A Note About How The Championship Of The West Was Won

The Empire B.B. Club, of this city, accompanied by a number of their friends, take their departure this morning for Dubuque to engage in the Silver Ball contest, on Friday next.  Special arrangements have been made for the round trip, by which parties desirous of joining the excursion can procure tickets at half price.  The club will leave their rooms, No. 124 North Third street, at 11 A.M.  May success attend them.

-Missouri Republican, September 27, 1865


I think I've posted this before but I wanted to contrast it with yesterday's information about the Empire Club crowning themselves Champions of the West. 

I had previously believed that the Empires didn't claim their invented Championship until after the Dubuque tournament, which they won by once again defeating the Empires of Freeport.  But that isn't true.  They threw themselves a party, gave themselves a championship belt and declared that they were the Champions of the West three weeks prior to the Dubuque tournament.

I always thought that their claim to the mythical Championship was tenuously based on the Fourth of July victory at Freeport and the Dubuque tournament win.  That's a weak nail to hang your championship claims on.  But I was wrong.  The Empire Club's entire basis for claiming the Championship of the West is their victory over the Empire Club of Freeport, at Freeport, on July 4, 1865.

And that is an absurd basis on which to make such a claim.