Philadelphia is a good city to live in, at least I found it so, and had
I had my own way I presume that I should still be a resident of the city
that William Penn founded instead of a citizen of Chicago, while had I
had my own way when I left Marshalltown to go into a world I knew but
little about I might never have lived in Philadelphia at all. At that
time I was more than anxious to come to Chicago and did my best to
secure a position with the Chicago Club, of which Tom Foley, the veteran
billiard-room keeper, was then the manager. As he has since informed me,
he was looking at that time for ball players with a reputation, and not
for players who had a reputation yet to make, as was the case with me,
and so he turned my application down with the result that I began my
professional career in Rockford instead of in Chicago, as I had wished
to do. "It is an ill wind that blows nobody good," however, and for the
Providence that took me to Rockford and afterward to the "City of
Brotherly Love," I am at this late day truly thankful, however
displeased I may have been at that time.
I have often consoled myself since then with the reflection that had I
come to Chicago to start my career in 1871, that career might have come
to a sudden end right there and then, and all of my hopes for the future
might have gone up in smoke, for the big fire that blotted out the city
scattered the members of the Chicago Base Ball club far and wide and
left many of them stranded, for the me being at least, on the sands of
adversity.
Shakespeare has said, "There is a Providence that shapes our ends rough
hew them as we will," and it seems to me that the immortal Bard of Avon
must have had my case in mind when he wrote that line, for I can see but
little to complain about thus far in the treatment accorded me by
Providence, though I am willing to admit that there was some pretty
rough hewing to do before I was knocked into any shape at all.
When I began playing ball at Rockford I was just at that age when, in my
estimation, I knew a heap more than did the old man, and that idea had
not been entirely knocked out of my head when I arrived in Philadelphia.
The outdoor life that I had led when a youngster, the constant exercise
that I had indulged in, together with the self-evident truth that the
Lord had blessed me with a constitution that a young bull might envy,
had all conspired to make me a young giant in strength, and as a result
I was as full of animal spirits as is an unbroken thoroughbred colt, and
as impatient of restraint.
Good advice was, to a greater or less extent, thrown away upon me, and
if I had any trouble it rolled off from my broad shoulders as water from
a duck's back and left not a trace behind. In the language of the old
song, I was, "Good for any game at night, my boys," or day, either, for
that matter, and the pranks that I played and the scrapes that I got
into were, some of them, not of a very creditable nature, though they
were due more to exuberation than to any innate love of wrong-doing.
In any contest that required strength and skill I was always ready to
take a hand, and in these contests I was able to hold my own as a rule,
though now and then I got the worst of it, as was the case when I
entered the throwing match at the Union Grounds in Brooklyn in October,
1872. The entries were Hatfield and Boyd, of the Mutuals; George Wright
and Leonard, of the Bostons, and Fisler and myself, representing the
Athletics. The ball was thrown from a rope stretched between two stakes
driven into the ground one hundred and ten yards from the home-plate.
Each competitor was allowed three throws, and the rules governing the
contest required that the ball be dropped within two large bags placed
on a line with the home-plate and about sixty feet apart. Hatfield led
us all in each of his three trials, and on the last one he beat his own
record of 132 yards made at Cincinnati in 1868 by clearing 133 yards 1
foot and 7 1/2 inches. Leonard came next with 119 yards 1 foot 10
inches, Wright third with 117 yards 1 foot 1 inch, Boyd fourth with 115
yards 1 foot 7 inches, Fisler fifth with 112 yards 6 inches, while your
humble servant brought up the tail end of the procession with a throw of
110 yards and 6 inches, not a bad performance in itself, but lacking a
long ways of being good enough to get the money with.
Among the famous characters of which the Quaker City boasted in those
days was Prof. William McLean, or "Billy" McLean, as he was generally
called, an ex-prize fighter and a boxing teacher whose reputation for
skill with the padded mitts was second to no man's in the country. To
take boxing lessons from a professional who really knew something
touching the "noble art of self-defense," as the followers of ring
sports would say, was something that I had never had an opportunity of
doing before, and it is hardly to be wondered at that I availed myself
of the chance before I had been there a very long time.
I towered over McLean like a mountain over a mole hill, and I remember
well that the first time that I faced him I thought what an easy matter
it would be for me to knock his reputation into a cocked hat, and that
before a man could say "Jack Robinson." In a very few moments, however,
I had changed my opinion. I had fancied that I was a pretty good sort of
a man myself with or without the gloves, but long before the end of that
first lesson I had come to the conclusion that my education in that
line, as well as others, had been neglected, and that I still had
considerable to learn. McLean went around me very much as a cooper goes
around a barrel, hitting me wherever and whenever he pleased, and the
worst of the matter was that I could not hit him at all. It was not
until after he had convinced me just how little I knew that he began to
teach me, beginning with the rudiments of the art. I proved to be an apt
pupil and soon became quite proficient at the game, in fact so good was
I that I sometimes fancied that I could lick a whole army of wildcats,
this being especially the case when the beer was in and the wit was out,
for be it beer or wine, the effect is generally the same, a fact that I
had not yet learned, though it dawned on me long before I left
Philadelphia, and I quit it for good and all, to which fact I attribute
the success that I have since met with both in the sporting and the
business world.
It was in 1875 and during my last season with the Athletics, if I
remember rightly, that I became involved in a saloon row, that, to say
the least of it, was not to my credit, and that I have been ashamed of
ever since. We had been out to the grounds practicing until nearly
nightfall and on the way home we stepped into a German saloon on the
corner for the purpose of refreshing the inner man and washing the dust
out of our throats. In some way the conversation turned on the doings of
various fighters and I expressed myself pretty freely concerning their
merits and demerits, for having taken boxing lessons, I was naturally
anxious to set myself up as an authority on matters pugilistic.
Just as we were in the midst of the argument a fresh policeman happened
along and "chipped into the game" with the remark that if there was any
fighting to be done he would himself take a hand in it.
That was my chance. For what had I taken boxing lessons unless I could
at least do a policeman? "Come on!" I yelled and then I smashed him. He
was not the only policeman on the beat, however. There were others--in
fact, several of them, and they clubbed me good and plenty, finally
leading me away with the nippers on.
Arriving at the police station, and a pretty tough-looking object I was,
as you may imagine, I immediately sent for the President of the club,
who, as good luck would have it, was also a Police Commissioner. When he
put in an appearance he looked at me in astonishment and then asked me
what I had been doing.
I told him that I hadn't been doing anything, but that I had tried to do
the whole police force, and with very poor success. I was released on
honor that night and the next morning appeared before Alderman Buck, who
listened to both sides of the story, and then let me go, thinking by my
appearance, doubtless, that I had already been punished enough. After
court had adjourned we all adjourned on my motion to the nearest saloon,
where we had several rounds of drink and then--well, then I started in to
celebrate a victory that was, after all, a good deal more like a defeat.
While thus engaged I was unfortunate enough to run up against the young
lady that I had already determined to make Mrs. Anson, and not being in
the best of condition, she naturally enough did not like it, but as
Rudyard Kipling says--that is another story.
That experience ended the wild-oats business for me, however, and
although the crop that I had sown was, comparatively speaking, a small
one, yet it was more than sufficient for all my needs, and I now regret
at times that I was foolish enough to sow any at all.
The only other row that I ever had of any consequence took place on a
street car one day when I was going out to the ball grounds, a game
between the Athletics and Chicagos being scheduled for decision. The
most intense rivalry existed at that time between these two
organizations and the feeling among their partisans ran high. A
gentleman on the car--at least he was dressed like a gentleman--asked me
what I thought in regard to the relative strength of the two
organizations. At that time I had some $1,500 invested in club stock and
naturally my feelings leaned toward the club of which I was a member,
still I realized that they were pretty evenly matched, and I so stated.
He then remarked in sneering tones, "Oh, I don't know. I guess they play
to win or lose as will best suit their own pockets."
I informed him that if he meant to insinuate that either one of them
would throw a game, he was a liar.
He gave me the lie in return and then I smashed him, and I am not
ashamed to say that I would do it again under the same circumstances.
I have heard just such remarks as that made even in this late day,
remarks that are as unjust to the players as they are uncalled for by
the circumstances. Lots of men seem 'to forget that the element of luck
enters largely into base-ball just as it does into any other business,
and that things may happen during a contest that cannot be foreseen
either by the club management or by the field captain.
An unlucky stumble on the part of a base runner or a dancing sunbeam
that gets into a fielder's eyes at some critical time in the play may
cost a game; indeed, it has on more than one occasion, and yet to the
man who simply judges the game by the reports that may read in the
papers the thing has apparently a "fishy" look, for the reason that
neither the sunbeam nor the stumble receives mention.
If every sport and business man in this world were as crooked as some
folks would have us to believe, this would indeed be a poor world to
live in, and I for one would be perfectly willing to be out of it.
The real truth of the matter is that the crooks in any line are few and
far between. That being the case it's a pretty fair old sort of a world,
and I for one am glad that I am still in it, and very much in it at
that.