Our voyage back to "God's country," by which term of endearment the
American traveling abroad often refers to the United States, was by no
means a pleasant one, as we encountered heavy weather from the start,
the "Adriatic" running into a storm immediately after leaving Queenstown
that lasted for two days and two nights, during which time we made but
slow progress, and as a result there were a good many vacant seats at
the table when mealtimes came. A storm at sea is always an inspiring
sight, and it was a pleasure to those of us who were lucky enough to
have our sealegs on to watch the big ship bury her nose in the
mountainous waves, scattering the spray in great clouds and then rising
again as buoyantly as the proverbial cork. The decks were not a pleasant
point of vantage, however, even for the most enthusiastic admirer of
nature, as a big wave would now and then break over the forward part of
the vessel, drenching everything and everybody within reach and making
the decks as slippery as a well-waxed ballroom.
I had quit smoking some time before starting on this trip and was
therefore deprived of blowing a cloud with which to drive dull care away
during the tedious days that followed. Like the rest of the party, too,
once started I was impatient to reach home again, and for that reason
the slow progress that we made the first few days was not greatly to my
liking. The weather moderated at the end of forty-eight hours, and
though the waves still wore their night-caps and were too playful to go
to bed, they occasioned us but little annoyance and we bowled along over
the Atlantic in merry fashion, killing time by spinning yarns, playing
poker and taking a turn at the roulette wheel which Fred Carroll had
purchased at Nice to remind him of his experience at Monte Carlo.
At a very early hour on Saturday morning, April 6, we were off Fire
Island, and sunrise found us opposite quarantine.
Our base-ball friends in New York, who had been looking for us for three
days, had been early apprised that the "Adriatic" had arrived off Sandy
Hook, and, boarding the little steamer "Starin" and the tug "George
Wood," they came down the bay, two hundred strong, to meet us. With the
aid of "a leedle Sherman pand," steam whistles and lusty throats they
made noise enough to bring us all on deck in a hurry. As the distance
between the vessels grew shorter we could distinguish among others the
faces of Marcus Meyer, W. W. Kelly, John W. Russel, Digby Bell, DeWolf
Hopper, Col. W. T. Coleman and many others, not least among them being
my old father, who had come on from Marshalltown to be among the first
to welcome myself and my wife back to America, and who, as soon as the
"Starin" was made fast, climbed on deck and gave us both a hug that
would have done credit to the muscular energy of a grizzly bear, but who
was no happier to see us than we were to see him and to learn that all
was well with our dear ones. I'm not sure but the next thing that he did
was to propose a game of poker to some of the boys, but if he did not it
was simply because there was too much excitement going on. That evening
we were the guests of Col. McCaull at Palmer's Theater, where De-Wolf
Hopper, Digby Bell and other prominent comic opera stars were playing in
"The May Queen." The boxes that we occupied that night were handsomely
decorated with flags and bunting, while from the proscenium arch hung an
emblem of all nations, a gilt eagle and shield, with crossed bats and a
pair of catcher's gloves and a catcher's mask.
Every allusion to the trip and to the members of the teams brought out
the applause, and by and by the crowd began to call for speeches from
Ward and myself, but Ward wouldn't, and I couldn't, and so the comedians
on the stage were left to do all of the entertaining.
The next day, Sunday, was spent quietly in visiting among our friends,
and Monday we played the first game after our return on the Brooklyn
grounds. The day was damp and cold and for that reason the crowd was
comparatively a small one, there being only 4,000 people on hand to give
us a welcome, but these made up in noise what they lacked in numbers and
yelled themselves hoarse as we marched onto the grounds. Once again,
after a hard-fought contest, we were beaten by a single run, All-America
7, Chicago 6 being the score.
At night we were given a banquet at Delmonico's by the New York admirers
of the game, and it was a notable gathering of distinguished men that
assembled there to do us honor, among them being A. G. Mills,
ex-President of the National League, who acted as Chairman, Hon. Chauncey
M. Depew, Hon. Daniel Dougherty, Henry E. Howland, W. H. McElroy, U. S.
Consul; G. W. Griffin, who was representing the United States at Sydney
when we were there; Mayor Chapin, of Brooklyn; Mayor Cleveland, of
Jersey City; Erastus Wyman, Samuel L. Clemens ("Mark Twain"), and the
Rev. Joseph Twitchell, of Hartford, Conn.; while scattered about the
hall at various tables were seated representatives of different college
classes, members of the New York Stock Exchange, the president and
prominent members of the New York Athletic Club, and other crack
athletic organizations of New York and vicinity, while in the gallery
the ladies had been seated presumably for the purpose of seeing that we
neither ate nor drank too much during the festivities.
Mr. Mills in his address reminded his hearers of the occasion that had
brought them together and pronounced a glowing eulogy upon the game and
its beauties and upon the players that had journeyed around the world to
introduce it in foreign climes, and then called upon Mayor Cleveland of
New Jersey, whose witty remarks excited constant laughter, and who wound
up by welcoming us home in the name of the 20,000 residents of the
little city across the river. Mayor Alfred Chapin of Brooklyn followed
in a brief and laughter-provoking address, after which Chauncey M. Depew
arose amid enthusiastic cheering and spoke as follows:
"Representing, as I do, probably more than any other human being, the
whole of the American people who were deprived, by a convention that did
not understand its duty, of putting me where I belong; and representing,
as I do, by birth and opportunity, all the nationalities on the globe, I
feel that I have been properly selected to give you the welcome of the
world. I am just now arranging and preparing a Centennial oration which
I hope may, and fear may not, meet all the possibilities of the 30th of
April in presenting the majesty of that which created the government
which we boast of and the land and country of which we are proud, but I
feel that that oration is of no importance compared with the event of
this evening. Washington never saw a base-ball game; Madison wrote the
Constitution of the United States, and died without seeing one;
Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence, and yet his
monument has no tribute of this kind upon it. Hamilton, the most
marvelous and creative genius, made constitutions, built up systems and
created institutions, and yet never witnessed a base-ball game. I feel
as I stand here that all the men that have ever lived and achieved
success in this world have died in vain. I am competent to pay that
tribute, because I never played a game in my life, and I never saw it
but once, and then did not understand it. A philosopher whom I always
read with interest, because his abstractions sometimes approach the
truth, wrote an article of some acumen several years ago, in which he
said that you could mark the march of civilization and rise of liberty
and its decadence by the interest which the nations took in pugilism.
The nations of the earth which submit to the most grinding of despotisms
have no pugilists. The nations of Europe which have never risen in their
boasted establishments to a full comprehension of republicanism, have no
pugilists. While Ireland and the Irish people, who can never be crushed,
who have poetry, song and eloquence that belong to genius, have the most
remarkable pugilists. England, which has a literature which is the only
classic of to-day, which has an aristocracy and a form of government
which is nearly democratic, has remarkable pugilists, and when you reach
the seal of culture in America--Boston--you find the prince of pugilists.
Now, that philosopher was right in the general principle, but wrong in
the game. Civilization is marked, and has been in all ages, by an
interest in the manly arts."
In conclusion Mr. Depew eulogized the returning tourists and-ended with
a brilliant panegyric in favor of the National Game.
In responding to the toast, "The Influence of the Manly Sports," the
Hon. Daniel Dougherty made a brilliant address in favor of outdoor
games, after which President Spalding paid a compliment to the excellent
conduct and ball-playing abilities of the two teams, and Captain Ward
and myself made the briefest of remarks. Chairman Mills then introduced
"Mark Twain," speaking of him as a native of the Sandwich Islands, which
brought out the following address:
"Though not a native, as intimated by the chairman, I have visited the
Sandwich Islands, that peaceful land, that beautiful land, that far-off
home of profound repose and soft indolence, and dreamy solitude, where
life is one long slumberous Sabbath, the climate one long, delicious
summer day, and the good that die experience no change, for they but
fall asleep in one heaven and wake up in another. And these boys have
played base-ball there; baseball, which is the very symbol, the outward
and visible expression of the drive and push and rush and struggle of
the raging, tearing, booming nineteenth century. One cannot realize it,
the place and the fact are so incongruous; it is like interrupting a
funeral with a circus. Why, there's no legitimate point of contact, no
possible kinship between base-ball" and the Sandwich Islands; base-ball
is all fact, the Islands are all sentiment. In base-ball you've got to
do everything just right, or you don't get there; in the Islands you've
got to do everything all wrong, or you can't stay there. You do it wrong
to get it right, for if you do it right you get it wrong; there isn't
any way to get it right but to do it wrong, and the wronger you do it
the righter it is.
"The natives illustrate this every day. They never mount a horse from
the larboard side, they always mount him from the starboard; on the
other hand, they never milk a cow on the starboard side, they always
milk her on the larboard; it's why you see so many short people there,
they've got their heads kicked off. When they meet on the road they
don't turn to the right, they turn to the left. And so, from always
doing everything wrong end first, it makes them left-handed and
cross-eyed; they are all so. In those Islands, the cats haven't any
tails and the snakes haven't any teeth; and, what is still more
irregular, the man that loses a game gets the pot. As to dress, the
women all wear a single garment, but the men don't. No, the men don't
wear anything at all; they hate display; when they wear a smile they
think they are overdressed. Speaking of birds, the only bird there that
has ornamental feathers has only two, just only enough to squeeze
through with, and they are under its wings instead of on top of its
head, where, of course, they ought to be to do any good.
"The natives' language is soft and liquid and flexible, and in every way
efficient and satisfactory till you get mad; then, there you are; there
isn't anything in it to swear with. Good judges all say it is the best
Sunday language there is; but then all the other six days of the week it
just hangs idle on your hands; it isn't any good for business, and you
can't work a telephone with it. Many a time the attention of the
missionaries has been called to this defect, and they are always
promising they are going to fix it; but no, they go fooling along and
fooling along, and nothing is done. Speaking of education, everybody
there is educated, from the highest to the lowest; in fact, it is the
only country in the world where education is actually universal. And yet
every now and then you run across instances of ignorance that are simply
revolting, simply revolting to the human race. Think of it, there the
ten takes the ace. But let us not dwell on such things. They make a
person ashamed. Well, the missionaries are always going to fix that, but
they put it off, and put it off, and put it off, and so that nation is
going to keep on going down, and down, until some day you will see a
pair of jacks beat a straight flush.
"Well, it is refreshment to the jaded, water to the thirsty, to look
upon men who have so lately breathed the soft air of these Isles of the
Blest, and had before their eyes the inextinguishable vision of their
beauty. No alien land in all the world has any deep, strong charm for me
but that one; no other land could so longingly and beseechingly tempt
me, sleeping and waking, through half a life-time, as that one has done.
Other things leave me, but that abides; other things change, but that
remains the same. For me, its balmy airs are always blowing, its summer
seas flashing in the sun, the pulsing of its surfbeat is in my ears. I
can see its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms
drowsing by the shore, its remote summits floating like islands above
the cloud rack. I can hear the spirits of its woodland solitudes, I can
hear the splash of its brooks; in my nostrils still lives the breath of
the flowers that perished twenty years ago. And these world wanderers
that sit before me here have lately looked upon these things, and with
eyes of the flesh, not the unsatisfying vision of the spirit. I envy
them that."
"Mark Twain" may have been better than he was that night, but if so I
should like some one to mention the time and place. To be sure he make a
mistake in taking it for granted that we had played ball there, but then
it was not our fault that we had not: It was all the fault of the horrid
blue laws that prevented us from making an honest dollar.
Digby Bell and DeWolf Hopper gave recitations in response to the loud
demand made for them, and it was not until long after midnight that an
adjournment was finally made.
The next day we played our second game in Brooklyn before a crowd of
3,500, and gave a rather uninteresting exhibition, the Chicagos taking
the lead at the start and holding it to the finish, the All-Americas
supporting Crane in a very slipshod manner. That same evening we left
for Baltimore, where 6,000 people gave us a hearty welcome when we
appeared the next afternoon on the Association grounds. Here we put up a
good game, the Chicagos winning by a score of 5 to 2.
We arrived in Philadelphia the next morning at eleven o'clock and found
a committee composed of the officers of the Philadelphia clubs and
representatives of the Philadelphia papers at the depot awaiting our
arrival. Entering carriages we were driven down Chestnut Street to the
South Side Ferry, where we took the boat for Gloucester and were given a
planked-shad dinner at Thompson's. Returning we were driven directly to
the grounds of the Athletic Club, where the Athletics and Bostons were
playing an exhibition game. When our party filed into the grounds at the
end of the third inning play was suspended and as the band played "Home
Again" we were given a great ovation. At the conclusion of the game,
which we witnessed from a section of the grand stand that had been
reserved for us, we went to the Continental Hotel, and then, after we
had donned evening dress, we were escorted to the Hotel Bellevue, where
we had been tendered a banquet by the Philadelphia "Sporting Life." The
banquet hall on this occasion was beautifully decorated, and as we
entered the band played, "The Day I Played Base-ball." Frank C. Richter
occupied the chairman's seat, others at the same table being A. G.
Spalding, Col. A. K. McClure, of the "Philadelphia Times;" Col. M. R.
Muckle, of the "Ledger;" John I. Rogers, Harry, Wright, A. G. Reach,
Capt. John M. Ward, C. H. Byrne of the Brooklyn Club, President W. M.
Smith of the City Council, Thomas Dando, President of the "Sporting
Life" company, and myself. There were over three hundred guests in all
and it was late before the speechmaking began. After brief welcoming
addresses by Chairman Richter, Mr. Dando and President Smith, there were
loud calls for Mr. Spalding, who gave a brief outline of our experiences
in foreign lands. Captain Ward and myself responded in behalf of our
respective teams and I took occasion to pay the boys all a compliment
that I thought that they had deserved, because each and every member had
behaved himself as a gentleman. Speeches by Colonel Rogers and C. H.
Byrne followed, after which came a glowing tribute to the National Game
from the lips of Col. McClure, followed by an interesting sketch of the
game and its growth in popular favor by Henry Chadwick, who has the
history of the game from its first inception down to the present time at
his finger-ends. A. J. Reach, Harry Wright, Tim Murnane, Leigh Lynch and
the irrepressible Fogarty all took their turn at amusing the party and
again it was a late hour, or rather an early one, when we returned to
our quarters. The next afternoon we were accorded a reception by Mayor
Fitler in his office, who, in shaking hands with the tourists, gave us
all the heartiest sort of a welcome. That afternoon we played on the
grounds of the Philadelphias, to a crowd of 4,000 people, the weather
being threatening. This proved to be a close and exciting contest,
Chicago winning by a score of 6 to 4, Tener and Healy both being in fine
shape.
The next day found us in Boston where we played to 4,000 people, and
where the contest proved to be a one-sided affair, a brilliant double
play by Duffy, Tener and myself and a quick double play by Manning and
Wise being the redeeming features. It was something of a picnic for
All-Americas, as they won by a score of 10 to 3. The following evening
we started on our trip to Chicago, stopping at Washington en route.
Here we were notified of President Harrison's wish to receive the party
and, visiting the White House, we were introduced to Benjamin Harrison,
whose reception was about as warm as that of an icicle, and who
succeeded in making us all feel exceedingly uncomfortable. That
afternoon 3,000 people saw us wipe up the ground with the All-Americas,
upon whom the President's reception had had a bad effect, as the score,
18 to 6, indicates.
The next day we played at Pittsburg to a crowd of the same size, the
score being a tie, each team having made three runs at the end of the
ninth inning, and the day following at Cleveland 4,500 saw us win by a
score of 7 to 4. At Indianapolis the All-Americas took their revenge,
however, beating us in the presence of 2,000 people by a score of 9 to
5.
Friday noon we left the Hoosier capital for Chicago in a special car
over the Monon route, and at Hammond, where we had already gotten into
dress suits, we were met by a crowd of Chicagoans, who told us that
Chicago was prepared to give us the greatest reception that we had yet
had, a fact that proved to be only too true. The crowd at the depot was
a howling, yelling mob, and as we entered our carriages and the
procession moved up Wabash Avenue and across Harmon Court to Michigan
Avenue, amid the bursting of rockets, the glare of calcium lights and
Roman candles, we felt that we were indeed at home again. It seemed as
if every amateur base-ball club in the city had turned out on this
occasion and as they passed us in review the gay uniforms and colored
lights made the scene a very pretty one. At the Palmer House the crowd
was fully as large as that which had greeted us at the depot, the
reception committee embracing Judge H. M. Shepard, Judge H. N. Hibbard,
Potter Palmer, John R. Walsh, Frederic Ullman, L. G. Fisher, D. K. Hill,
C. L. Willoughby, C. E. Rollins, F. M. Lester, J. B. Kitchen, J. B.
Knight, M. A. Fields, Dr. Hathaway, L. M. Hamburger, Louis Manasse and
C. F. Gunther.
The banquet given in our honor that night was a most elegant affair,
among those seated at the speaker's table being Mayor DeWitt C. Cregier,
Hon. Carter H. Harrison, Rev. Dr. Thomas, James W. Scott, President of
the Chicago Press Club, A. G. Spalding, George W. Driggs and many
others. It was after ten o'clock when Mayor Cregier called the
banqueters to order and made his speech of welcome, to which Mr.
Spalding replied. The Rev. Dr. Thomas responded to the toast of
"Base-ball as a National Amusement," and myself to "His Royal Highness
the Prince of Wales," but the boys kept up such a constant cheering while
I was on my feet that I am afraid that they did not appreciate all the
good things that I said in regard to England's future ruler. "The
National Value of Athletics" brought out a stirring address from Major
Henry Turner, and John M. Ward expressed himself most happily on "The
World As I Found It." Ex-Mayor Carter H. Harrison responded to the
toast, "My Own Experience," and compared in humorous fashion his own
trip around the world with the one that we had just completed. After
other toasts responded to by various members of the party, we adjourned.
The next afternoon we played the last game of the trip at the West Side
Park and were beaten by a score of 22 to 9, the All-Americas falling
upon Baldwin and batting him all over the grounds.
The next day the tourists went their several ways and so ended a
tour such as had never before been planned and that cost me in round
figures about $1,500, that being my share of the losses incurred in
advertising the sporting goods business of the Spaldings, their
business being greatly benefited by the tour, and how they repaid me
afterwards--well--that's another story.