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AMERICA'S NATIONAL GAME

these games the Rockford Club made 2,592 runs to 959 for all the other clubs combined—nearly three to one!

In October of this year the Forest City team defeated the great Cincinnati Red Stockings by a score of 12 to 5. Such, then, was the career of the Forest City Base Ball Club. When it is remembered that this organization was composed entirely of young men living in and about Rockford; that the club was strictly an amateur organization, no player receiving salary; it must be conceded that the record here published is unparalleled in the history of the game for a similar club.

Before closing this chapter, which I fully realize has dealt too much with things of which I was myself a part, I desire once more to express my appreciation of the membership of that club, one and all—not only as players; their records speak plainly enough on that point; but as gentlemen and friends whom I shall ever remember with feelings of fraternal regard.