In 1868 the late Frank Queen, proprietor and editor of the New York Clipper, offered a series of prizes to be contested for by the leading clubs of the country, a gold ball being offered for the champion club, and a gold badge to the player in each position, from catcher to right field, who had the best batting average. The official award gave the majority of the prizes to the Athletic club. McBride, Radcliff, Fisler, Reach and Sensenderfer, having excelled in their respective positions of pitcher, catcher, first base, second base, and center field. Waterman, Hatfield and Johnson, of the Cincinnatis, excelled in the positions of third base, left field and right field, and George Wright of the Unions, of Morrisiania as shortstop. The gold ball was also officially awarded to the Athletics as the emblem of championship for the season of 1868. The Atlantics of Brooklyn were virtually the champions of 1870, being the first club to deprive the Cincinnati Reds of the prestige of invincibility which had marked their career during the preceding season. The inaugural contest between these clubs in 1870 took place June 14th on the Capitoline grounds at Brooklyn, N. Y., the Atlantics then winning by a score of 8 to 7 after an exciting struggle of eleven innings. The return game was played September 2d, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and resulted in a decisive victory for the Reds, by a score of 14 to 3. This necessitated a third or decisive game, which was played in Philadelphia October 6th, and this the Atlantics won by a score of 11 to 7. The Atlantics in that year had Zettlein, pitcher; Ferguson, catcher; Start, Pike and Smith on the bases; Pearce, shortstop, and Chapman, Hall and McDonald on the outfield. The newspapers throughout the country had by this time begun to pay unusual attention to the game, and the craze was spreading like wildfire all over the country, every little country town boasting of its nine, and as these were for the greater part made up of home players, local feeling ran high, and the doings of "our team" furnished the chief subject of conversation at the corner grocery, and wherever else the citizens were wont to congregate. With the advent of the professional player the game in the larger towns took on a new lease of life, but in the smaller places where they could not afford the expense necessary to the keeping of a first-class team it ceased to be the main attraction and interest was centered in the doings of the teams of the larger places. That the professional player improved the game itself goes without saying as being a business with him instead of a pastime, and one upon which his daily bread depended, he went into it with his whole soul, developing its beauties in a way that was impossible to the amateur who could only give to it the time that he could spare after the business hours of the day.