A Ball Player's Career: Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson — John Shaqi
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
"Another result of the tour has been to show our English cousins the
great contrast between the character and habits of our American
base-ball professionals and those of the English professional cricketers,
taking them as a class. One of the London players warmly complimented
the American players on their fine physique as athletes and especially
commented on their abstemious habits in contrast, as the paper stated
'with our beer-drinking English professional cricketers.' In fact, the
visit of the baseball players has opened old John Bull's eyes to the
fact that we are not as neglectful of athletic sports as he thought we
were, for one thing, and in our American baseball representatives we
presented a corps of fielders the equal of which in brilliancy of play
England has never seen even among the most expert of her best trained
cricketers. So much for our National Game of base-ball as a school for
fielding in cricket. We sent these ball players out to show England how
we played ball, but with no idea of their being able to accomplish much
at cricket; but to our most agreeable surprise they defeated every club
that they played with at that game, and Bell's Life does the American
team the justice to say that an eleven could no doubt be selected from
the American ball players that would trouble some of the best of our
elevens to defeat.
"The telegrams from England in every instance referred to the games
played as between twenty-two Americans and eleven English, but when the
regular reports were secured by mail it was found that it was eighteen
against twelve, quite a difference as regards the odds against side. The
first dispatch also referred to the 'weak team presented against the
Americans,' but the score when received showed that the eighteen had
against them in the first match six of the crack team which came over
here in 1872, together with two professionals and four of the strongest
of the Marylebone Club. Englishmen did not dream that the base-ball
novices could make such a good showing in the game, and knowing nothing
of their ability as fielders they thought it would be an easy task to
defeat even double their own number, the defeat of the celebrated Surrey
and Prince's Club twelves in one inning, and of the strong teams of
Sheffield, Manchester and Dublin by large scores, opened their eyes to
their mistake, and very naturally they began to hold the game that could
yield such players in great respect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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