Clipping:The Atlantics throw a (practice?) game? the Athletics claim the championship from it

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Date Sunday, June 26, 1870
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...within a week of their [the Atlantics] grandest victory, their most brilliant and honorable triumph [over the Cincinnatis], they play a game with the Athletic Club of Philadelphia, the result of which has been received throughout the country with a universal shout of derision and contempt. No one who has read any of the reports of the game, can arrive at any other conclusion than that the game was sold; whether the Philadelphians were in the “ring” or not, of course, cannot be proved, but matters begin to assume a very doubtful aspect respecting even them. There was a real, or apparently real “shindy” between them and the Atlantics, respecting the right to fly the champion pennant, the Philadelphians declaring that the last two games were match games, while the Brooklynites, on the other hand, stated they were agreed upon, so far back as April, as practice games. The President of the Athletic Club requested the members of the press to place upon record his emphatic denial of this last being recognized as a practice game, stating that he had documents to prove the correctness of his assertion. A week has elapsed, however, and he has taken no steps to fix the misstatement upon the shoulders of the Atlantic Club. The public therefore are slowly and unwillingly arriving at the conclusion that the game on Monday last one of the Athletics-Atlantic games, in the performance of which they became so notorious last year. Such fizzles as these can have but one result, namely, to prevent all respectable persons from attending at, and being victimized by such exhibitions.

...

[in the article immediately following:] On Monday last these [the Atlantics and the Athletics] played a game at the Capitoline Grounds, the result of which was received with surprise and indignation. That the Atlantics never tried to win was patent to the most superficial observer of the game. In the first place Zettlein’s pitching was not up to his usual standard, and was batted with the utmost impunity by the Athletics. In the second place the batting on the Atlantic side was so weak that throughout the entire game they made a total of only seven bases, while their antagonists made nineteen runes. Such conduct on the part of the Brooklyn club cannot be reprobated in language too forcible. If an individual player be guilty of unfair play, he is brought before the National Convention and he is punished either by expulsion from the Association or suspension for a considerable length of time. Why, therefore, should a club be exempt from such wholesome retribution? When people pay their money to witness a game, they naturally expect to see a contest between the two sides, and not to witness a game willfully thrown away. Such conduct will, however, sooner or later bring its own punishment, as the public will become so disgusted that they will not care to witness any game in which the Atlantic club takes a part. New York Dispatch June 26, 1870

What the Red Stocking nine have done this season–and especially during their recent week’s play here–to give first-class professional ball-playing a well-merited popularity, the Atlantic Club, of Brooklyn, and the Athletic, of Philadelphia, have offset with the proceedings well calculated to have the very reverse effect. The game between the Atlantic and Athletic clubs, on Monday last, viewed in any light the friends of the two organizations choose to look at it, is discreditable to the professional fraternity; f or it was a game carelessly thrown away for some special reason or other by one party, and a contest which the surprising result induced the other side to take advantage of to claim a title by the victory which they know they had no right to claim.

In THE SUNDAY MERCURY, of Sunday last, we called attention to the imposition which was being played on the patrons of the game by the posting of bills on the fences announcing the match in such a manner as to lead the public to believe that it was a regular contest, when the Brooklyn club knew all the while that it was merely a practice-game. In the same paper our Philadelphia dispatches claimed that it was a regular match. So that, despite the public announcement that it was not so, some twelve hundred people were present to witness the contest, and we question where there was ever a more disgusted or indignant party on the field at the close of a game than on this occasion.

...

[a discussion ensues of whether this was a practice or a regular game, including a joint letter confirming it as a practice game, signed for the Athletics by John Abel, Jr., Chairman of the Board of Directors] This document the President of the Athletic Club refused to sign, and the Athletics claim that it is no good for nothing without the signature of the majority of their Board of Directors. The Atlantics claim that Mr. Abel always makes the matches for his club, and that his signature is a good as a dozen. New York Sunday Mercury June 26, 1870

Source New York Dispatch
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Submitted by Richard Hershberger
Origin Initial Hershberger Clippings

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