1872, Boston, Spalding, pitcher; McVey, catcher; Gould, Barnes and Schafer on the bases; George Wright, shortstop; Leonard, Harry Wright and Rogers, in the outfield; and Birdsall and Ryan, substitutes.
1873. Boston, Spalding, pitcher; Jas. White, catcher; Jas. O'Rourke, Barnes and Schafer on the bases; George Wright, shortstop; Leonard, Harry Wright and Manning in the outfield; and Birdsall and Sweasey, substitutes. Addy took Manning's place in the latter part of the season.
1874. Boston, Spalding, pitcher; McVey, catcher; White, Barnes and Schafer on the bases; George Wright, shortstop; Leonard, 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 of the Princeton College and Avery of Yale are accredited with using the curve about 1875, but Mathews of the New York Mutuals and Nolan of the Indianapolis team were among the first of the professional pitchers, after Cummings, to become proficient in its use, which was generally adopted in 1877, and to the skill acquired by both of these men in handling of the ball I can testify by personal experience, having had to face them, bat in hand, on more than one occasion.
Many people, including prominent scientists, were for a long time loth to believe that a ball could be curved in the air, but they were soon satisfied by practical tests, publicly made, as to the truth of the matter.
With the doing away with the restrictions that governed the methods of the pitcher's delivery of the ball and the introduction of the curve the running up of large scores in the game became an impossibility, and the batsman was placed at a decided disadvantage.