ndianapolis club of the National League.

It has been somewhat inaccurately stated that he entered Base Ball by
chance. This was not, strictly speaking, the case. Prior to his first
immediate association with the national game he was an ardent admirer of
the sport, although not connected with it in any capacity as owner. He
was what might be called, with accurate description, a Base Ball "fan"
in the earlier stages of development.

An opportunity presented itself by which it was possible to procure for
the city of Indianapolis a franchise in the National League. Mr. Brush
was quick to perceive the advantages which this might have in an
advertising way for the city with which he had cast his lot and
subscribed to the stock.

Like many such adventures in the early history of the sport there came a
time when the cares and the duties of the club had to be assumed by a
single individual and it was then that he became actively identified as
a managing owner, as the duty of caring for the club fell upon his
shoulders.

From that date, until the date of his death, he was actively interested
in every detail relating to Base Ball which might pertain to the
advancement of the sport, and his principal effort in his future
participation in the game was to see that it advanced on the lines of
the strictest integrity and in such a manner that its foundation should
be laid in the rock of permanent success.

Naturally this was bound to bring him into conflict with some who looked
upon Base Ball as an idle pastime, in which only the present moment was
to be consulted.

The earliest environment of Base Ball was not wholly of a substantial
nature. It was a game, intrinsically good of itself, in which the
hazards had always been against the weak. There was not that
consideration of equity which would have been for its best interests,
but this was not entirely the fault of the separate members of the Base
Ball body, but the result of conditions, in which those whose thought
was only for the moment, overshadowed the best interests of the pastime.

There was an inequity in regulations governing the sport by which the
clubs in the smaller cities were forced, against the will of their
owners, to be the weaker organizations, and possibly this was less due
to a desire upon the more fortunate and larger clubs to maintain such a
state of affairs, than to the fact that the organization generally had
expanded upon lines with little regard to t