Clipping:Devlin's accusations against the Louisville Club; suborning an umpire; Louisville Club finances
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| Date | Sunday, November 11, 1877 |
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| Text | A gentleman well known to a reporter of this paper writes at some length from Louisville, with the intention, as he expresses if, of “giving both sides” of the story about the expulsion of Devlin and Hall. He begins by saying that the base-ball public will heartily thank the Louisville Club for its efforts to expose corruption in the game, and would be even more profuse in their thanks and congratulations could it be made to appear that the efforts of the management of the Club had been uniformly on the high plane lately assumed by them. One part of the confession of Mr. Devlin has not, it appears, found its way into the Courier-Journal, and that item bears upon the Club’s relations with Devinney [umpire]. When asked upon that subject, Devlin confessed that the Devinney scheme had been put up by the managers after consultation with himself and others, and that it had been brought to such a pitch of perfection that, as he expressed it, “no eighteen men in the country could have won a game from us with Devinney as umpire.” Add the ever-recurring proofs offered by facts to this confession of Devlin’s and it puts the Louisville Club management just ab out where the public have long ago stationed them. Furthermore, the Club cannot afford to repudiate this brand of Mr. Devlin’s revelations any more than they can the others on which they put so much stress. If they accept his proof of his won guilt in one direction, let them not ignore his guilt in the matter of buying up Devinney just because they stood in with the outrage on the other clubs. It will be hard to find any club manager who believes it was much worse for the game for Devlin to sell himself out than for his employers to buy out another man. It was debasing and corrupting the game,–in one case by an ignorant, needy players; in the other by high-toned, wealthy gentlemen. These are the views of Devlin and the correspondent. They would also be those of The Tribune were it absolutely settled that the Directors, as well as the players, were knowing to the Devinney matter, as charged in the supplementary confession of Devlin. Another thing of which Devlin complains bitterly is what he calls the Club’s lack of faith with him in another matter. He says that when the first suspicion of crookedness was excited the management went to him and asked him to tell all he knew, and that they then absolutely promised him full immunity and protection. Under this promise Devlin made his second confession, expecting, as he says, to be covered up, but the directors broke their promise, and expelled him.–which the same he richly deserved, both because he sold games, and because he was fool enough to own up to it. While Devlin has owned up to the fact that he lost three games on purpose, and for money, he wishes to call attention to his explanation of the reason why he did so. It is imply that he was in absolute want of the necessaries which money could buy, and which he could not get because the Club would not pay him the money which it owed him. He says that the Club has not paid him a dollar since last August, and that it now owes him $470. Further, that when, in August, he gave his landlord an order for $150 on the Club, that brought only $35. In short, Devlin claims that he has been grievously misused in not being paid according to his contract. On the same authority it appears that the players were owed by the Club the following sums at the end of the season: Snyder, $500; Gerhardt, $500; Devlin, $470; Shaffer, $250; Crowley, $250; Latham, 4200; Craver, $200; Hall, $600; Lafferty, $200; Hague, $250. This sum of $3,420 has not been paid, and the players do not expect that it will be. When the Eastern players went off home they were given $100 each, but the others could get nothing. It further appears, as an evidence of the condition of the Club, that the carpenter who built the stands has never been paid, and that, despairing of ever getting his money in any other way, he has gone into the courts, and that even now the concern in placarded for sale by the Sheriff of Jefferson County, Ky. Chicago Tribune November 11, 1877 [See also CT 12/16/1877 for Devlin’s denial of the Devinney story.] |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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