Page:America's National Game (1911).djvu/550

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AMERICA'S NATIONAL GAME

a slavery that would help them to redoubled salaries. After awhile the reporters got the right of it, with the result that a system which helped player and club alike was shown to be not so one-sided as had been sometimes supposed. Subsequently Clarkson, the White Stockings' superb pitcher, was also sold to Boston, and later Gore went to New York, but we overdid the matter a trifle and lost the pennant that year.


In speaking of the events which led to my separation from the Boston Club, in 1875, it will be recalled that I accompanied Mr. Hulbert to Philadelphia, where it was stated that Anson and Sutton had already "been secured." It was not quite true that both these players had been secured. They had agreed to go with me to Chicago, but Sutton never went, and Anson found it very difficult to do so.

In what has here been written concerning the game and its producers I fear I may sometimes have done injustice to the players. If so, I wish right now to make amends. I certainly desire to be just to all, and I know a good deal about the temptations that assailed players during the evolution of Base Ball in those early days. I have known tricky players, dishonest players, drunken players, but I have also met and dealt with shiftless managers, double-faced managers and managers as corrupt as Satan himself.

As soon as it became known that Barnes, McVey, White and I had determined to go to Chicago, in 1876, every conceivable influence to induce us to break our con-