The Nine-Inning Scandal at the Old Exchange
A local baseball game ends in a high-stakes confrontation that reads like a pulp novel, leaving one man bitter and another victorious.
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.
Prominent among the excited crowd on the grounds is the pale face of Amelia Hangs. The Moss Krafters are at the bat on the last half of the ninth inning, with two men out and one at the third, and the score 5 to 5. 'Will that man hit it?' is the breathless question which pervades the scene. Mose Fitz Allen, standing on the first base, mutters, 'Now for revenge. Now do I give the thing away. Ah!' And his face was distorted with passion like a mad bull dried in the sun. 'Two strikes!' yells the umpire. The batter must hit it next time. He does hit it, and a fly mounts and descends beautifully to Mose. 'Take it, Mose,' goes out from Banker Hangs and hundreds of his friends. 'Not if Mose is thoroughly acquainted with himself,' is his low response, and the ball passes through his hands, and the man on the third goes home. Score 6 to 5. Two months later finds Amelia Hangs taking in plain sewing. Her father, the janitor of the Old Exchange, is gone, and Mose, though somewhat troubled in mind, takes his beer.
“His face was distorted with passion like a mad bull dried in the sun.”
This account captures the raw, localized intensity of amateur sports in a growing Seattle. Just as today's fans scrutinize the performance of professional athletes in the city's modern stadiums, the drama of this 1876 game centered on a single, high-stakes error—proving that the passion for local ball games and the tendency to turn local players into folk heroes is a permanent Seattle tradition.
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