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AMERICA'S NATIONAL GAME
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game. His son, Mr. Bruce Cartwright, a prominent citizen of Honolulu, in a personal letter to me, under date March 22, 1909, says:

"Although far removed from the field of his former activities, he never forgot Base Ball, and never missed an opportunity of being present whenever the game was played here."

Alexander J. Cartwright, among many other thousands, was one of the devotees of Base Ball disappointed by reason of the failure of the steamer "Alameda" to make schedule time, on the occasion of the visit of the "All America" and Chicago teams to Honolulu, on their world-tour in 1888-9.

This worthy man, whose loss was deeply mourned at the Hawaiian capital, where he was universally respected and beloved, had a life history contemporaneous with that of the birth and development of the game he so greatly admired. He had been present when the game was born. He had a part in its first organization. He had witnessed its progress throughout the years of its evolution and had seen it adopted not only as the national pastime of the land of his nativity, but had seen it become the favorite sport of the capital city of that far-off island of the Pacific which he had adopted as his home.

The first officers chosen by the Knickerbocker Club were Duncan F. Curry, President; William R. Wheaton, Vice-President; William H. Tucker, Secretary and Treasurer. The original playing grounds were on Manhattan Island and later on the Elysian Fields, Hoboken, New Jersey, at that time the city's most popular summer resort.