The Grand Old Game

I came across some great excerpts from Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889:

On League Parity:
Now that a club, new to championship honors [New York], has replaced one of the monopolists [Boston and Chicago], the other previously unsuccessful clubs will begin to entertain hopes of being able to "get in at the death," as the fox hunters say, in future pennant races, if not this ensuing year, and thereby a new interest will be imparted to coming campaigns.

On Excessive Drinking (Insert Steroids for 'drinking'):
The evil of drunkenness among the professional teams is one which has grown upon the fraternity until it has become too costly an abuse to be longer tolerated. Drunken professionals should be driven from service just as the crooks of a dozen years ago were, never to be allowed to return. Drunken players are not only a costly drawback to success individually, but they permeate the whole baseball fraternity with a demoralizing influence. The fact is, professional baseball playing has arrived at that point of excellence, and reached so advanced a position in regard to its financial possibilities, that it will no longer pay, in any solitary respect, to allow players of drinking habits in first-class teams.

On Rule Changes:
In 1888 the pitchers were handicapped by the absurd rule which charged runs scored on bases on balls as earned runs, successive bases on balls giving an earned run to the batting side, even in the absence of a single base hit. To estimate a pitcher's skill on such a basis is nonsense.

The rule which puts batsmen out on catches of foul balls, which, since the game originated, has been an unfair rule of play, has seen its best day; and this year the entering wedge to its ultimate disappearance has been driven in, with the practical result of the repeal of the foul tip catch. This improvement, too, is in the line of aiding the batting side, as it gets rid of one of the numerous ways of putting the batsman out.

On Professionalism:
The two great obstacles in the way of the success of the majority of professional ball players are wine and women. The saloon and the brothel are the evils of the baseball world at the present day; and we see it practically exemplified in the failure of noted players to play up to the standard they are capable of were they to avoid these gross evils. One day it is a noted pitcher who fails to serve his club at a critical period of the campaign. Anon, it is the disgraceful escapade of an equally noted umpire. And so it goes from one season to another, at the cost of the loss of thousands of dollars to clubs who blindly shut their eyes to the costly nature of intemperance and dissipation in their ranks. We tell you, gentlemen of the League and Association, the sooner you introduce the prohibition plank in your contracts the sooner you will get rid of the costly evil of drunkenness and dissipation among your players. Club after club have lost championship honors time and again by this evil, and yet they blindly condone these offences season after season. The prohibition rule from April to October is the only practical rule for removing drunkenness in your teams.

On Feats of Ability (Why Don't We Have Throwing Contests Now?)
In 1884, while connected with the Boston Union Association Club, Ed Crane, while in Cincinnati October 12 of that year, was credited with throwing a baseball 135 yards, 1 foot, and 1/2 inch, and also again at St. Louis on October 19, he was credited with throwing a ball 134 yards, 5 inches.

On Fitness (And They Never Saw Jose Canseco)
"Right worthy of welcome did those visitors appear - stalwarts every man, lumps of muscle showing beneath their tight fitting jersey garments, and a springiness in every movement which denoted grand animal vigor and the perfection of condition. We could not pick eighteen such men from the ranks of all our cricketers, and it is doubtful if we could beat them by a draft from the foot ballers. If baseball has anything to do with building up such physique we ought to encourage it, for it must evidently be above and beyond all other exercises in one at least of the essentials of true athletics."

On Umpire Duties:
The attention of the Umpire is particularly directed to possible violations of the purpose and spirit of the Rules of the following character:
SEC. 1. Laziness or loafing of players in taking their places in the field, or those allotted them by the Rules when their side is at the bat, and especially any failure to keep the bats in the racks provided for them.
The Umpire is empowered to inflict fines of not less than $5.00 nor more than $25.00 for the first offence on players during the progress of a game.