p. 227 | Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · July 24, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 29

An Important Decision.

JUDGE McSHERRY, of Frederick, Maryland, has filed an opinion declaring that “baseball playing on Sunday by men who are under contract for the season at stated salaries, no one being admitted to witness the games except those who pay, can be construed as nothing else than work, and therefore comes within the purview of the prohibitory statute.” Under this view, Sunday-baseball prosecutions will become a precedent for arrest and prosecution for the simplest work on Sunday, and a rigid enforcement of the Sunday law will be gradually inaugurated.

The Sunday Association of Maryland has published its determination to break up Sunday ball playing in Maryland, and this opinion from Judge McSherry is one mesh in the net which they are weaving around the Sunday-baseball-players.

Previous to the arrests upon which the above opinion was rendered, State Attorney Monroe wrote the sheriff of Anne Arundel County, as follows: “It is in your power alone to have this matter [Sunday ball] settled, by arresting the players as soon as they have finished one inning, and by repeating the arrests as often as they repeat the violations. You must take the responsibility of a failure to bring the question to a settlement as speedily as possible, and I think I have pointed out the only way in which it can be done.”