Clipping:Lucas threatens to go after players under contract

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Date Monday, June 23, 1884
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[from an interview of Henry Lucas] “Yes, sir,” said Mr. Henry Lucas to a Post-Dispatch reporter who called to see him regarding the report that Quinn, the first-baseman of the S. Louis Unions, had been tempted to forswear his allegiance to the Union organization and join the Washington Associaiton Club, “Quinn was approached by a person representing Mr. Hollingshead, the manager of the Washington Association Club, who offered him $150 a month to join that club. Quinn promptly told the person that he would not break his contract under any circumstances and that $500 would not prove a temptation. This was not the first time Quinn has been approached since the resignation of Mr. Sullivan. Shortly after that occurred he received a letter from Stillwater, Minn., offering him a position at $125 a month in the Northwestern League Club there, and telling him that now that Sullivan had given up his position he (Quinn) would have such a hard time of it that it would be politic of him to get out. Quinn wrote back that he had been treated better since Sullivan left the club than before and that he would not break his contract under any circumstances.”

...

“Why don’t you retaliate?”

“The Union Association holds a special meeting at Baltimore July 1, to arrange the schedule, and I intend to bring before it a proposition to go into the business of breaking contracts. This is not intended as a bluff, but in real earnest. Let me tell you that I can, any day I like, secure the best battery of the American Association. I won’t mention names, but there are just what I describe them, and if I care to have them I can get them to-morrow. Besides them I know of at least eight first-class players of the other association whom I can get immediately for the asking. Antoher thing, let me tell you that the Union Association next year will have among its players fully thirty of the very best men at present engaged in the other associations.”

...

“Do you think that the Union Association will agree to your proposition to go into the contract-breaking business?”

“I am the Union Association. Whatever I do is all right. Recently when I let the Altoona Club go, and took in the Kansas City Club, the Association telegraphed to me “Well done good and faithful servant.” Yes, sir, the Association will be with me in what I consider to be not only a justifiable, but under the circumstances, an unfavorable measure of retaliation against the attaches of the other associations.” St.

Source St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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Submitted by Richard Hershberger
Origin Initial Hershberger Clippings

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