His first wife was Mary Noonan, whom he married in the days when "The Store" was the sporting and political Mecca of Chicago.
It was a great scandal in the community later when she suddenly disappeared, and it was reported that she had run away with "Billy" Arlington, a minstrel man. It was the greater shock because her devotion and loyalty to McDonald had been the talk of the town.
One time she had stood, with a pistol, in her husband's gambling house, and defied the police when they raided the place under instruction of some blundering chief of police, who did not realize that he was toying with the lightning when he laid violent hands on anything that belonged to McDonald. Mary McDonald had held her ground at the door in "The Store," and declared she would shoot the first policeman that attempted to enter. She was as good as her word, and one of the officers was carried to a hospital with a bullet through his arm. Mrs. McDonald, through her husband's pull, was never prosecuted.
McDonald went to San Francisco and brought his wife back and installed her in the house he had built at Ashland avenue and Harrison street, considered in those days a veritable palace. McDonald gave it out to the world that he had built the mansion for his wife, and his taking her back after she was reputed to have run away with another man was accepted as a wonderful instance of his great-heartedness and magnanimity.
Sam Barclay Tells "How Mike McDonald's Coin Won Dora Away."
"Sam" Barclay (Harry is supposed to have been his baptismal name) was one of the great ball players of the long ago, and the shadows of the drama that wrecked his life are, therefore, interwoven with the world of sport, and even with the career of Charles Comiskey, "the master of the White Sox."
Barclay, a trim and graceful fellow, came into prominence twenty years ago and played with Pittsburg and St. Louis. At St. Louis he was under the command of Comiskey, who therefore knew him well, and was always interested in his doings.
On two or three occasions quarrels over the contracts of Sam Barclay nearly wrecked organized base ball. He was a wonderful second baseman, and one of the fastest and most scientific players of the day.
In 1889 Barclay's knee went back on him, and, while he regained full use of the leg, he was never fast enough to play his former game. He also began to take on flesh, and was glad to retire from the diamond.