The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-11-19
BILLY SUNDAY, THE BASEBALL EVANGELIST,
 FYFTY-ONE TO-DAY

| Rev. William Ashley Sunday is his
 real name and title, but everybody,
 man and boy, calls him just plain
 Billy Sunday. That was his nome clature when he was icavorting around the National League diamonds as a 1 member of the Chicago, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia clubs, and it's what
 he likes to be called now, when he is
 the worlds most successful evange- list, who converts sinners into Chris tians, and dollars into the Sunday treasury by tens of thousands.
 When it comes to consigning inf delssS to sure-enough hell of flames and birthstone, where the irnps eter- nally poke them with red-hot pitch forks, Billy shows class, but no more than he used to display on the dia- mond.
 William Ashley Sunday will be the recipient of birthday Congratulations today for he reached this mundane spheroid just fifty one years ago, Nov. Is19, 1885 at AInes, Iowa. If old Gap Anson hadn't been born in Marshall town, Ia.,-and he was the first white child to be brought by the stork to that now hourishing city-Bil1y SuTaS day might now be truck driver or a ni1li onaire. The Cap leader of the immortal Chicago White Stock 1ngs ever entertained a fondness for
 his native town. and on one Of his  1883, he saw a ayoung fel1er, named Billy Sunday playing on an amateur club. More for sentiment than any thing else. the Cap'n decided to giv
 the Sunday chap . TS-out in the rapld baseball company. and took him to Chicago. Billy played center field for
 the White Stockings, and did it so nicely that he was kept on the pay roll at an increasing salary, for five seasons Then he went over to Pitts lblrgh where he played three an- nuns, and finally wound up his dia- n1ond career in Philadelphia, which
 claimed him only q year BiIly,s ex- perience as a. National Leagu player extended from 1888 to 1890
 As a fielder and a swatter Billy was l the goods. but it was in base rum ming that he really sfone. He was by he has probably had no superior in the game. He set up a record for cir
 cling the bases in fourteen seconds, l which stood until 1910, when Lobert I of the Cincinnati Reds. lowered the
 time to 13 4-5 seconds. beating Sun | days time by afifth of a second
 It was while he was a. member Of
 the famous Chicago aggeregation I that B11ly Sunday heard the call to a relie1ouH life. With a bunch Of the I fellows he was meandering down a | Windy City thoroughfare when they II came 10 <g corner where a SEree1 preacher was exhorting his felIownaen.
 The bunch stopped to listen to the Ispealxer who was Harry Monroe of 1.-the Pacific Garden Mission and Sum I day was so impressed that he accepted I the invitation to visit the mission in
 Van Buren street. BilIy,s companions
 gave him the merry haw haw but l Sunday went and was converted.
 Sunday has, always declared that he ] found prayer a great aid to him as g
 ball player, and in his sermons he
 cites as an example an incident which fsoccurred during a game with Detroit
 Chanlie Bennetts Of Detroit, knocked out what appeared to be a home run
 at a. decisive point in the game. Sun 4 day went after 1t. and as he ran, he
 says he prayed as follows:
 i 10 God. I'm In an awful hole Ii
 you ever helped a mortal man in your
 life, help me to get that pill. And, C Lord you ainst got much time to make up your mind, either ?
 Billy swears that he got the ball
 although 1t seemed an impossible feat
 and, like tho Kaiser in war, he sFed.
 it's his victory to God.