Clipping:Fan reaction to player moves
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| Date | Sunday, June 3, 1866 |
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| Text | [Harvard vs. Excelsior 6/1/1866] [three players having moved from the Atlantics to the Excelsiors] Men will act like boys at times, and when they imitate the frolicsomeness and sportive spirit of the juniors it is well and good; but when they descend to the level of quarrelsome juveniles, and act like a party of boys, who, being kept from fighting each other by the fear of the law, revenge themselves by calling their adversaries names, as street-boys do under such circumstances, their boyishness becomes contemptible, to say the least. Just so it was on this occasion. The retirement of three first-class players from one club, and their entry into another, it appears, has excited a degree of animosity toward the players individually, and the club they entered collectively, that is surprising under the circumstances. We say surprising; because this virtuous indignation emanates from parties who, for the past four years, have observed the same course of action in procuring players from other clubs that they now so loudly denounce when applied to themselves. Had the complainants in this case entered court with clean hands, there might have been some consistency in their conduct; but as it is, it is simply the old story of the ox and the bull over again. It was all right enough when it was their bull that gored their neighbor’s ox, but a very different thing when their own ox was the victim. New York Sunday Mercury June 3, 1866 ...the Excelsiors played well enough to provoke expressions of petty spite and ire from the less gentlemanly of the friends of the Atlantic Club, and throughout the game the players were subjected to comments as discourteous and gross as they were undeserved. It is gratifying to know that the Harvard Club fully appreciated the spirit which prompted this rudeness, and despised it. It was not so much the success of the Collegians, as the defeat of the Excelsiors, that was aimed at; and the applause bestowed upon the former club at almost every play, whether meritorious or otherwise, as a most palpable expose of the underlying motive which ostensibly developed itself only in the form of good-wishes for the success of the Harvards. The Atlantic Club, who were certainly not accessories to this manifestation of envy and ill-feeling, have a severe task before them this season. They have more than the single duty of maintaining themselves as champions, for it devolves upon them also to discountenance and make amends for the indiscretions of their too warm supporters. Wilkes Spirit of the Times June 9, 1866 |
| Source | New York Sunday Mercury |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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