Fifteen Hundred Fans and One Silk Pennant: Port Gamble Takes the Sound Championship
A steamer of rooters, gold coin at the gate and a decisive game at Madison Street Park — Port Gamble beat Port Blakeley 15 to 5 for the Puget Sound pennant, and flew it from the steamer's jackstaff.
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.
Fully 1,500 persons, among them a number of ladies, visited Madison Street park yesterday to witness the last ball game of the season between the Blakeley and Gamble teams. The latter won by a score of 15 to 5. The steamer George E. Starr brought excursionists from Gamble and Blakeley to the number of 200. It was a good game, barring a few costly errors, of which Blakeley made the most.
In the first inning each team scored one run. Thornton started out well, allowing only two men to reach first in the two innings, but in the third he hit two men, gave a base on balls and allowed three hits to be made. This, combined with Gamble's bad error in throwing over the first baseman's head, allowed the Gambles to score six times, virtually winning the game.
Horton, for the visitors, did not start out well, allowing four safe hits in the first. In the second he improved, letting them have but one hit, and in the third shut out the side. In the first, Horton, Babbitt and Morgan executed a neat double play in catching Warner out at second and cutting Ganzel off at first. Both catchers put up a star game, Blanford allowing but three stolen bases, and Warner five.
Thornton was hit hard and gave way to Simmons in the fourth. Morgan and Cory led at the stick work, the former with three singles, the latter with two singles and a double, while Babbitt was the only man that pounded the ball for three bags. Wright made a bad fumble of Atkinson's long hit to right field, allowing two men to score. Simmons later redeemed himself by catching Wright napping at first.
Simmons pitched a fairly good game, letting the Gambles make only six hits in four and one-half innings, of which four were in the sixth. The Blakeley team was outplayed throughout the game. Atkinson played his first game with the Blakeleys and covered third base in good shape. Vaughan made a pretty drive to right field for two bags, but the umpire decided against him, calling it a foul, receiving for the same a severe scorching from the spectators.
This was the last and deciding game for the championship of Puget Sound, of which Port Gamble is the winner, and if anyone would have taken the trouble to look, the silk pennant could have been seen floating from the jackstaff of the steamer George E. Starr, with the inscription 'Pt. G. B. B. C., 1894' thereon.
“If anyone would have taken the trouble to look, the silk pennant could have been seen floating from the jackstaff of the steamer George E. Starr.”
Before the Mariners, Puget Sound's pennant was decided by company mill teams carried to the grounds in steamers full of rooters. Port Gamble and Port Blakeley were lumber towns whose baseball rivalry stood in for civic pride — a reminder that Seattle's sports identity was built on the water, not just in the stadium.
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