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Show Very Oldest of Old- ume Ball Players Foregather at Banquet Board Dec. 9 By AL SPINK. CHICAGO. Nov. IS. At th Great Northern hotel In Chlcajo, on the night of Tuesday, December 9, perhaps the most remarkable banquet ban-quet ever held iu this country will take place. It will be given by the Old-Timers I Baseball association and it will be held in honor of the fiftieth birthday or the ' ri? "m'lversary. of ,he bl"h of base-I base-I .i ?Tj5f and Ih8 entering into the mTrtTlijS OrtBtmJ Chicago White I ,y,.oslremarkable f a will be the fact : L ,-, mi-'''"'- of those present saw , the thlcago White Stockings ulav their first game In 1ST0. and saw them accom-! accom-! ki i 5 that they were really assembled as-sembled forthe defeat of tho Cincinnati ; -.'CK.ngs. who up to the !,,; v,.;ir had t-roven themselves Invincible Meetings for the purpose of bringing about this banquet and arranging its details have been held at the Great -Northern hotel on Friday evenings dur-C dur-C the last month. These meetings have been little love feasts, manv of those present having been strangers to each other for fifty years, although in everyday contact before then. At each of these n-.eotlngs members of baseba.l teams which played in Chicago fifty years ago swapped stories of their experiences of the long age, many of WoM are well worth repeating. Real Pioneer Days. Frank Keefer. now the president of the Old-Timers' Baseball association, told one story of the experiences of the Aetnas. the crack baseball team of Chicago Chi-cago before the arrival of the original White Stockings, that made all hands sit up and listen. Keefer was the secretary ar.d b jslness manager of the Aetnas in 1871. the year when a great fire swept Chicago clean and left her business district, part of the west and south sides and all of the north side, a dreary waste of smoke and ashes. It was while that fire was burning burn-ing that the Aetnas were on their first eastern tour. He had gone Into the old Capltollne grounds in Brooklyn, then the finest grounds in existence. There he saw two great games in progress at one and the same time, the Aetnas playing the Stars of Brooklyn in one corner and the At-lantics At-lantics and the Eckfords of Brooklyn playing in the other. The grounds were so largo that one set of outfielders In no way interfered with the other. In those grounds, and for the first time m all his experience. Keefer saw a player pitching a curve ball. The pitcher was Arthur Cummings of the Stars, then Brooklyn's leading amateur organization and the best playing team then outside the professional field. Cummlngs, their man then, is even today given credit for being the first pitcher to send In a curve ball. Keefer says that it was a wonderful wonder-ful curve, and. It being something very new to the Aetnas, they could not touch It. There were no Pullmans for the Aetnas in those days; no man with a sack of greenbacks to accompany them; no pay days, no nothing to depend on but the gate receipts. Sometimes these receipts ran very low and the Aetnas then had tough sailing. Players Homeless. It was on the morning of Monday. October 9, when the Aetnas wero at Troy, X. Y.. then the home of the famous fa-mous Haymakers, that they heard of the progress of the great Chicago fire. The first bulletins told of the destruction destruc-tion of certain bul'dings on the west side, then of the destruction of property In the business district and then of the burning ot prominent buildings on the north side. The Chicago river lay between all these different Motion and the hall players could not understand how the fire could have crossed it at three different places. So they put the whole story down as a hoax. I-ater in the day came corroboration corrobora-tion of the early news and then all hands set sail for home. Arriving In Chicago, every player on the Aetna team, except Keefer, who then lived on the west side, found his old home a heap of ashes. It was a very melancholy home-coming for the boys Thev could not locate their families and for a time believed ther.i all lost. Later on there were many rejoicings and the list of dead and injured proved much smaller than first Imagined. Keefer called buck old memories when he told of how that great fire had rendered ren-dered 100,000 people homeless, wiped out 300 lives, destroyed lS.ono buildings and caused damasre of $192,000,000. t the forthcoming tanquet several of the amateur teams which flourished in Ctvcago In the COs will have members present. Keefer says that at least three of the old Aetnas will be on deck. In th:s trio are Included Hrghey Reed, their famous pitcher; Marsh Graves, their center fielder, and Keefer. |
