A Ball Player's Career: Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. AnsonAnson, Adrian C. (Adrian Constantine)
History
A Ball Player's Career: Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson
Anson, Adrian C. (Adrian Constantine)
Baseball
Our first game of ball in Naples and the first of our trip on European
soil was played in the Campo de Mart, or "Field of Mars," February 19th.
We left the hotel in carriages and drove out by the way of the Via Roma
to the grounds. The day before United States Consul Camphausen, who
treated us all through our stay with the greatest kindness and courtesy,
had issued invitations to the various members of the different
diplomatic corps in Naples, and also to many of the principal citizens,
so that there was a crowd of about 3,000 people on the grounds, and
among them quite a sprinkling of foreign diplomats and fashionable
people. The game began with Baldwin and Daly and Healy and Earl in the
points, but it had hardly gotten under way before the crowd swarmed onto
the playing grounds in such a way as to make fielding well-nigh
impracticable, and batting dangerous. The police seemed powerless to
restrain the people and the bad Italian of A. G. Spalding had,
seemingly, no effect, in spite of the coaching given him by Minister
Camphausen. Then we tried to clear the field ourselves, and, though we
would succeed for a time, it would soon be as bad as ever, the fact that
an Italian was laid out senseless by a ball from Carroll's bat not
seeming to deter them in the least. For three innings neither side
scored, and in the fourth each got a man across the plate, but in the
fifth the All-Americas increased their score by seven runs, and the
crowd, evidently thinking that the game was over, swarmed across the
field like an army of Kansas grasshoppers, and Ward, ordering his men
into their positions, claimed the game of Tener, who was umpiring, which
the latter gave him by a technical score of 9 to 0, the score books
showing 8 to 2. That night was our last in Naples, and by invitation of
the American Minister we occupied boxes at the San Carlos Theater, which
was packed from pit to dome by the wealth and fashion of Naples.
We were to have taken our departure for Rome at 8:30 the next morning,
but owing to a mistake that was made by the commissionaire, to whom the
getting of the tickets had been left, we were compelled to wait until
the afternoon at three, Mr. Spalding and his mother going on without us.
Leaving Clarence Duval to watch over the baggage piled up in a corner of
the waiting-room we spent the time in driving about the city, and in
paying a farewell visit to the Naples Museum, in which is contained some
of the finest marbles, bronzes and paintings to be found on the
continent, the Farnese Bull and the Farnese Hercules in marble being
famous the world over. Three o'clock found us again at the depot and
this time the tickets being on hand we boarded the train and were soon
whirling along through the rural districts of Italy on our way to:
"Rome that sat upon her seven hills And ruled the world."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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