Turn The Hoodlums Out

"A clique and rabble have taken possession of the Union Grounds recently and have been trying to discourage the home teams by calling the individual players ill names and hissing and hooting at them without good cause or reason."

"This clique and rabble is composed mostly of hoodlums who belong to the rock pile and who have no right to mingle among decent people. Our advice to the manager of the Union Grounds is to spot these geese and hoodlums and fire them into the street where they belong. No decent man would be guilty of such conduct and there is no place in the ball park for hoodlums or hoodlumism."

"It is an ill bird that befouls its own nest. It's a blackguard and hoodlum that cries down the local team and hurls curses and threats at the players who are working faithfully and honestly for the good name of St. Louis."

"If management have not police enough to keep order then put on a special force and direct your men to knock down and drag out every loafer who is found using indecent language and cursing the home or visiting players."

"In the theaters hissing was suppressed some time ago and the man who would make himself obnoxious to his fellow auditors by using ill language in a temple of Thespis would fare badly. Let the same law be carried out in the ball parks and let every sore head be fired into the street where he belongs or else slapped into the cooler and prosecuted for disturbing the peace."

"These are plain words but in our mind they fit the case, and the planner the better."

-from The Sporting News, May 17, 1886