d while we were playing in Boston. Henry E. Dixey, the actor, who was
then playing a summer engagement at the "Hub," had driven out to the
grounds as usual in his buckboard, with his pet bull terrier "Dago" in
the seat beside him. Dixey always retained a seat in his rig and took up
his place right back of the left field. Dixie had not been on the ground
more than twenty minutes when Dahlen swiped the ball for a three-bagger.
It was one of those long, low, hard drives, and sailed about ten feet
over the left fielder's head and in a direct line for Dixey. He couldn't
have gotten out of the way had he tried, but the fact was that he didn't
see it coming, and the first he knew of it was when he heard a sharp
yelp at his side and saw poor "Dago" tumbling off his seat between the
wheels.

The dog was dead when picked up, the ball having broken his neck.
Between the yellow buckboard, the dead canine, the frightened horses and
Dixey's excitement the whole field was in an uproar and it was fully ten
minutes before we could get down to playing again, but Dahlen, the cause
of it all, didn't even see the affair and scored on the death of "Dago,"
his being the only genuine case of making a dog-gone run that has ever
come under my observation.

Some time during the winter of 1892, I added "big Bill Lange," who has
since become one of the stars of the League, and Irwin to my string of
fielders, and cast about to strengthen the pitching department of the
team as much as possible, Gumbert and Luby having been released. Having
this object in view no less than eleven twirlers were signed, of whom
all but four proved comparative failures, Hutchinson, McGill and Mauck
having to do the greater part of the work in the box, the other eight
men, Shaw, Donnelly, Clausen, Abbey, Griffith, McGinnins, Hughey and F.
Parrott being called on but occasionally. Of this lot Griffith was the
most promising and he afterwards turned out to be a star of the first
magnitude.

With these exceptions the team was about the same as that of the season
before, and that it proved to be as great a disappointment to me as it
did to the ball-loving public, I am now free to confess. It was a team
of great promises and poor performances, and no one could possibly have
felt more disappointed than I did when the end of the season found us in
ninth place, the lowest place that Chicago Club had ever occupied in the
pennant race since the formation of the League, we having