Reddy joined in the laugh that followed and took up the conversation. "Well," he said, while the others in the Pullman car in which they were traveling drew around him, for they always liked to see him get started on his recollections, "the honor of having discovered the curve rests between Arthur Cummings and Bobby Mathews. It's never been clearly settled which 'saw it first.' Before their time it used to be straight, fast ones and a slow teaser that was thrown underhand. But even at that, don't run away with the idea that those old fellows weren't some pitchers. Of course, they were handicapped by the fact that at first they had to keep on pitching until the player hit it. The four-ball rule, and making a foul count for a hit, and all those modern things that have been invented to help the pitcher, hadn't been thought of then. Naturally, that made heavy batting games. Why, I know that the old Niagara team of Buffalo won a game once by 201 to 11." "Yes," broke in Ainslee, "and the first college game in 1859 was won by Amherst over Williams by a score of 66 to 32." "Gee," said Hinsdale, "the outfielders in those days must have had something to do, chasing the ball." "They certainly did," agreed Reddy, "but, of course, that sort of thing didn't last very long. The pitchers soon got the upper hand, and then, good-by to the big scores. "I suppose," he went on, "that the real beginning of baseball, as we know it to-day, goes back to the old 'Red Stockings' of Cincinnati, in '69 and '70. There was a team for you. George and Harry Wright and Barnes and Spalding, and a lot of others just as good, went over the country like a prairie fire. There wasn't anybody that could stand up against them. Why, they went all though one season without a single defeat. It got to be after a while that the other teams felt about them just as they say boxers used to feel when they stood up against Sullivan. They were whipped before they put up their hands. The next year they got their first defeat at the hands of the old Atlantics of Brooklyn. I was a wee bit of a youngster then, but I saw that game through a hole in the fence. Talk about excitement! At the end of the ninth inning the score was tied, and the Atlantics were anxious to stop right there. It was glory enough to tie the mighty Red Stockings--a thing that had never been done before--without taking any further chances. But Harry Wright, the captain, was stubborn--I guess he was sorry enough for it afterwards--and the game went on, only to have the Atlantics win in the eleventh by a score of 7 to 6. I've seen many a game since, but never one to equal that.