The 1884 Maroons: Good, Honest Average Work

About 900 persons witnessed the game of base ball to-day between the Cincinnati Unions and the St. Louis Unions.  The weather was almost as hot as that of yesterday.  The game, as a whole,, was commonplace, though the visitors did good, honest average work and won on their merits, assisted materially by the blunders of the home club.  The umpire got off to-day without being censured by anybody.  From the very first, Kelly, of the home club, began to play badly, as his five errors and three passed balls show but faintly.  His example infected the entire home nine, and never before since the organization of the club did they so thoroughly disgust their backers as they did in the game to-day.  The St. Louis Club took all sorts of chances and ran bases on Kelly with impunity.  In the field the work of the Cincinnatis was a dismal failure, and at the bat they got but few men on bases.  O'Leary proved a solitary exception, and in the sixth inning made a fine running capture of a high fly from Dunlap.  There were several instances of good, not to say splendid, individual players on the part of the visitors.  Boyle caught five flies, some of them quite different.  Werden, the pitcher, was hit but four times.  His work challenged admiration.  In the second inning Crane was hit in the ankle by a batted ball and had to be retired.  Rowe, of the St. Louis Club, had to be retired in the second inning on account of a felon on his finger.  In the first inning after one man was out, the St. Louis Club scored 1 on singles by Shaffer and Rowe and a sacrifice hit by Gleason.  An inning passed without a run.  Then the visitors made 2 in the third, when Whitehead led with a single, which was followed by a single by Dunlap, a fumble of Quinn's grounder by Kennedy and a three-bagger each by Shafer and Boyle, out of which the visitors netted 4 runs, 2 earned.  In the next inning, after one man was out, they added 2 more to their score on a single by Whitehead, two wild throws by Kelly, a muff of Dunlap's hot liner by Haws and a muffed fly by Sylvester.  In the fifth inning the visitors made nothing, ,while the home club made their lone run, and this is the way they did it.  O'Leary, the least demoralized man of the home nine, sent a single spinning to left which Ryder kindly fumbled, and then Swartz made a safe hit and brought O'Leary home.  The sixth, seventh and eighth innings went by without a run or incident worthy of mention.  In the ninth inning Dunlap sent a fly to Sylvester, who very courteously muffed it.  Shaffer struck a sacrifice to the pitcher and Gleason made a single, which let Dunlap home, netting 1 run and rounding up the score 7 to 1 in favor of the visitors.  The home club and their managers blame the business on Kelly, and it will not surprise one who hears the talk to-night to learn within a few days that Kelly has been retired unless he redeems himself very speedily.

-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 26, 1884