We left St. Louis Friday night at 7:05, via the Ohio and Mississippi railroad, for Washington, arriving in Cincinnati for breakfast at 8 o'clock. The distance is three hundred and forty miles-four miles less than from Little Rock to St. Louis-and we made it in four hours less time than is consumed on the Iron Mountain road. Saturday was passed rolling across the broad acres and beautiful farms of southern Ohio, except toward night, when we passed into the southeastern corner, where the country is very sparsely settled, rugged and mountainous. The farmers were busy with their labor-saving machines, and crops looked forward. The farms along the Hocking valley were in a delightful state of progression. At 5:30 we crossed the Ohio river on an elegant bridge, stopped to change engines at Parkersburg, W. Va., and were soon whirling eastward on the Baltimore and Ohio road. Here it is that the obliging "conductaire" is not his own chief cook. He is accompanied by a "ticket collector," who walks backward through the train just ahead of the conductor, first taking tickets and money, and after noting receipts passing the same to the conductor. The company cannot have any respect for its employees to subject them to such surveillance. Seeking the sleeper at Grafton about 10 o'clock, Sunday morning at 8 o'clock found us in this great national whirlpool of political excitement. All the way along we noticed travel centennialward very light, and conversing with the people found that no very great reduction had been made in the cost, and that the middle classes would not go unless tickets were placed at lower rates. Many strangers from abroad in town, and hundreds of tourists to Philadelphia about the city.-Daily Arkansas Gazette, May 25, 1876
One would imagine that our ballplayers found similar conditions as they travelled around the country, east to west and back and forth, throughout the season.
4 comments:
Excellent! I love this stuff: gritty realism, modernism, and train travel (local, regional, and national). Living in a 21st century world where objects and things have acquired new significance, especially in our cyber- and disembodied world, a good book on baseball travel in the nineteenth century would be a winner! Imagine: late trains, womanizing (or sexual escapdes), cigar smoking, eating, spitting, coughing, drinking, card playing, violence (shootings/stabbings)... (I came across a few interesting stories involving "colored clubs" that are simply fascinating. Again, excellent choice!
Al Spink, in The National Game, tells a story about the StL Reds on the road in 1874. They're taking the train home and Andy Blong (player, club official and Joe Blong's brother) lost the club's share of the gate receipts to three card monte men. He gambled away several games worth of gate receipts and the players (who had yet to get their cut) were not pleased. The players grabbed their bats and took their money back from the shysters.
I think you're right and that a collection of these kind of stories would go over well.
Maybe we could collaborate on a project...
Drop me an email at thisgameofgames@gmail.com and let me know what you're thinking. I have one project that should be finished soon and that will leave me a little time to work on something else.
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