He was never known to spend a cent in those days, and was so
close that he would wait for somebody else to buy a newspaper and then
borrow it in order to see what was going on. Later on he broke loose,
however, and when he did he became one of the sportiest of sports,
blowing his money as if he had found it and setting a hot pace for his
followers.

He finally settled down again, however, and now holds a good railroad
position in the Northwest, where he is living with his family. His was
about the quickest case of "loosening up from extreme tightness" that I
have ever run across.

George F. Gore, who played the center field, came here from New Bedford,
Mass., being brought out by Mr. Hulbert, who was in charge of the club
at the time he came to us. He was an all-around ball player of the first
class, a hard hitter and a fine thrower and fielder, and had it not been
for his bad habits he might have still been playing ball to-day. Women
and wine brought about his downfall, however, and the last time that I
saw him in New York he was broken down, both in heart and pocket, and
willing to work at anything that would yield him the bare necessities of
life.

Mike Kelly, who afterwards became famous in baseball annals as the
$10,000 beauty, came to Chicago from Cincinnati, and soon became a
general favorite. He was a whole-souled, genial fellow, with a host of
friends, and but one enemy, that one being himself.

Time and time again I have heard him say that he would never be broke,
and he died at just the right time to prevent such a contretemps from
occurring. Money slipped through Mike's fingers as water slips through
the meshes of a fisherman's net, and he was as fond of whisky as any
representative of the Emerald Isle, but just the same he was a great
ball player and one that became greater than he then was before ceasing
to wear a Chicago uniform. He was as good a batter as anybody, and a
great thrower, both from the catcher's position and from the field, more
men being thrown out by him than by any other man that could be named.
He was a good fielder when not bowled up, but when he was he sometimes
failed to judge a fly ball correctly, though he would generally manage
to get pretty close in under it. In such cases he would remark with a
comical leer: "By Gad, I made it hit me gloves, anyhow."

After his return to Boston he played good ball for a time, but his bad
habits soon caused his downfall, just as they had caus