The Fifteen-Inning Thriller at Madison Street Park
A grueling, marathon baseball game between Seattle and Spokane ends in a walk-off home run that turns the crowd into 'howling maniacs.'
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
It was king-pin ball playing that the crowd at Madison-street park yesterday witnessed for fifteen innings before the Hustlers finally triumphed over Ollie Beard's men. Then victory came in a style that fairly electrified the whole crowd for an instant, and then turned them into a mob of howling maniacs when Billy Earle drove the ball high over the left field fence for a homer. Such an exhibition of clever hitting, sharp fielding and beautiful team play a Seattle audience has not witnessed in many a day. What the spectators saw was two pitchers doing masterly work and backed up by gilt-edged support. A single slip meant defeat, and both teams battled as if for their lives. The fifteenth saw Captain Earle walk to the plate with the same grim look of defiance that he wore when he batted out victory last Thursday. His chance came when Reecius sent one of his easy ones squarely over, hoping to catch the batter napping. But it was just in Billy's favorite spot, and his big stick, whistling across the plate, caught the ball squarely. An instant later Dalrymple backed up against the fence and saw the sphere sailing high above his head into the woods beyond.
“An instant later Dalrymple backed up against the fence and saw the sphere sailing high above his head into the woods beyond.”
The 'Madison Street Park' was a quintessential Seattle venue of the 1890s, serving as a hub for community spectacle before the city's growth paved over such neighborhood grounds. Today, this kind of long-form, gritty athletic contest is a rarity, but the passion of the Seattle 'Hustlers' crowd remains a defining characteristic of the city's sports culture.
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