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
of the assemblage, and after luncheon proposed the toasts of "The Queen"
and "The President of the United States," both of which were drank with
enthusiasm. Lord Lewisham then proposed "The American Ball Teams," to
which Mr. Spalding responded, this being followed by the health of the
chairman, proposed by the Hon. Henry White, United States Charge
d'Affaires, after which we made our way through the crowds that thronged
the reception rooms and corridors to the dressing rooms, where we donned
our uniforms and put ourselves in readiness to play ball. When we
marched out on the grounds we were somewhat surprised at the size of the
crowd that greeted us, some 8,000 people having assembled to witness the
game, and this in spite of the fact that it was still foggy and the
grounds soft, black and sticky. To play good ball under such
circumstances was all but impossible, and yet I have taken part in lots
of championship games at home that were worse played than this one.
Healy and Baldwin did the twirling, and both pitched good ball, while
the fielding of both teams was nothing short of remarkable when the fact
is taken into consideration that a ball fifty feet in the air could not
be seen at all. Just at the end of the first half of the third inning we
noticed something of a commotion in the vicinity of the Club House and
when, in a few moments afterwards, the well-known face of the Prince of
Wales appeared at the window, we assembled at the home plate and gave
three hearty cheers for His Highness, this action on our parts bringing
out a storm, of applause from the stand. At the close of the fifth
inning we accompanied Manager Lynch to the Club House at the Prince's
request, where we were introduced to the future King of England by
President Spalding, he shaking hands with each of us in a most cordial
manner, calling many of us by name and chatting with us in a most
off-hand and friendly way. As we left he bowed to each of us pleasantly
and then took a seat by the window to witness the balance of the game,
which resulted at the end of nine innings in a score of 7 to 4 in
Chicago's favor. The London papers the next morning devoted a great
deal of space to the game, but the majority of the Englishmen who had
witnessed it said that they thought cricket its superior, and among
them the Prince of Wales, which was hardly to be wondered at, and which
confirmed me in the opinion that I had formed on my first visit, viz.,
that base-ball would never become a popular English sport, an opinion
that since then has proved to be correct.
Accompanied by the United States Charge d'Affaires the next morning we
drove to the Parliament Buildings, where we were admitted and shown
through by the Secretary to the Chairman of the House of Commons, an
honor rarely accorded to visitors and one that we greatly appreciated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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