Sunday, January 13, 2008

The Empires Toss The Yarn And Leather

"The Empires indulged in tossing the yarn and leather about at a great rate at their park yesterday afternoon. At a late hour two 'nines,' composed of ten men each, were picked out and went for one another at a great rate. It was the intention of the boys to play a game between the married and single members of the club, but it had to be abandoned on account of the benedicts staying away; so the two tens were mixed up. Nine innings were played, which resulted in favor of the Spaulding side (over the Barron side, 32-22)."

"In the third inning Ellick, Spaulding and Welch made a very pretty double play. During the game Jimmy Spaulding made a home run. The weather was entirely too cold to play ball, but any amount of fun was indulged in by the players which pleased the 500 or 600 spectators in attendance hugely. Before the game came off, Billy Gorman, of the Empires, in taking a terrible hot liner, got the third finger of his right hand broken. 'Surgeon' Dickey Pearce, being on the ground, set the finger in real professional style."

-From the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 12, 1875

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Tens," eh? They believed Chadwick that ten men was the future of the game? Had they been paying closer attention, they would have played ten innings as well. But perhaps the late hour explains their playing but nine innings.

Jeffrey Kittel said...

This definetely looks like a ten man/ten inning game. I was thinking that it was possible, if however unlikely, that they had some extra guys and each side kept a sub but I couldn't really convince myself of that.