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.
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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.