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Show FIRST CATCHER'S MASK CRUDE AFFAIR; SPORT GIVEN START IN 1833 By AL SPINK. CHICAGO, Nov. 25. In a portrait published the other day of the dreadnaughts who fifty years ago were cock-of-the-walk In the Chicago Chi-cago baseball world, one thing above all others was noticeable. That was the absence of the mask, the : chest protector, the fielder's and the ; catcher's glove. Those things were not a part of the ! game fifty years ago. The catchers of that time many of them caught up close under the bat, but there were no . masks or chest protectors to guard them from foul tips or from other causes of in-jury in-jury as there is today. Broken noses, broken teeth and broken fingers were the rule rather than the exception ex-ception in those olden days, and to be a ! good player you had to be a rather tou?h ! sort of lad; one who could take any kind of hard blows on the face or on any other part of the anatomy. It was not until late in the '70 that the Chicago people were given their first glimpse of the mask in universal use today. to-day. The Chicago White Stockings were then playing a game on their grounds at Twenty-third and State streets and Jim , White was catching the pitching of Al I Spalding without mask or other protection. protec-tion. One day the Stars of Syracuse, then a member of the National league, came along and Houghteling. their backstop, was doing their catching, his face protected by a mask iade of leather and wire. The crowd laughed at the new-fangled creation, called Houghteling names and put him down as a tenderfoot. But he went on wearing the mask just the same and soon all the receivers on the leading teams of that day were following his example. Mask Patented. The story of the introduction of any one of the many necessary . features that now go to make up the battle regalia of the ball player Js always interesting to l?vers of the national game. In the year 1 95, Howard K. Thatcher, a practicing physician of Dexter, Maine, wrote as follows: "I entered Harvard university fn 174, and in that year played on the ball team, always catching. "Henry Hopper, now a successful merchant mer-chant of Boston, used to pitch for me, and he always delivered the ball overhand. over-hand. He was very swift and I always stood as near the bat as the catchers do now, though I had no protection for the face. I could dodge pretty well, and as curves were unknown, I could Judge the ball to a nicety. "In the winter of 187R, Ernst, a student stu-dent at the university, thought he would try a new wrinkle, and he started In practicing prac-ticing the underhand throw, and discovered discov-ered that the ball would curve. I had to catch him, too, and I net about thinking how I could protect my face. "I used to wear a rubber over my mouth, but I decided that this was not enough protection for me. "When w- played our first game In the spring of IH'fi, I put on a mask wh'ch I had made from heavy wire. The edges were wound with leather, and I had a strap on the chin and another at the forf-head. forf-head. My chum, Fred Thaver, helped me to make It, and I confess it was a queer looking thing. "I was ridiculed tho first time I wore the mask, partly because it was a new thing and partly because the people considered con-sidered that a catcher did not need any protection for his face. I threw the mask away, but Thayer took It up and had it patented, but received no royalty. Dealers Deal-ers in baseball goods knew a good thing when they saw It. and they commenced to manufacture mask nnd put them on the market. Thayer promptly brought suit against them, and won every case taken into court." Baseball in 1833. Not long ago. Al Reach, the famous second baseman of the original Athletlc club of Philadelphia in its palmy days, told of the first set of uniforms ever worn by a baseball team, and of the first baseball base-ball team ever organized, the Olympic club of Philadelphia, which came into being In 1833. Reach's father was alive at that time and living at Williamsburg, a town long since absorbed by Greater New York It was on the open fields lying across from New York City that Al Uen.-h played baseball when he was a little bit of a tot and became an enthusiast. It was soon after Andrew Jackson's term as president and when that name was still famous that Reach began plavlng and he organized a club of his own and called it the Jacksous. He was the club's catcher, manager, schemer and everything every-thing else. Reach thought his players should wear a uniform so as to distinguish th.-m from other teams. So he went to his mother and had her make what was perhaps the first full set of uniforms ever worn by a baseball nine. When the team needed a ball Reach crossed from Williamsburg over on the little ferry to New York and coaxed his rrlend John Van Horn, a shoemaker doing business on Second avenue, to make him a baseball out of the leather sweepings from the floor, a ball that would stand t.ic pound. ng of a good hickory dun. To another friend, a wood-turner, lach went for a hickory bat. There were other baseball teams, but none In Reach's mind that could compare with the Jacksons. From the Jacksons sprung a team a little later which was called the Brooklyns. a nine In which Reach and his old friends were the leading spirits. The Brooklyns Indeed were so good a nine that In October. 1K6I. they were selected as the team to meet New York In what was called the Sliver Ball match for the championship. Al Reach, besides Introducing the first se; of uniforms, was the first man to receive re-ceive pay for playing baseball. That was n 1864, when the Athletics of 1'hllnilel-Iihia 1'hllnilel-Iihia paid him a regular salary to leave the Atlantlcs of Brooklyn anil Join their team. That act made Reach tho first paid r nrofesslonnl ball player. The first catcher to wear a glove on his loft hand was Doug Allison of the Cincinnati Cincin-nati Reds, In 1869. The big catcher's mitt now In use and the fielder's gloves wire not Introduced Into the game until years later. The first game ever played In an In-eloM-d baseball field was one played In Brooklyn in 1864. The first game of baseball plaved In New York took place In 184S, the first In Chicago In ls',0, the first In St. Ixnils In 1860, tho first In Cincinnati In 1860 nnd the first in England in 1x74. by Boston 'ind Philadelphia players. |