Mr. Rickey And The Game

He straightened the papers on his desk and said as an aside: "I contend it is the most scientific card game in the world."

He searched the ceiling for the point he was developing, found it and came down again.

"The three postmen, heavily laden on a hot, miserable day, yet able to find a happy, common ground in their discussion of this game of baseball. And in their free time, in their hours of leisure, if they had no other interest to turn to, still there was the game to bring color and excitement and good wholesome interest into their lives."

He took up the fragment of paper and tobacco that was left of the cigarette as though it were a precious jewel.

"Leisure," he said, sending his eyebrows aloft, "is a hazardous thing. Hero in America we do not yet have a leisure class that knows what to do with it. Leisure can produce something fine. It may also produce something evil. Hell's fire! Leisure can produce a great symphony, a great painting, a great book."

He whirled around to the window and peered out at Pennant Place. Then, turning back like a pitcher who has just cased the situation at second base, he let go hard.

"Gee!" he cried. "Leisure can also produce a great dissipation! Leisure can be idleness and idleness can drive a man to his lowest!"

He recoiled, as from a low man standing at the side of his desk.

"Idleness is the worst thing in this world. Idleness is doing nothing and thinking of wrong things to do. Idleness is the evil that lies behind the juvenile delinquency that alarms us all. It's the most damnable thing that can happen to a kid—to have nothing to do."

He put the tattered cigarette butt in his mouth and spoke around it.