The team on paper prior to the opening of the season was justly regarded as one of the strongest that had ever been gotten together, and going off with a rush in the early part of the year its success seemed to be almost assured.

By the middle of the season the team had obtained so great a lead that the race seemed to be all over but the shouting.
In those days poolrooms were a much greater evil than they are at the present time, and the betting on baseball was hot and heavy.

The Louisville having such a lead were favorites at long odds.

When the club started on its last Eastern trip they had some twelve games to play, out of which they had less than half to win in order to land the pennant.

On this trip enough games were thrown to give Boston the pennant, and when the directors of the Louisville Club came to sift matters down they had but little difficulty in finding out the guilty parties, who were A.C.
Nichols, William H.Craver, George Hall and James A.Devlin.
How much money this quartette netted by its crooked work is not known to this day, but it has been proven that Devlin secured but a beggarly $100 as his share, as once the others had him in their power they could compel him to do just whatever they pleased under threats of exposure.
These four players were promptly expelled for selling games by the Louisville Club, whose action was later ratified by the League, and though they made application time after time in later years to be reinstated, their applications were denied and they passed out of sight and out of hearing as far as the base-ball world was concerned.
They were all of them good ball players, better than the average, and Devlin, a really great pitcher, undoubtedly had a brilliant future before him.