Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1911-06-02

~A~N 49, O-ASN AOop q game 1hOy
made money, and Harry Wright be-
came the first baseball migrate.
Alfred ]. Reach can tell better than
any man living the story of early base
ball and the advance of the game, for
he witnessed it's birth, fostered it dur
ing its early days, played it. preached
it, and praciticed it, and is today at the
head of a business as great as the game
itself, and one which has made high
class playing possible. Until 1903 he
was one of the two owners of the Phil
adelphia National League Club
Here is what he says
Twenty generations of Englishmen
have played cricket, horse racing has
thrilled men ever since the period when
the first pair of aborigines tested the
speed of their steeds, and golf is said to
be almost as old as Scotland. Court
tennis was the favorate diversion of the
old French and English kings, and foot
ball in various forms has been a recog-
nized sport for centuries. But baseball
is modern. Its whole life has been no
longer than the three score and ten of
one man. Men are living today who
were youngsters when the first bunch
of sportsmen gathered on New York
lots TO hit the ball, catch it, and run
the bases.
''It has always been a pleasure to me
to witness the American character of
baseball. It's traits are the same as
those we have as people. The speed
it demands, the quick thought, the
nervous energy, the determination to
grasp an opportunity swiftly-and, if
there is no opportunity, to make one
the swiftness with which the game is
played, the courage it demands-in
short, the enforced use of every faculty,
mental and physical, while the contest
is on, makes it a game that Americans
are really qualified to play.
I'm connection with early baseball,
it always seems to me that one of the
things that gave it great impetus was
the famous contest between New York
and Brooklyn in the earl sixties.
This was championship game, per-
haps the first that deter mined which
was the best team in the country, for
New York and BloOklyn then had a
of the stars. The teams
were made up by selecting from the
various clubs the nine best men, and |
think it was the happiest day in my
life when | was informed that | had
been picked out to play second base for
Brooklyn. | was still somewhat new
to the position where | was de stined to
play most of my baseball, for l had
started as a catcher with the Jackson
Club. Next played with the Eek
ford.
The inter-city match created all
kinds of excitement, and, when we
beat New York 1876 all Brooklyn rs-
iOiced Another factor that advertised
baseball in those days, when it needed
to be talked about, was the sensation
made by Creighton and Leggett, the
star battery of the 1861 Excelsior team
of Brooklyn. Leggett was the first
man to stand up behind the bat and
catch, and, l tell you, it took courage
Of the first order to do this, for the
catcher had no protection whatever
not even little glove. A foul ball was
likely to hit him in the face at any in
slant, and broken and split fingers
were an incident of almost every game.
This great pair were &C famous as ia
nous as that time as Clarkson and Kel-
Iy of later day, and everywhere they
went big crowds came to see them.
Their visits to Philadelphia are espec-
ally notable. The new rules, framed
in 1857, with their esta blishing of nine
innings as a game, proved very popular.
and in the next seven years few
changes were made; but in 1864 CAME
The radical innovation that a foul or
fair ball was not out unless caught on
a fly. This did away with the ''out"
On a bound.
"Men stopped ground balls as well
Iwenty years ago as they do at the
present time, and without the use of
gloves, for instance, Big Ed. William
ION and Fred Pfeffer, of Chicago; Bid
of Cincinnati; Danny Richard
ION, of New York; John Bsrd ock, of |
Boston; Fred Dunlap, of Detroit, and |
scores of othsrS. Who could beat Dan
ny Richardson, bid" McPhee, Fred |
1feffer, Fred Dunlap, John Terrell or
Toe Gerhardt on pivot work in a double |
,lay?
60 be continued