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:
