e crookedness of some of
the Louisville players. The team on paper prior to the opening of the
season was justly regarded as one of the strongest that had ever been
gotten together, and going off with a rush in the early part of the year
its success seemed to be almost assured. By the middle of the season the
team had obtained so great a lead that the race seemed to be all over
but the shouting.

In those days poolrooms were a much greater evil than they are at the
present time, and the betting on baseball was hot and heavy. The
Louisville having such a lead were favorites at long odds. When the club
started on its last Eastern trip they had some twelve games to play, out
of which they had less than half to win in order to land the pennant. On
this trip enough games were thrown to give Boston the pennant, and when
the directors of the Louisville Club came to sift matters down they had
but little difficulty in finding out the guilty parties, who were A. C.
Nichols, William H. Craver, George Hall and James A. Devlin.

How much money this quartette netted by its crooked work is not known to
this day, but it has been proven that Devlin secured but a beggarly $100
as his share, as once the others had him in their power they could
compel him to do just whatever they pleased under threats of exposure.

These four players were promptly expelled for selling games by the
Louisville Club, whose action was later ratified by the League, and
though they made application time after time in later years to be
reinstated, their applications were denied and they passed out of sight
and out of hearing as far as the base-ball world was concerned.

They were all of them good ball players, better than the average, and
Devlin, a really great pitcher, undoubtedly had a brilliant future
before him. The inability to stand temptation, however, caused his
downfall and left him but little better than a wreck on the shores of
time.

The year, taken as a whole, has been generally set down as being the
darkest in the history of the League. As in the preceding year, all the
clubs lost money and the outlook seemed indeed a dark one.

The darkest hour comes just before the dawn, however, and the following
year saw a change for the better in base-ball prospects.

CHAPTER XIII. FROM FOURTH PLACE TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP.

The year 1878 saw but six clubs in the league race, there being the
Boston, Cincinnati, Providence, Chicago, Indianapolis and Milw