A Ball Player's Career, page 29 by Adrian C. Anson
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tell me so.
With my father playing third base, my brother playing center field and myself playing second base the Anson family was pretty well represented on that old Marshalltown nine, and as the team held the State championship for several years the Anson trio must at least have done their share of the playing.
It was while I was away at Notre Dame that misfortune came to Marshalltown. The Des Moines Club challenged for the flag and the home team accepted the defy. The Des Moines organization was then one of the strongest in the State. The game was played at Marshalltown, and to the horror and astonishment of the good people of that town, who had come to look upon their club as invincible, Des Moines won, and when they went back to the State capital they took the emblem of the championship with them.
This emblem I determined the town should have back, and immediately upon my return from the Indiana College I organized a nine and challenged for the trophy. That team was made up as follows:
Kenny Williams, pitcher; Emmett Green, catcher; A. B. Cooper, A. C. Anson and Henry Anson on the bases; Pete Hoskins, shortstop; Sam Sager, Sturgis Anson and Milton Ellis in the outfield; A. J. Cooper, substitute.
We had the best wishes of the town with us when we departed for Des Moines and were accompanied by quite a delegation of the townspeople who were prepared to wager to some extent on our success. The game was played in the presence of a big crowd and when we came back to Marshalltown the flag came with us and there it remained until, with the other trophies that the club had accumulated, it went up in smoke.
The night of our return there was "a hot time in the old town," and had there been any keys to the city I am pretty certain that we would have been presented with them.
The fame of the Forest City Club of Rockford, one of the first professional clubs to be organized in the West, had been blown across the prairies until it reached Marshalltown, so when they came thr