Page:America's National Game (1911).djvu/205



HE decade of the seventies recorded an event of considerable import to Base Ball, which chronologically belongs here. During the life of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, and before, the leading cricketers of England had been making frequent pilgrimages to the United States, with a view of exploiting Great Britain's national game, and also to win additional cricket laurels from Americans, who had become somewhat interested in the sport. Finally, in 1874, promoters of Base Ball in this country conceived the idea of returning the compliment by sending exponents of the American game to England, that the new sport might be presented in the Old Country, and perhaps gain a footing there.

While playing with the Boston team, in 1874, I became possessed with an intense yearning to cross the Atlantic. I wanted to go to England, but I hadn't the price. How to "raise the wind," therefore, was the problem I had to face. It occurred to me that since Base Ball had caught on so greatly in popular favor at home it might be worked for a special trip for me, to be followed by a second one, in which a couple of teams could be 175