, the Atlantic. In New York, the Knickerbockers. All over the country, the teams sprang up and formed leagues. By 1867, there were 237 clubs in the National Association of Baseball Players. And by the 70s, men had begun to earn their living by playing baseball. But together with disorganized professionalism, came baseball's worst enemy. As unprincipled men began to wonder if there were not some way to turn a boy's game into a means of crooked gambling. One summer afternoon, under the bleachers in Louisville, Kentucky, two men stand talking to each other in urgent undertone, virtually watching passes by. Do you think it's to them? Sure. How about the pitches? He's a lecture. He's in it. Good. I'll tell the guy up there to bet all he's got. We should clean up big money on this. But it is only a week later when the management of the Louisville baseball team summoned four players to a reckoning. All right, you men. We have sure information that you were involved in deliberately throwing a game to the Red Stockings last week. Now, have you anything to say before I present our evidence? We must have some enemies. I sure would never do a thing like that. Is that all you gotta say? Well, and take a look at these copies of the telegrams. Name you four as having cheated and conspired with cooks and gamblers. Pretty clear evidence. You four men can consider yourselves expelled from organized baseball forever. The courage of the Louisville baseball team's management dealt the first death blow to gambling and cheating in organized baseball. For these leaders of the game were joined by others who refused to see baseball degraded and corrupted. And so one day after the close of the 1876 season, the president of every professional baseball club went a letter. You are requested to attend a meeting as the officials of the National Association of Professional Baseball Players to be held in Room 807, the Grand Central Hotel in New York, on the evening of Tuesday next. Signed William A. Halberd, president of Chicago Baseball Club. That Tuesday night, seven perplexed presidents of baseball clubs filed into William Halberd's suite in the Grand Central. Watched with growing curiosity as William Halberd took out his key, locked his door, flipped the key into his pocket, and turned to face them. Gentlemen, you need to have no fear. I took the precaution of locking my door simply because I want none of you to leave until I've finished. And I want nobody to disturb us. I hope that meets with your approval. I want what's on your mind, Bill. I'll tell you. That's why you're here. We've got to do something about this gambling and arranging in advance which team is going to win in a baseball game. It's wrecking the game. And we all know it. Making a mountain out of a molehill. We're not running a Sunday school picnic. That's pretty obvious. Listen, I don't think I'm talking too much like a Sunday school teacher either. When I say that baseball ought to teach youth all that's best, like what? Strength of character. Sportsmanship, I suppose. Baseball's a man's business. We don't exactly feel comfortable wearing halos. You're a great bunch. Well, all right, boys. Don't forget, I've got the key. And that door's going to stay locked until we make up our minds to rid baseball of organized scoundrelism. Baseball's a game that's going to keep the spirit of America young. And that means clean. And I am telling you exactly how we'll do it. Form a strong national league of baseball clubs. Think it over, boys. That night, in a locked room of the Grand Central Hotel in New York, the National League was born. And through the next three decades, it grew and prospered. They're appeared in the American world of sports, great teams and great names. Flop and some firsts of the mighty slugger. King Kelly's. Slide, Kelly's slide. Buck Keeling's greatest catcher of all time. We, Willie Keeler, get him where they ate. I'm Thomas Wagner, the slugging pirate. Three-fingered Mordecai Brown. Picture of the Chicago Cup. Frank Tantz, the fearless leader. Take her to America Tantz. Then as the century turned, another great league. The American League was formed. New names appeared. New stars to start the baseball family. Chief Spender of the Philadelphia Athletics. Napoleon Lagway. Star of the Keystone Sack. Eddie Collins. Buck, Buck, the million-dollar envelope. The great corniness McGillichunny. Connie Max. And the immortal Big Six, the best-loved player of them all, Christie Matheson. The husky power for right-hander. Christie was bought for the New York Giants by shrew John J. McGraw, who guided him carefully to the heights, while Christie's kindness and sportsmanship won friends all over the country. In 1906, he stood astride the summit of the baseball world. When, for three World Series games, he held the powerful Philadelphia Athletics scholar. But that winter, he sickened with pneumonia and lay near death. Then, one day, the inconsolable McGraw, more Christie's friend than his manager, dropped in on his daily visit to the Big Pitcher's bedside. Hello, Chris Dames. Are they coming again? Right down the middle, John. Hey, what's the trouble with you? You look terrible. Oh, me? Why? I'm feeling swell. You can't kid me, John. You've been talking to the doc. What did he say? Oh, nothing much, Christie. You know those thaw bones, they're all alike. What did he say, John? Oh, something about a layoff or rest. You know, just for a couple of years. A couple of years, why, he's local. Why, I... Hey, John, you don't think... Christie, you're pretty weak, kid. They don't think you... They say you'll never be able to pitch again. John, how many games did you like me to win? That's all right, Christie. How many, John? All right, kid. How about 20? I'll get you more than 20 before I'm through, John. Christie Mathis ensured what training in clean living means when athletes. That winter he regained his health. But although he never could again throw his famous speedball with his old team, he worked long hours perfecting his delivery. And when in the season of 1980 he won not only 20, but 37 games, the sports writers raved about his new delivery. They gave it a name, the fadeaway. Baseball will always honor the memory of Christie Mathis. But baseball meant more to the nation than a parade of colorful names and events. It stirred the humor and the hearts of the people. Indeed, Abner Doubleday's game had become a firmly established tradition, with DeWolf Harper, a great American actor, reciting his literature. Or somewhere in his favorite land, the sun is shining bright, and somewhere fans are playing, and somewhere hearts are light, and somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout. What there is no joy in my deal, mighty Casey has dropped out. And these past baseball expressions became part of the common language of the American people. He's a lefty. He even writes southpaw. You know, I can't even get the first face with this math problem. What a screwball that guy is. No, sir. You're way off base on that one. I didn't have a chance. I had two strikes on me before I started. Let me tell you, he's got plenty on the ball. He wasn't fooling me with all that talk. I know what's on his mind. I can see the curve coming. Baseball, a national game with its own language and literature, and a whole nation singing its song. All over the country, then, as now, baseball was more than the game of famous stars. It was a game that belonged to American boys. Boys like the youngster who 30 years ago was learning a game in Baltimore under the eye of a Catholic priest in a parochial school for often. All right. That's for me, will you? I want to throw some up to George. Sure, Father. All right, George. I'll try this one. That one. Not so good. Not so good. It went over the fence. I did it. I was watching your feet. Pulled you right foot away again. All right, George. I'll try this one. Strike. Missed by a mile. Please, Father. I kept my eye on the ball all the time. George, you'll have to remember not to step away from the ball. You can crack those low-outside pitches into those chess-a-feet if you remember that. You don't want to give a pitcher the chance to think to himself, I know this man's weakness. Low and outside the fan George Herman Rook. George Herman Rook learned his lesson well and started up the role that led to national idolization in the world of sports. From the Baltimore Orioles, he went on to earn his spikes in the big time with a Boston Red Sox. To join the New York Yankees, to blast baseballs out of dozens of parts and establish a home-run record never equal. To throw millions as the home-run king, the Sultan of Swat, the Bambino and the Bay. In boxing, it was Jack Dempsey. In golf, it was Bobby Jones. In football, it was Red Grains. And the most glamorous figure of them all was Baseball's Babe Ruth. But the most important event for Babe Ruth and for his career in baseball took place in the winter of 1922. Around its table in a private dining room in the New York Elks Club, set a score of baseball writers. Their eyes on Babe Ruth and his business manager, Christy Wolves. You fellas all know why I asked you up here. You've all been panning Babe for a year now in your columns. Babe thinks you've been picking on him unfairly. Either you're right or he is. Well, you all told me you'd say anything to his face. You'd say in your columns. Now's your chance to talk it over. All right? Go ahead. Well, I think I can speak for all the boys and I'll say it to his face if it's okay with him. Sure. All right, let's hear it. Okay. You had a great ball player, Babe. Your last season was terrible. It was your own fault. You lay down and quit. You never kept training. Argue with your manager. No control over your temper. Now nobody is picking up to go away with the things you're pulling. You should be a champ, Babe. You're heading towards a first-class chump. Go on, I can take him. Well, Babe, I want to tell you a story. When I was on my way over here tonight, a dirty-faced little kid stopped me on the street and asked me for a dime. I was a little slow-reaching for it and he must have thought I was going to turn him down. So he said real quick, please, Mr. I got to have a dime so I can get me a Babe Ruth cap like the other guys have. You know, Babe, those little kids all over the country they think you're the greatest guy in the world. Yeah. I'm no goody-goody boy and no sap. You fellas all know that. I'm going to straighten up. That's a promise you can put down for Keith. Babe Ruth kept his promise and his name became a legend, fresh in the memories of all who ever saw him play. But even mighty Babe Ruth from the rest of the famous Yankee murderers' row went on and off to stop a team that swept all before it just ten years ago. The third of the great Philadelphia Nine, Carly Mack's third set of champions, George Wildberg, Mickey Cochrane, Jimmy Fox and Lefty Grove. For three straight years, the lean old man, almost as old as baseball itself, squinted his eyes and made cabalistic marks on his scorecard, watching his athletics march to world championships. By 1932, Philadelphia fans were watching nothing but victories. So grizzled old Carly Mack called the sports writers into his office to make a strange announcement. Come in, boys. Thank you. Come on in and try to find some chairs. Thank you very much. Getting tired of winning? Excited to run a table of wrestlers as a sideline? Well, it's something like that, Roger. I don't think I'd ever get tired of seeing the A's win all the time. That wouldn't help the athletics. No baseball either. Nope. We're going to do something else. We're going to sell all our best players. You're going to sell all your... Yes. Mickey goes to Detroit. Foxen drove to Boston, so on. I did it before with a million-dollar infield for baseball. So we're breaking up the A's again, boys. Um, Connie, yes. Well, what's this going to mean to you? You going to retire? What? Me retiring? Well, I say something. I'm only 66. I got a long way to go, yes. I still got to get another World Series. Long about 1942. With the athletics voluntarily broken up, another team took the spotlight. The New York Yankees with its murderous row. At first it was Earl Combs, Tony Lazare, Babe Ruth, and Lou Gehrig. Then for the last two years, it was Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Gehrig and Frank Crosetti. But always it was the Yankees, a powerhouse that would not be denied. We've been to six league tenants in eight years, and then last fall, completed for the first time in baseball's 100 years, a string of three consecutive World Series championships. Today the Yankees are called the greatest team that was ever assembled in baseball. But up in Cooperstown, New York, there's a team playing in spirit who day in and day out could spot the Yankees a score of runs and blast them off the diamond. They are playing there only in spirit, those men, but they're the greatest the game has ever known. Memorialized forever in bustin' clack of bronze. And Wagner, in fielder. Walter Johnson, pitcher. Napoleon Lashway, in fielder. Chris Speaker, out fielder. Thy Young, pitcher. Grover Cleveland Alexander, pitcher. Eddie Collin, in fielder. Christie Matheson, pitcher. Bay Broke, out fielder. Baseball's immortal, the all-time All-American playing in spirit today, on the field where 100 years ago this month a young man named Abner Doubleday scratched out with a pointed stick, a baseball diamond. And this week, up and down the United States, millions of young Americans on a thousand standlots and in a thousand streets, as well as on the carefully groomed diamonds of the big leagues, are inspired by these heroes. And their muscles are tense and their hearts miss a beat. As they watch speeding toward them, the little white balls. As they nervously wave their backs over their shoulders. Cavalcade of America salutes the spirit of clean play and the ideals of sportsmanship. So characteristic of America in our national game, baseball. And now here's Basil Risedale speaking to the DuPont Company and bringing us another story from the Wonderworld of Chemistry. Here's a notice that ought to be run in the Lost and Found column. Lost 7 million tons of nitrogen. Yes, that's the estimated net loss of nitrogen from the United States farm soil last year. What of it? Well, without available nitrogen in the soil, plant and animal life would cease to exist. For plant growth is absolutely dependent upon nitrogen, as well as other elements. Agricultural experts estimate that harvested crops, grazing in the forces of nature, take out of our farm soil as much as 23 million tons of nitrogen every year. Only a little more than 16 million tons are put back in the form of fertilizers and by nature. So that leaves the 7 million ton loss. Fortunately, there's a lot of free nitrogen in the air. But it has to be fixed, or in other words, changed to another usable form before it can be put back into the soil. Mother Nature does this with lightning, forming nitrous and nitric acid which enter the soil with the rain. Bacteria found in the soil and in the roots of certain plants, such as beans, clover, and alfalfa, also turn air nitrogen into fixed nitrogen. About 40 years ago, chemists realized that nature wasn't doing this job fast enough to meet the needs of agriculture. So they set out to search for a method of making nitrogen fertilizers out of the very air we breathe. They learned how to do it in the laboratory, but when they had to develop a commercial process to produce fixed nitrogen in large quantities and do it at low cost. Today, this is being done right here in America by several leading chemical companies of which DuPont is one. For example, in the DuPont plants at Bell, West Virginia, the fixation of nitrogen sets one of the most amazing scenes in the world of chemistry, where men perform their wonders using pressures as high as 15,000 pounds per square inch. By a complicated process, chemists turn out a wide range of important chemical products, using three of the simplest raw materials you could possibly imagine, air, water, and coal. And the particular product they create to protect American soil against nitrogen starvation is a white, crystalline, odorless material looking very much like granulated sugar. In the form of youramon fertilizer compound and urea ammonia liquor, it provides quickly, complete, available nitrogen for every type of agriculture from an orange grove to a potato patch. So, you see, that lost and found column can now carry another notice. Balm, lanty of nitrogen. American chemists stand ready to supply it to American farms. Better use of the soil means bigger yields of better crops, at less cost. Thus, in the story of fixed nitrogen, we see another illustration of the DuPont pledge better things for better living through chemistry. Next week, the Cavalcade of America salutes the opening of the New York World's Fair 1939 and the 150th anniversary of George Washington's inauguration with a little-known story of Washington refusing the crown. Remember that next week over some of these stations our program will be heard on daylight-saving time. This is Thomas Chalmers saying good night and best wishes in DuPont. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.