CHAPTER XXIV
MAKING MY HOME-TOWN DEBUT AS WORLD’S CHAMPION
I received a fine ovation when I appeared on the historic Lake View Oval track in my native city, Worcester, Mass., on September 8, 1899, to participate in my first track race there. Four years before I arrived in that city from my old home in Indianapolis and a month later I won a 10-mile road race that was an annual fixture in that Bay State city. Although I trained every winter and early spring in Worcester, for my campaign on the tracks of the country I had never ridden in that city except in that road race, until I went there on the occasion in mention.
I was scheduled to ride in the half-mile open, the one-mile handicap, and the five-mile pursuit race with James J. Casey, who is now head of the detectives of the Worcester police department.
I had long since been recognized as an adopted son of Worcester and had even been given a place with her most illustrious sons in the hall of athletic fame, that included Edward Hanlon Ten Eyck, winner of the world’s greatest rowing laurels, the Diamond Sculls; J. Fred Powers, the all-round champion amateur athlete of the country; Harry Worcester Smith, internationally famous gentleman jockey and steeplechase winner; Jay Clark, Jr., national champion trap shooter and Wille W. Windle, although a native of Millbury, Mass., but claimed by Worcester, who stills holds the world’s record for the high wheel one-mile event, made on October 7, 1891, and who was second only to the great Arthur Zimmerman, when he was in his prime as the champion sprinter of this country.
Jesse Burket was a former New York Giant star batter and one of the greatest Major League batters of all time. Burkett produced some of the greatest baseball teams that Holy Cross College ever put on the field. He managed the Worcester Baseball Team of the New England League in the early 1900 series and won four successful pennants. Billie Hamilton, baseball’s champion base stealer and batsman; Joe Higgins, holder of the one-mile world’s record for footrunning; J. J. Munsey, world’s champion candle-pin bowler.
Jack Barry, present coach for the famous Holy Cross baseball team, was for eight years a short stop for the Philadelphia American League Team and a member of the famous million dollar “Infield” that won four consecutive world series. He was later traded to the Boston American League team and was second baseman and manager when that team won the World Series in 1916. The latest stars to be added to this list of celebrities, however, is the now famous Albina Osipo
