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T IS the plan of this work, while telling in a general way the story of our national game, to deal rather with beginnings than with details. It has required libraries of volumes to chronicle facts of which here only the briefest outline can be given. Already consideration has been given to the first ball, the first bat, the first bases, the first diamond, the first grounds, the first club, the first association, the first contest, the first gate money receipts, the first row, the first tour, the first visit of an Eastern club to the West, the first trip of a Western club to the East and the first tour of a professional club in any direction. But it is manifestly impracticable to trace in these pages the history of all the good clubs, of all the skillful players, their many tours, their countless victories and their occasional reverses. Hence, those who might expect the minor details of the successful trips of the Athletics, of Philadelphia, and the Atlantics, of Brooklyn, to have a place just here, where they would chronologically belong, are reminded that- these tours were simply less sensational repetitions of that of the pioneer Excelsiors and Nationals, whose triumphant journeys have been heretofore quite fully given. 147