Clipping:Rumors of the Mutuals throwing games
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| Date | Sunday, October 15, 1871 |
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| Text | Last year the impression was general in baseball circles that one, if not two, of the professional nines in the arena were guilty of losing games by default for the object of benefitting special betting “rings,” and so fixed did this idea become in the minds of the baseball public that the suspected club never lost a game but what they were charged with wilfully sacrificing it. Strange to say, the parties incurring this odium were apparently more willing to bear the stigma of fraud than the discredit of being out-played in the field, and their denials of complicity in the dishonest arrangements they were charged with were made in such a way as rather to confirm their guilt than to establish their innocence. Lately a similar impression has existed among the least reputable class of the patrons fo the game in regard to the defeats sustained by the Mutual Club this season, and especially in reference to their games in Boston. Now, whatever grounds there might have been for the charges made last season certainly there have thus far been none for those now made. The games lost by the Mutual club in Boston were legitimate defeats, and if proof were wanting of the fact it would be afforded by the result of the contest of October 9, and for these reasons: if the Mutuals had allowed the games on Boston to go by default of earnest efforts to win there was certainly no reason why they should allow the Bostons to defeat them in the exhibition game. On the contrary, under such circumstances, they would have every incentive furnished them to win, as, in consequence of the impression we have referred to, the betting would be naturally on the success of the Bostons, and were they defeated a rich harvest of bets would be reaped. But on Monday last when the fact leaked out that it was an exhibition game the betting was in favor of the Mutuals, the investments being made on the basis of the supposed ability of the Mutual nine to defeat the Reds whenever they chose to exert themselves. Those who witnessed the game, and who noticed the strenuous exertions of the Mutuals to win, must have realized at once the falsity of the reports about their wilfully losing the Boston games, for in this contest, where it was important that the Mutuals should win in order to save the bets of their friends, they were more signally defeated both at the bat and in the field than in any of the series of games the two clubs have played together. |
| Source | New York Sunday Mercury |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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