Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-08-14
By THOMAS r. HENRY.

w YAsHINGTON's first great
n base ball pitcher, / am in
wv formed by elderly residents
who watched his perform
ances when they were boys
was a bona fide volunteer Federal col.
onel, one Jones, whose handsome
black beard reached to his chest.
The Jones beard, my informants
testify, became the ideal of every as.
piring athlete in the city. Ambitious
youths of those days used to rub their
hairless chins with DIR. Sevigne s
marvellous Restaurateur Capillaire, de.
scribed in the advertising columns of
the current newspapers as 1.-The most
wonderful discovery in modern science,
acting upon the beard and hair in an
almost miraculous manner; whiskers
and moustaches forced to grow on the
smoothest face in from three to five
weeks"
Col. Jones remained for two or three
years a first-string hurler for the
Washington Nationals, the Capitals
crack professional nine which
toured the West during the Summer
of 1867, coming home late in August
with an almost unbroken string of vic
tories. He used to alternate with
Billy Williams, local society youth,
mustache, but atoned for his tonsorial
deficiencies. with a binding speed,
which eventually forced the handsome
colonel into oblivion as base ballist.
The national game in Washington
came to it's boisterous adolescence late
in the pugnacious sixties, when vacant
lots around the city still were cluttered
with the junk of the Civil War. Dur
ing the latter days Of that. struggle,
soldiers, encamped on the White Lot
behind the White House, used to toss
about for exercise in front of their
tents a leather spheroid. Eventually
the ''toss-and-catch" affairs evolved
into organized base ball games. played
according to rules promulgated in
New York State.
By the time the war ended, there
were company and regimental con-
tests, with teams both for officers and
enlisted men. Out of this school cane
Jones, whose beard was the envy even
Of that great man Of science, the cele.
brated DIR. Sevigne.
The end Of the war found several
of the best players developed on the
Army teams still in the city, and they
organized themselves into the Ma.
tionals in 1866. The first contests,
held on the White Lot, We're with
dllidtCuI SuCn as
the Continentals. the Jeffersons and
the Potomacs. The last mentioned
team, by the way, had been born in
1859 and was the first to bring base
ball to Washington, but it dropped out
of sight during the war and did not
survive long its rebirth. The earlier
games were played on the White Lot,
which was not Enclosed. Collections
we're taken up among the fans and
rnose VINO did not contribute got hard
looks. Hundreds of barefooted urchins
used to watch the games from the
edge of the Potomac swamp.
In 1867, however. the unbeatable
Nationals laid out a field of their own
at Sixteenth and streets. far out in
the suburbs, and enclosed it with a
high board fence. There they built
a clubhouse and began to charge ad-
mission. The crack aggregations
from other Eastern cities were in.
vited to Washington-the Atlantics OF
Brooklyn, the Athletics Of Philadel-
phia and the Haymakers Of Troy.
The town, with the restlessness
which is the inevitable aftermath of
war in its blood, went base ball crazy.
'rhe Nationals, college boys and swag-
rerng young officers that they were,
lecame the idols of hoop-skirted
bellies. The best homes were opened
10 them. When one of them strolled
into a saloon, every member of Con-
gress at the bar strove to pay for his