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
The Corso, which is the fashionable drive and promenade of the
residents, had a great attraction for us all, and between three and five
o'clock in the afternoons the scene presented was a brilliant one, it
being at that time thronged with handsome equipages and handsomer women,
while the shop windows are pictures in themselves. The street itself in
a narrow one, being barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass each
other, and yet over its pavements there is a constantly flowing tide of
people such as Fifth Avenue in New York, State Street in Chicago, Rotten
Row in London, or even the Champs Ely-see in Paris cannot equal.
On the afternoon of February 22d, in answer to an invitation extended to
the party through President Spalding, by Dr. O'Connell, Director of the
American College at Rome, we called at that institution, in a body and
were soon chatting with the students, some seventy-five in number, who
came from a score of different cities in our own country.
They were a fine, manly lot, and just as fond of baseball, which they
informed us that they often played, as though they were not studying for
the priesthood. Meeting them reminded me of my old school days at Notre
Dame, and of the many games that I had taken part in while there when
the old gentleman was still busily engaged in trying to make something
out of me, and I was just as busily engaged in blocking his little game.
After a pleasant chat Clarence Duval gave them an exhibition of dancing
and baton swinging that amused them greatly, and then we adjourned to
one of the class-rooms, where we listened to brief addresses by Bishop
McQuade of Rochester, N. Y., who was then in Rome on a visit; Bishop
Payne of Virginia, and Dr. O'Connell, to all of which A. G. responded,
after which we took our departure, but not before the students had all
promised to witness the game of the next day.
This game was played on the private grounds of the Prince Borghese,
which are thrown open to the public between the hours of three and five
on Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday of each week, and a prettier place for a
diamond that the portion of it upon which we played, and which was known
as the Piazza de Sienna, could not be imagined. Under the great trees
that crowned the grassy terraces about the glade that afternoon
assembled a crowd such as few ball players had ever played before, among
the notables present being King Humbert of Italy, the Prince of Naples,
Prince Borghese and family, Count Ferran, Princess Castel del Fino,
Count Gionatti, Senora Crispi, wife of the Prime Minister, and her
daughter, Charles Dougherty and ladies, the class of the American
College at Rome, members of the various diplomatic corps, tourists and
others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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