A Ball Players Career

A Ball Player's Career, by
Adrian C. Anson

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Title: A Ball Player's Career Being the Personal Experiences and
Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson
Author: Adrian C. Anson

Release Date: October 28, 2006 [eBook #19652]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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A BALL PLAYER'S CAREER
Being the PERSONAL EXPERIENCES AND REMINISCENCES of
ADRIAN C. ANSON Late Manager and Captain of the Chicago Base
Ball Club
1900

To My Father Henry Anson of Marshalltown, Iowa, to whose early
training and sound advice I owe my fame

CONTENTS
CHAP.
I.--MY BIRTHPLACE AND ANCESTRY.
II.--DAYS AT MARSHALLTOWN
III.--SOME FACTS ABOUT THE NATIONAL GAME
IV.--FURTHER FACTS AND FIGURES
V.--THE GAME AT MARSHALLTOWN
VI.--My EXPERIENCE AT ROCKFORD
VII.--WITH THE ATHLETICS OF PHILADELPHIA
VIII.--SOME MINOR DIVERSIONS

IX.--WE BALL PLAYERS Go ABROAD
X.--THE ARGONAUTS OF 1874
XI.--I WIN ONE PRIZE AND OTHERS FOLLOW
XII.--WITH THE NATIONAL LEAGUE
XIII.--FROM FOURTH PLACE TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP
XIV.--THE CHAMPIONS OF THE EARLY '80S
XV.--WE FALL DOWN AND RISE AGAIN
XVI.--BALL PLAYERS EACH AND EVERY ONE
XVII.--WHILE FORTUNE FROWNS AND SMILES
XVIII.--FROM CHICAGO TO DENVER
XIX.--FROM DENVER TO SAN FRANCISCO
XX.--TWO WEEKS IN CALIFORNIA
XXI.--WE VISIT THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS
XXII.--FROM HONOLULU TO AUSTRALIA
XXIII.--WITH OUR FRIENDS IN THE ANTIPODES
XXIV.--BALL PLAYING AND SIGHT-SEEING IN AUSTRALIA
XXV.--AFLOAT ON THE INDIAN SEA
XXVI.--FROM CEYLON TO EGYPT
XXVII.--IN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRAMIDS
XXVIII.--THE BLUE SKIES OF ITALY

XXIX.--OUR VISIT TO LA BELLE FRANCE
XXX.--THROUGH ENGLAND, SCOTLAND AND IRELAND
XXXI.--"HOME, SWEET HOME"
XXXII.--THE REVOLT OF THE BROTHERHOOD
XXXIII.--MY LAST YEARS ON THE BALL FIELD
XXXIV.--IF THIS BE TREASON, MAKE THE MOST OF IT
XXXV.--HOW MY WINTERS WERE SPENT
XXXVI.--WITH THE KNIGHTS OF THE CUE
XXXVII.--NOT DEAD, BUT SLEEPING
XXXVIII.--L'ENVOI
CHAPTER I.
MY BIRTHPLACE AND ANCESTRY.
The town of Marshalltown, the county seat of Marshall County, in the
great State of Iowa, is now a handsome and flourishing place of some
thirteen or fourteen thousand inhabitants. I have not had time recently
to take the census myself, and so I cannot be expected to certify exactly
as to how many men, women and children are contained within the
corporate limits.
At the time that I first appeared upon the scene, however, the town was
in a decidedly embryonic state, and outside of some half-dozen white
families that had squatted there it boasted of no inhabitants save
Indians of the Pottawattamie tribe, whose wigwams, or tepees, were
scattered here and there upon the prairie and along the banks of the
river that then, as now, was not navigable for anything much larger
than a flat-bottomed scow.

The first log cabin that was erected in Marshalltown was built by my
father, Henry Anson, who is still living, a hale and hearty old man,
whose only trouble seems to be, according to his own story, that he is
getting too fleshy, and that he finds it more difficult to get about than
he used to.
He and his father, Warren Anson, his grandfather, Jonathan Anson, and
his great-grandfather, Silas Anson, were all born in Dutchess County,
New York, and were direct descendants of one of two brothers, who
came to this country from England some time in the seventeenth
century. They traced their lineage back to William Anson, Esq., of
Lincoln's Inn, an eminent barrister in the reign of James I, who
purchased the Mansion of Shuzsborough, in the county of Stafford, and,
even farther back, to Lord Anson, a high Admiral of the English navy,
who was one of the first of that daring band of sailors who
circumnavigated the globe and helped to lay the foundation of
England's present greatness.
I have said that we were direct descendants of one of two brothers. The
other of the original Ansons I am not so proud of, and for this reason:
He retained the family name until the Revolutionary war broke out,
when he sided with the King and became known as a Tory. Then, not
wishing to bear the same name as his, brother, who had espoused the
cause of the Colonists, he changed his name to Austin, and some of his
descendants my father has met on more than one occasion in his
travels.
My mother's maiden name was Jeanette Rice, and she,