End-of-year odds and ends
Thank you to everyone who has read any of these posts during 2020. I hope that at least some of them have been informative and/or entertaining, and perhaps provided a few minutes of respite from a year that has been so horrible, in so many ways, both on and off the field.
..........
...
STICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW
Like far too many athletes, John L. Sullivan, the greatest bare-knuckled boxer of the 1880s, fancied himself a multi-sport talent.
From the Chicago Tribune of May 29, 1883:
Sullivan the Slugger Makes a Poor
Base-Ball Pitcher.
New York, May 28. -- [Special.] -- For 50 percent of the gate-money, Mr. John L. Sullivan, Boston's pet pugilist, consented to play before a New York audience as a pitcher in a base-ball nine.