A letter was received from Dunlap, in which he coolly asks for his release. He will not get what he asks. The reason given for signing with St. Louis is the large amount offered.-[Cleveland Herald.]
-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, December 7, 1883
Was there ever any doubt that Dunlap signed with the Maroons for the money?
2 comments:
Today people complain about athletes just taking the money and running. i won't get into whether that is justified or not, that's a discussion for another website.
i can't remember the exact title of the book, but i was forunate enough to stumble upon a book written by Albert G. Spalding about the "history" of baseball. i will never forget that he printed a letter published in a newspaper about the salary of professional baseball players. And if you changed the quoted salary and 'moderninzed' the language it could have been something written at any time.
The truth is as long as there has been professional baseball, there have been complaints about the amount of money paid to play baseball.
(And, as an aside, it was published in a paper in Erie, PA aka my place of birth/residence.)
You're absolutely correct. I think Bill James has a piece in the Historical Abstract kind of along the same lines. He quoted various players and baseball men, going back to the early history of the game, all of whom said something along the lines of "The game was better back in my day." The one thing that never changes is human nature.
Dunlap was always rather upfront about the fact that he played to get paid and wanted to get as much money out of it as he could. One of the constants that ran through his career was his battles with management. He was always fighting for the last dollar and was a tough negotiator. Dunlap would say that he wanted X amount of dollars and wouldn't play for a dollar less. And then he usually got the amount he wanted.
I have a copy of the Spalding book and have never found it very useful. You're correct to put the word history in quotes when it comes that book. It's interesting as a window into Spalding and his thinking but as a general history of the early game it's darn near useless.
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