rd, Hall and Jas.
O'Rourke in the outfield; and Harry Wright and Beal, substitutes.

1875. Boston, Spalding, pitcher; Jas. White, catcher; McVey, Barnes and
Schafer on the Bases; George Wright, shortstop; Leonard, Jas. O'Rourke
and Manning in the outfield, and Harry Wright and Beal, substitutes.
Heifert and Latham each played first base during part of the season.

It will thus be seen that the Boston Club held the championship in those
early days for four successive seasons, and playing against them as I
did I can bear witness to their strength and skill as ball players.

Many of the men, who like myself were among the first to enter the
professional ranks in those days, have achieved distinction in the
business world, the notables among them being A. G. Spalding, now head
of the largest sporting goods house in the world, with headquarters in
Chicago; George Wright, who is the head of a similar establishment at
Boston, and Al Reach, who is engaged in the same line of business at
Philadelphia, while others, not so successful, have managed to earn a
living outside of the arena, and others still, have crossed "the great
divide" leaving behind them little save a memory and a name.

In those early days of the game the rules required a straight arm
delivery, and the old-time pitchers found it a difficult matter to
obtain speed save by means of an underhand throw or jerk of the ball.
Creighton, of the Excelsiors of Brooklyn, however, with his unusually
swift pitching puzzled nearly all of the opposing teams as early as
1860. Sprague developed great speed, according to the early chroniclers
of the game, while with the Eckford Club of the same city in 1863, and
Tom Pratt and McBride of the Athletics were also among the first of the
old-time pitchers to attain speed in their delivery. About 1865, Martin
pitched a slow and deceptive drop ball, it being a style of delivery
peculiarly his own, and one I have never seen used by any one else,
though Cunningham of Louisville uses it to a certain extent.

The greatest change ever made in the National Game was the introduction
of what is known as curve pitching, followed as it was several seasons
afterwards by the removal of all restrictions on the method of
delivering the ball to the batter. Arthur, known under the sobriquet of
"Candy," Cummings of Brooklyn is generally conceded to have been the
first to introduce curve pitching, which he did about 1867 or 1868.
Mount, the pitcher o