Page:America's National Game (1911).djvu/558

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526
AMERICA'S NATIONAL GAME

"All right, I'm agreed," said one after the other, and thus ended the administration of discipline in that case.

As a sequel to this incident, another occurred a few days later. The White Stockings were about to leave for a series of games at Detroit. The train was ready to start. Standing on the platform was a great, green gawk of a fellow, staring with wide-mouthed interest at the departing players. Kelly caught sight of him and whispered something to McCormick. Then the "King" stepped up to the countryman and, after denouncing him in most violent terms as a Pinkerton detective, hauled off and smote him with all his might, while McCormick, coming up behind the bewildered "Rube," kicked the poor fellow's pants clear up on his shoulders. Then the bell rang and the belligerent ball players sprang to the platform of the rear car and went whirling Eastward.




As showing the importance of taking advantage of opportunities presented for the gratuitous advertising of the game, I recall an incident following the sale of Kelly to Boston. The newspapers of Chicago did not take kindly to this transaction. One paper—the Chicago News—then owned by Melville E. Stone and Victor F. Lawson, was particularly severe in its criticism. The News strenuously urged, among other things, a reduction in the price of admission to games, claiming that if Chicago was to have cheap players it ought to have cheap admission.

Frequent caricatures were printed, some of them occupying a half page, illustrating the slave pen of ante-