the days when I was connected with it, either as player, manager or club official.
To all these requests and importunities I might have turned a deaf ear but for one incident which I will here relate. Some months before his demise I received a letter from Mr. Henry Chadwick, advising me that he had in his keeping the accumulations of years, embracing much valuable statistical and historical data bearing upon the national game. This he desired me to possess, but he wanted it to go into the hands of one who would make use of some part of it, at least. He then declared that he had written his will and bequeathed to me his Base Ball library, in the hope that I would write a book on the subject that had held so much of interest for him during his manhood's life.
Therefore, when, after his death I received word from Mrs. Chadwick that shipment had been made to me of her husband's Base Ball literature, I found myself facing the plea of an old and valued friend, now "on the other shore," adding to that of many others his request that I should write a book on Base Ball.
Hence, putting aside all personal inclinations, I find myself engaged in the undertaking of writing, not a history of Base Ball, but the simple story of America's National Game as I have come to know it. I wish again emphatically to disavow any pretense on the part of this work as a "history of Base Ball." I have simply sought in these pages to deal with the beginnings of things, leading the reader to the opening of paths the traversing of which will enable him to view certain historic scenes that in my opinion constitute the chief landmarks of Base Ball history.
