A Saturday Afternoon on the Ball Grounds
A friendly but rough match of baseball between C.P. Stone's nine and the Seattle Reds draws a crowd to the South Seattle grounds.
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.
The much talked of match game of baseball, between C. P. Stone’s nine and the Seattle Reds, took place on the South Seattle grounds yesterday afternoon. The weather was all that could have been desired, and the crowd of spectators was large. Several hundred ladies and gentlemen and the usual number of small boys were on hand to witness the sport. The game was warmly contested and interesting throughout, although the want of practice was very apparent. From the very start, it was apparent that the Stone nine was overmatched, but the boys did not get discouraged. The game lasted a little over three hours and resulted in a victory for the Seattle Reds, in a score of 28 to 17.
“Several hundred ladies and gentlemen and the usual number of small boys were on hand to witness the sport.”
In an era before professional sports culture dominated, a local baseball match functioned as a critical social anchor. Today’s high-stakes stadium debates contrast sharply with this account of a low-stakes, mud-caked afternoon on a field in South Seattle.
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