Saturday, August 16, 2008

Because I'm Not Going To Let It Go

So Fred Dunlap has passed into the great beyond, and the man whose salary figure marked the high-water limit of the long ago is gone! It seems only yesterday to me that I saw Dunlap chase the ball-and yet it was ten years or so, and most men had forgotten. I wonder how many fans who filled the parks last summer could have told whether Fred Dunlap was alive or dead...What a ball player this Dunlap was...

Dunlap was a real infielder of the type so popular ten years ago-one of the solid, bulky style through whom no grounder seemed able to pass, but who could nevertheless wave the hot ones goodbye with graceful ease when occasion demanded. With the gloves now in use to aid, Dunny would have been even a bigger wonder now than then. He was showy yet effective. He averaged up quite well with the two other kings of second base in those days-Pfeffer and McPhee. Each had his own way of going after the ball, his own style of throwing, his own methods in catching the throw and getting the runner. Dunlap never had quite the support that Pfeffer had, for it was never Dunny's luck to play in the middle of such a bunch as the stonewall infield of the Chicago champions. At least one or tow spots were always weak in Dunlap's infields, but this, perhaps, made his individual glory stand out more brilliant in the contrast.
-W.A. Phelon, Jr., writing in Sporting Life, December 27, 1902

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