A Ball Players Career | Page 9

to the player in each position, from catcher to right
field, who had the best batting average. The official award gave the
majority of the prizes to the Athletic club. McBride, Radcliff, Fisler,
Reach and Sensenderfer, having excelled in their respective positions
of pitcher, catcher, first base, second base, and center field. Waterman,
Hatfield and Johnson, of the Cincinnatis, excelled in the positions of
third base, left field and right field, and George Wright of the Unions,
of Morrisiania as shortstop. The gold ball was also officially awarded
to the Athletics as the emblem of championship for the season of 1868.

The Atlantics of Brooklyn were virtually the champions of 1870, being
the first club to deprive the Cincinnati Reds of the prestige of
invincibility which had marked their career during the preceding season.
The inaugural contest between these clubs in 1870 took place June 14th
on the Capitoline grounds at Brooklyn, N. Y., the Atlantics then
winning by a score of 8 to 7 after an exciting struggle of eleven innings.
The return game was played September 2d, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and
resulted in a decisive victory for the Reds, by a score of 14 to 3.
This necessitated a third or decisive game, which was played in
Philadelphia October 6th, and this the Atlantics won by a score of 11 to
7.
The Atlantics in that year had Zettlein, pitcher; Ferguson, catcher; Start,
Pike and Smith on the bases; Pearce, shortstop, and Chapman, Hall and
McDonald on the outfield.
The newspapers throughout the country had by this time begun to pay
unusual attention to the game, and the craze was spreading like wildfire
all over the country, every little country town boasting of its nine, and
as these were for the greater part made up of home players, local
feeling ran high, and the doings of "our team" furnished the chief
subject of conversation at the corner grocery, and wherever else the
citizens were wont to congregate.
With the advent of the professional player the game in the larger towns
took on a new lease of life, but in the smaller places where they could
not afford the expense necessary to the keeping of a first-class team it
ceased to be the main attraction and interest was centered in the doings
of the teams of the larger places.
That the professional player improved the game itself goes without
saying as being a business with him instead of a pastime, and one upon
which his daily bread depended, he went into it with his whole soul,
developing its beauties in a way that was impossible to the amateur
who could only give to it the time that he could spare after the business
hours of the day.

This was the situation at the time that I first entered tile base-ball arena,
and, looking back, when I come to compare the games of those days
with the games of to-day and note the many changes that have taken
place, I cannot but marvel at the improvement made and at the interest
that the game has everywhere excited.
CHAPTER IV.
FURTHER FACTS AND FIGURES.
The professional player of those early days and the professional player
of the present time were totally different personages. When
professionalism first crept into the ranks it was generally the custom to
import from abroad some player who had made a name for himself,
playing some certain position, and furnish him with a business situation
so that his services might be called for when needed, and so strong was
the local pride taken in the success of the team that business men were
not averse to furnishing such a man with a position when they were
informed that it would be for the good of the home organization.
Prior to the year 1868 the professional was, comparatively speaking, an
unknown quantity on the ball field, though it may be set down here as a
fact that on more than one occasion previous to that time "the laborer
had been found worthy of his hire," even in base-ball, though that
matter had been kept a secret as far as possible, even in the home circle.
Up to the year mentioned the rules of the National Association had
prohibited the employment of any paid player in a club nine, but at that
time so strong had the rivalry become between the leading clubs of the
principal cities that the practice of compensating players had become
more honored in the breach than in the observance and the law was
practically a dead letter so far as these clubs were concerned.
The growth of the professional class of players, and the consequent
inequality in strength between these and the amateur players made a
distinction necessary and in 1871 the National Association split up,