Lapham's Quarterly

Always appear in feminine attire when not actively engaged in practice or playing ball. This regulation continues through the playoffs for all, even though your team is not participating. At no time may a player appear in the stands in her uniform or wear slacks or shorts in public.

Boyish bobs are not permissible, and in general your hair should be well groomed at all times with longer hair preferable to short haircuts. Lipstick should always be on.

Smoking or drinking is not permissible in public places. Liquor drinking will not be permissible under any circumstances. Other intoxicating drinks in limited portions with after-game meal only will be allowed. Obscene language will not be allowed at any time.

All social engagements must be approved by chaperone. Legitimate requests for dates can be allowed by chaperones.

Jewelry must not be worn during game or practice, regardless of type.

Baseball-uniform skirts shall not be shorter than six inches above the kneecap.

—From the League Rules of Conduct for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. 

The attention of all was suddenly riveted upon a body of monstrous fellows who tramped down the beach like so many huge elephants. They were professional wrestlers and formed part of the retinue of the princes, who kept them for their private amusement and for public entertainment. They were some twenty-five in number and were men enormously tall and immense in weight. Their scant costume, which was merely a colored cloth about the loins, adorned with fringes and emblazoned with the armorial bearings of the prince to whom each belonged, revealed their gigantic proportions in all the bloated fullness of fat and breadth of muscle. Their proprietors seemed proud of them and were careful to show their points to the greatest advantage before our astonished countrymen.

Some two or three of these huge monsters were the most famous wrestlers in Japan. Koyanagi, the reputed bully of the capital, was one of them, and paraded himself with the conscious pride of superior immensity and strength. He was especially brought to Commodore Perry, that he might examine his massive form. The commissioners insisted that the monstrous fellow should be minutely inspected, that the hardness of his well-rounded muscles should be felt, and that the fatness of his cushioned frame should be tested by the touch. 

—Commodore Matthew C. Perry from the Narrative of the Expedition of the American Squadron.

The very best paid Roman charioteer—in fact, the best paid athlete of all time—was a Lusitanian Spaniard named Gaius Appuleius Diocles. Twenty-four years of winnings brought Diocles—likely an illiterate man whose signature move was the strong final dash—the staggering sum of 35,863,120 sesterces in prize money. The figure is recorded in a monumental inscription erected in Rome by his fellow charioteers and admirers in 146, which hails him fulsomely on his retirement at the age of “42 years, 7 months, and 23 days” as “champion of all charioteers.”

His total take home amounted to five times the earnings of the highest paid provincial governors over a similar period—enough to provide food for the entire city of Rome for one year, or to pay all the ordinary soldiers of the Roman Army at the height of its imperial reach for a fifth of a year. By today’s standards that last figure, assuming the apt comparison is what it takes to pay the wages of the American armed forces for the same period, would cash out to about $15 billion.

—Peter Struck, from “Greatest of All Time” at the Roundtable blog