# America's National Game/Chapter 9

FOREST CITYS, OF ROCKFORD, ILL. T.J Foley. 3b. A. Barker, l.f. Fred Cone, lb. A.G. Spalding, p. Scott Hastings, 2b. R.C. Barnes, s.s. D.Sawyer, c.f. R.E. Addy, c. Geo. F. King, r.f.
CHAPTER IX.
1865-70
AMONG other agencies which at this time wrought so marvelously in the making of popularity for our national game, and in the production of great ball players, none was more potent than the city just emerging from the chrysalis stage of villagedom. It required the quality of young manhood which had been developed in field and furrow, in combination with that which had come from cash desk and counter, from forge and furnace, to present the American game in all its requirements of strength, agility and capacity to deal with emergencies. For, be it known, comparatively few of those whose names have found a place on the Base Ball Scroll of Fame came originally from the big cities of our land. It was towns like Rockford, Illinois, from whence came Ross Barnes; Marshalltown, Iowa, with Anson to its credit; Fort Wayne, Indiana, with Matthews as its contribution; Rochester, N. Y., with Sutton among its products; Corning, N. Y., with Jim White, and a long list of other cities of the third and fourth classes, whose splendid players attracted attention of the country in the early seventies, giving hope even to the small town, village and hamlet, that, enclosed in the overalls of some of their vigorous sons ​might be an embryo pitcher or catcher, or shortstop or baseman, or batsman, whose future achievements on the diamond would make famous the burg that had nurtured an artist of such phenomenal prowess.
In this chapter it is my purpose to write, briefly, the story of the Forest City Base Ball Club, of Rockford, Illinois, presenting it as a type of clubs in other small cities, which in the early development of the game did so much to add prestige to the pastime, and whose influence for the upbuilding and maintaining of the dignity of the sport, as well as skill and science in play, is felt unto this hour. I write of the Forest City Club, not because it was in all respects greater than any other—although I shall be able to disclose for it a record of which no friend need be ashamed—but because I was a part of it; because with it I began my active Base Ball career, and because I know its story better perhaps than I do that of any other Base Ball organization.
In writing of the Forest City Club, of Rockford, I am compelled by the very nature of the case to introduce local facts, probably of greater interest to me than to anyone else in the world; but I would be guilty of gross injustice, of base ingratitude, were I not in this, my only work on the game, to acknowledge appreciation of the sound and unselfish advice of some, the kind words of cheer and encouragement from others, and were I to withhold an expression of the high regard I have ever entertained for my first comrades in the game, to whom I bade a regretful farewell when I elected to make a business of what had been theretofore simply a pleasant pastime.
​Hence, as an apology for and in explanation of that which seems purely personal in the few following pages, I beg the reader to have in mind that much of sentiment still clings to the memories of those days of my early Base Ball career, and I could not refer to the times without also recalling the men with whom I was then so closely and so agreeably associated.
My association with the game of Base Ball began at Rockford, in 1865. As a school boy, I belonged to a club called the Pioneers. Since nobody in the team was over sixteen years of age, the title may have appeared to some as a misnomer; but it sounded all right. Most of us had heard our fathers spoken of as "pioneers," and we knew it could not mean anything bad. The Pioneers put up a pretty fair article of ball, for boys—if I do say it—and it was not long before we became ambitious. There were at Rockford at that time two amateur rival nines—the Forest Citys, just organized, and the Mercantiles. These played occasional matches, the Forest Citys having rather the better of the argument.
Ross Barnes, afterwards to win fame on the diamond as one of the greatest second basemen of his time, and in my opinion one of the best all around players the game has produced, was a member of the Pioneers, and he and I conceived the idea that we could "do" the Mercantiles, whose players were for the most part salesmen in the several stores of the city. A challenge was therefore sent; but the tradesmen at first regarded it as a joke; they were not in the game to play with children. However, after much insistence on our part, and some chaffing, ​perhaps, by members of the Forest Citys, the Mercantiles finally accepted. The game took place one fine day in the fall of 1865, with the Forest City players present and rooting good and hard for "the kids." The game resulted in a score of 26 to 2, in favor of the Pioneers.
Call it science, skill, luck, or whatever you please, I had at that time, when only fifteen years old, acquired the knack of pitching winning ball, and in the game with the Mercantiles it was first recognized. The Forest Citys immediately made overtures to Barnes and me and in 1 866 we both became members of that club.
The Forest City Club, at the time Barnes and I were admitted to membership, consisted of Dr. S. J. Sawyer, pitcher; A. Barker, catcher; H. S. Warner, shortstop; G. E. King, first base; T. T. Webster, second base; S. Lakin, third base; W. Stearns, left field ; M. L. Wheeler, center field; J. Brown, right field, and J. H. Manny, scorer. The executive officers of the club were: H. H. Waldo, President; I. S. Hyatt, Vice-President; George E. King, Secretary; George P. Ross, Treasurer. The Directors were E. C. Dunn, H. N. Starr and C. G. Manlove. In the games following the reorganization of the Forest City Club, the line-up was changed and the following players appeared: Spalding, pitcher; King, catcher; Cone, first base; Addy, second base; Stearns, Lighthart or Stires, third base; Barnes, shortstop; Wheeler or Warner, right field; Cheney or Osborne, center field; Barker or Waxham, left field.
With a team thus placed, the Forest City Base Ball Club entered upon its public career in 1866. Previous to ​this time it had devoted its energies almost entirely to practice games and matches with local and nearby nines. Now, however, it began to receive and issue challenges, with the result that in nearly every instance victory favored the Rockford players.
It was thus early in my Base Ball career that I came face to face for the first time with the business end of the game. It came about in this way: The Forest Citys, although a comparatively young organization, as we have seen, had already attracted considerable attention by reason of many victories; and commercial travelers from Chicago and other cities, who were fond of Base Ball, would so schedule their trips as to be at Rockford when we played. I was employed at the time at a very small salary in a Rockford grocery, whose proprietor affected to be quite proud of my efficiency as a pitcher—but who regularly "docked" me when absent from the store. Therefore, when I was approached one day by a Chicago man with an offer of $40 per week to take a position as bill clerk with a wholesale grocery house of that city, with the understanding that my store duties would be nominal, and a chance given to play ball frequently, without affecting my salary to reduce it, I found no difficulty so far as my Rockford job was concerned in making up my mind as to what I ought to do.
But there were other considerations that might not be so easily disposed of. I was a mere youth both in age and in experience. I dared not trust my own judgment as to what was best. My home was and had long been at Rockford, with my widowed mother. Ought I, just as I was ​becoming a man, to leave her whose tender care and fond affection had been so lavishly bestowed upon me through the years of my boyhood life? Would she approve of my going to a large city, with its dangers in the busy whirl, and its greater dangers in the temptations that so thickly abound?
Moreover, what did this offer mean? That it meant separation from the Forest City Club was quite apparent; but that problem did not count; I could not afford to rest my business interests on a mere sentiment. But there was a moral side to the question which I might not ignore. Were my services worth the proffered salary? What did I know of the wholesale grocery business that I should be offered $40 per week as bill clerk? Was I not being paid for my skill as a ball player rather than as an expert in the grocery trade? And, if so, would I not be violating at least the spirit of that rule of the National Association of Base Ball Players that forbade the payment of salaries to players?
Again, from a mere business standpoint, would it be wise for me at my age to sever the relations that had been established at the home of my youth? All my acquaintances were at Rockford. Did not they constitute an asset with which I might not lightly part? All these, and many other questions, presented themselves to my mind, and I did what I would now advise any other boy to do in like circumstances. I carried the whole subject to my mother. I knew that she approved of my connection with the game of Base Ball as a pastime; but how she would view it as a vocation I was not sure at all.
​When I broached the subject, I saw at once that it distressed her. She, far better than I, realized what it meant. The commercial aspect of the case, in making use of whatever skill I possessed as a ball player to gain a competence, made her shrink at first. She had looked upon the game as a means of health-giving exercise, and had rejoiced in it. She had followed the early victories of our club, and, like a loyal mother, had gloried in them. But, to make a business of ball playing! That was altogether different; it required consideration; perhaps advice.
Finally, the problem reduced itself—as have so many problems in other Rockford households in the last half century and more—to an appeal to Rockford's Grand Old Man, Hiram H. Waldo, to whom I here pay the homage of man's sincere tribute to man. I held him in honor in the days of my youth. I esteemed him in my early manhood, and now, in my maturer years, I count him as one of the noblest, purest, most unselfish men I have ever known.
Mr. Waldo was at that time, President of the Forest City Club, and yet we laid the severing of my connection with that organization before him, assured that his advice would be fair, honest, unbiased; as, indeed, it proved. I remember well how we received the announcement of the offer made to me to go to Chicago; how we placed before him the situation in all its bearings; how I rather earnestly pleaded the opportunity it presented for my advancement in life. He heard the case quite patiently and then said:
"You know, my boy, that, as a citizen of Rockford, I don't want you to go; and perhaps, as President of the ​Forest City Club, I ought to urge you to stay; but, as a friend to whom you have come for advice, I must say to you, accept the offer and go; but," he added, smiling, "you needn't tell that I advised it."
And so, in the fall of 1867, I went to Chicago, ostensibly to accept a clerkship in a wholesale grocery, but really to become a member of the Chicago Excelsior Base Ball Club. It may interest some to know that I never played but one game with the Excelsior team. Before the next springtime had rolled around the great wholesale house with which I had become connected failed—not entirely on account of the size of my salary, I trust—and a few days later saw me back at Rockford, again a member of the Forest City Club, where I was warmly welcomed, having received employment in the insurance office of A. N. Nicholds, Secretary of the club, and on the Rockford Register, at moderate salary, under the management of E. H. Griggs, who had meantime been elected Secretary of the National Association of Base Ball Players.
As to the question of my agreeing to accept a semi-professional position on the Excelsior team of Chicago at a time when professionalism of every kind was "tabu," I have this to say: Although at this date there was no strictly professional club in existence—the Cincinnati Red Stockings not being organized as such until 1869—the rule prohibiting salaries was nevertheless a dead letter. Most clubs of prominence, all over the country, had players who were either directly or indirectly receiving financial advantage from the game. Some held positions like that proffered me; others were in the pay of individual lovers ​of the game. I believed that I foresaw the day soon coming when professional Base Ball playing would be recognized as legitimate everywhere. I was not able to understand how it could be right to pay an actor, or a singer, or an instrumentalist for entertaining the public, and wrong to pay a ball player for doing exactly the same thing in his way. I did not like the roundabout schemes that were being worked in all large cities to secure good players, by giving them nominal employment in stores, warehouses, etc. It seemed to me to be educating young men in a school of false pretense. I felt that the only right thing to do was to come out openly and honor the playing of the game as a legitimate avocation, and this position I have ever since consistently maintained.
From the time Barnes and I became connected with the Forest City Club, that organization had an almost uninterrupted succession of victories. No team in the Northwest was able to win from the Rockford nine until the tournament in July, 1867, when the Chicago Excelsiors took two games by close scores—and these games were subsequently offset by a series, best two out of three, played the following season for the championship of the Northwest, in which the Forest Citys were victorious by scores of 20 to 18 and 36 to 27, respectively.
It is not the scope or purpose of this work to publish records. Those interested in statistics will find voluminous tables in the annual Base Ball Guides. But in the case of the Forest City Club, whose story is unique among amateur organizations, I feel that I owe it to that club to make public its remarkable achievements:
1866 :
| Forest | City, | 123 to 8 | Mystic, Belvidere, Illinois. |
| " | " | 37 to 23 | Shaffer, Freeport, Illinois. |
| " | " | 13 to 14 | Cream City, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. |
| " | " | 39 to 16 | Clipper, Rochelle, Illinois. |
| " | " | 50 to 11 | Sinissippi, Rockford, Illinois. |
| " | " | 24 to 10 | Cream City, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. |
| " | " | 42 to 3 | Badger, Beloit, Wisconsin. |
| 1867 ||||
| Forest | City, | 56 to 0 | Phoenix, Belvidere, Illinois. |
| " | " | 59 to 4 | Byron, Byron, Illinois. |
| " | " | 41 to 45 | Excelsior, Chicago, Illinois. |
| " | " | 24 to 16 | Phoenix, Belvidere, Illinois. |
| " | " | 25 to 28 | Excelsior, Chicago, Illinois. |
| " | " | 29 to 23 | National, Washington, D. C. |
| " | " | 35 to 57 | Bloomington, Bloomington, Illinois. |
| " | " | 63 to 8 | Star, Marengo, Illinois. |
| 1868 ||||
| Forest | City, | 43 to 25 | Byron, Byron, Illinois. |
| " | " | 73 to 7 | Harvard, Harvard, Illinois. |
| " | " | 20 to 18 | Excelsior, Chicago, Illinois. |
| " | " | 13 to 94 | Athletic, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. |
| " | " | 29 to 31 | Atlantic, Brooklyn, New York. |
| " | " | 36 to 27 | Excelsior, Chicago, Illinois. |
| " | " | 28 to 9 | Capitol City, Madison, Wisconsin. |
| " | " | 43 to 12 | Capitol City, Madison, Wisconsin. |
| " | " | 88 to 6 | Mutual, Janesville, Wisconsin. |
| 1869 ||||
| Forest | City, | 110 to 11 | Harvard, Harvard, Illinois. |
| " | " | 37 to 9 | Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin. |
| " | " | 103 to 6 | Stillman Valley, Illinois. |
| " | " | 49 to 6 | Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin. |
| " | " | 76 to 1 | Clipper, Monmouth, Illinois. |
| " | " | 32 to 4 | Amateur, Chicago, Illinois. |
| " | " | 25 to 4 | Aetna, Chicago, Illinois. |
| " | " | 13 to 32 | Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio. |
| " | " | 31 to 10 | Garden City, Chicago, Illinois. |
| " | " | 43 to 9 | Garden City, Chicago, Illinois. |
| " | " | 14 to 15 | Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio. |
| " | " | 40 to 1 | Buckeye, Cincinnati, Ohio. |
| " | " | 83 to 14 | Independent, Mansfield, Ohio. |
| " | " | 32 to 10 | Detroit; Detroit, Michigan. ​ |
| Forest | City, | 32 to 53 | Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio. |
| " | " | 7 to 28 | Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio. |
| " | " | 47 to 2 | Clipper, Monmouth, Illinois. |
| " | " | 52 to 7 | Occidental, Quincy, Illinois. |
| " | " | 44 to 11 | Union, St. Louis, Missouri. |
| " | " | 70 to 6 | Empire, St. Louis, Missouri. |
| " | " | 66 to 3 | Relic, Jacksonville, Illinois. |
| " | " | 101 to 13 | Liberty, Springfield, Illinois. |
| " | " | 34 to 22 | Picked Nine, Chicago, Illinois. |
| " | " | 41 to 10 | Illinois, Morris, Illinois. |
Early in the spring of 1870, the business men of Rockford, proud of their ball team, and recognizing how much it had done in the way of advertising that enterprising young city, raised a purse of $7,000 that the Forest City Club might make the first tour ever made by a Western amateur Base Ball club to the Eastern States and match their playing ability with that of the strong nines of that section.
The following table shows the result of the tour as to games won and lost, with the scores of each:
| Forest | City, | 65 to 3 | Maple Leaf, Hamilton, Canada. |
| " | " | 44 to 13 | Niagaras, Buffalo, New York. |
| " | " | 57 to 16 | Eckfords, Syracuse, New York. |
| " | " | 17 to 2 | Ontarios, Oswego, New York. |
| " | " | 21 to 3 | Haymakers, Troy, New York. |
| " | " | 36 to 4 | Mutuals, Springfield, Massachusetts. |
| " | " | 4 to 4 | Unions, Morrisania, New York. |
| " | " | 13 to 21 | Mutuals, New York, New York. |
| " | " | 17 to 16 | Atlantic, Brooklyn, New York. |
| " | " | 10 to 16 | Athletics, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. |
| " | " | 1 to 0 | Marylands, Baltimore, Maryland. |
| " | " | 21 to 11 | Pastimes, Baltimore, Maryland. |
| " | " | 8 to 7 | Olympics, Washington, D. C. |
| " | " | 10 to 4 | Nationals, Washington, D. C. |
| " | " | 15 to 6 | Jeffersons, Washington, D. C. |
| " | " | 24 to 18 | Forest Citys, Cleveland, Ohio. |
| " | " | 14 to 28 | White Stockings, Chicago, Illinois. |
An analysis of the record shows that out of a total of 65 games played the Forest City Club won 51. In ​these games the Rockford Club made 2,592 runs to 959 for all the other clubs combined—nearly three to one!
In October of this year the Forest City team defeated the great Cincinnati Red Stockings by a score of 12 to 5. Such, then, was the career of the Forest City Base Ball Club. When it is remembered that this organization was composed entirely of young men living in and about Rockford; that the club was strictly an amateur organization, no player receiving salary; it must be conceded that the record here published is unparalleled in the history of the game for a similar club.
Before closing this chapter, which I fully realize has dealt too much with things of which I was myself a part, I desire once more to express my appreciation of the membership of that club, one and all—not only as players; their records speak plainly enough on that point; but as gentlemen and friends whom I shall ever remember with feelings of fraternal regard.