Heritage \ Writings \ Sports

1885 Base Ball Newspaper Articles.
Bay City Tribune - Bay City, MI.

Transcribed (September 2005)

The Bay City Tribune - Sunday, October 11, 1885.

BASE BALL BRIEFS.
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Home Runs and Goose-Eggs Picked up on the Diamond.
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Crotty has been released by Louisville.

Porter has played well for the Brooklyns this season.

Chicago won eleven out of sixteen games with Providence.

The bats and balls are being piled away for use another day.

The Detroits ended the championship season by defeating the Bisons.

New Orleans wants to get the Chicagos to play there during the exposition.

The base ball female beauties played at Burlington, Iowa, a few days ago and didn’t take in enough to pay their way out of town.

The St. Louis Browns cannot loose the pennant now and they do not care whether they win or not. They are after the shekels that come in at the gate.

Home runs have been less numerous this season than last. In the Buffalo-Philadelphia and Chicago-Boston series last year thirty-five home runs were scored – more than three times the number of this year.

Rev. Sam Jones has been quoted as saying that “I would not wipe my feet on a professional base ball player,” to which the Mirror of American sports asks: “But why should the Rev. Mr. Jones wipe his feet on the base ball player when the umpire is there for that purpose.”

The Southern base ball league next season will comprise but six cities, Viz.: Nashville, Atlanta, Augusta, Memphis, Savannah and Charleston. The last two were not members this year. Columbus, Macon, Birmingham, and Chattanooga will be dropped, being unable to sustain good clubs.

Jim Mutric, manager for the New York team in kicking on his hard luck in striking cities on base ball day when railroad strikes are inaugurated. Simultaneous with his entree in St. Louis the street car men stuck. When he struck Chicago he encountered a similar experience. He is praying for a cessation of the hostilities.

Games won and lost by league clubs to date:

	Won	Lost
Chicago	87	24
New York	85	27
Philadelphia	55	54
Boston	46	66
Detroit	41	67
Buffalo	38	72
St. Louis	36	72

Clarkson has made a record in the box this season and has never been equaled by any pitcher on earth, and he is branded in base ball circles as the greatest of the great twirlers of the sphere. He has struck out more men in batting this season than any pitcher in the league, and this accounts for the success of the Chicagos. Clarkson has won the pennant for his team. Bay City remembers Clarkson first as center fielder of the Saginaws. He was an ungainly looking fellow out there and made good and bad plays, and but for an accident to a pitcher whose place he was delegated to take until the close of the game, it is probable that his light would have remained hidden under a bushel. He had great speed and the batsmen could not find him. With practice, he caught on to the curves, and now, assisted by a cool head, he can stand before the country’s mightiest wielder of the willow without the fear of being knocked out of the box. He has his off days and is hit hard, but every pitcher has the same experience. He has commanded a salary of $3,500 this season or about $60 for every game or $30 an hour. That is more than he could make clerking.