Yes but on baseball better to trust Walt Whitman than Thoreau, who could be a bit of a snob.

"Baseball is the hurrah game of the republic!" He was hilarious: "That's beautiful: the hurrah game! well — it's our game: that's the chief fact in connection with it: America's game: has the snap, go fling, of the American atmosphere — belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life."

• Conversation with Whitman (4 July 1889) as quoted in With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906) by Horace Traubel, Vol. IV

and


I see great things in baseball. It’s our game – the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us.
Walt Whitman

and...

"In our sun-down perambulations, of late, through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters playing "base", a certain game of ball...Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our close rooms...the game of ball is glorious."

From the July 23, 1846 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, quoted in Florence Bernstein Freedman, Walt Whitman Looks at the Schools (READ BOOKS, 2007, ISBN 1406731889), pp. 126-127

Posted by crazystengel on 4/15/2016 5:43:00 AM (view original):
Funny line about Charleston and Boston, but I figure Thoreau would also label WIS a "pretty toy" which distracts us from serious things. That guy always sounded to me like he could use a few beers, and maybe some Rolling Stones albums, to loosen him up.

Interesting (and somewhat controversial) anti-Thoreau article here:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum

Thoreau turning his back on us? He was making an attempt to awaken us.

I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing the author of that critique truly digested Walden. Its not for everyone, and requires dedication perhaps over a period of years. The arguments she makes mostly seem to be harnessed to strange and limited interpretations of the writings imho.

"Fast day—Some fields are dried sufficiently for the games of ball- with which this season is commonly ushered in. I associate this day, when I can remember it, with games of base-ball played over behind the hills in the russet fields toward Sleepy Hollow where the snow was just melted & dried up- & also with uncertainty I always experienced whether the shops would be shut- whether we should have an ordinary dinner an extraordinary one- or none at all- and whether there would be more than one service at the meeting house- this last uncertainty old folks share with me- This is a windy day drying up the fields- the first we have had for a long time."

Thoreau
April 10, 1856

Thanks Big_T, never saw that quote before.

Yeah. Its from his journals which had limited posthumous publication. Though tough to find in physical form, you can read many of them online here: http://thoreau.library.ucsb.edu/index.html

The journals have been uploaded both in transcript and manuscript form, offering hours of reading enjoyment and a threshold to another world....all for free.

I tend to agree with you on that one. On the one hand, he is one of only 4 players in the post-deadball era to steal 100 bases in a season (did you know that the next-closest guy to doing so was Ron LeFlore?). He's also 2nd all-time in steals. On the other hand, his CS% is the 2nd-worst of the 11 modern players with 600+ steals (just edging out Juan Pierre). His hitting was basically average for an outfielder. So yeah, I think he deserves a mention in Cooperstown for his accomplishments on the basepaths, but maybe not enshrinement.