1876 Brown Stockings: How The News Was Received

The friends of the Brown Stockings who were with the boys in spirit if not in flesh, yesterday, after hovering around the Globe-Democrat bulletin-board in the hot sun, all afternoon, were well repaid for their devotion, and went away happy. That base ball admirers depend upon this journal at all times for fresh and reliable news was evinced by the hundreds who thronged Fourth and Pine streets, in the vicinity of the office, the latter thoroughfare being almost impassable. at the close of the third inning, with Chicago in the lead by a score of one to nothing, the croakers, who hand on the outskirts of every crowd, saw nothing but defeat in store for the Browns. When five innings had been played and St. Louis had regained her lost ground, an enthusiastic cheer went up, which denoted how much interest was taken in the welfare of the home club. The one run gained by St. Louis in the fifth inning being supplemented by two in the sixth and a whitewash for Chicago, set the boys to yelling with might and main, the betting men to hustle for a chance to hedge, and the cool-headed ones, who never lose faith in their favorites, to smile satisfactorily as they saw that the Browns were playing their faultless fielding game, that they had nerve enough to wrest the lead from their powerful rivals, and that, bar accident, they could not lose. The Chicago reporters, who are unwilling to concede that anybody knows anything about base ball except themselves, and who imagine that no club in the arena stands the ghost of a show to win the championship from their pets, must have felt sick when they saw the futile efforts of the men whom they lured from Boston to cross the home plate and retire without being able to score in the last six innings. They felt bad at being beaten-wanted to die when beaten by St. Louis-and were ready to turn their toes up reverentially to the daisies on finding that they had been beaten by a ration of four to one, and that they merely escaped receiving a nest of goose eggs by a freak of fortune. It is to be hoped that these gentlemen may profit by the lesson taught them yesterday. For their information, it may be stated that there are base ball clubs in St. Louis and Hartford, and that both cities are entered for the championship.

-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May 20, 1876