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THE CHAMPIONS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES.
The team that brought the pennant back to Chicago in the early '80s was a rattling good organization of ball players, as the "fans" who remember them can testify, and while they were the cracks of that time, and perhaps as strong a team as the League had seen up to that date, yet they were not as strong either as a team or as individual ball players as the team that represented Chicago several years afterward.

The secret of the club's success in those days lay in its team work, and in the fact that a goodly portion of the time was spent in studying and developing the fine points of the game, which long practice made them fairly perfect in.

There were one or two weak spots in its make-up, but so well did it perform as a whole that these weak spots were quite apt to be lost sight of when the time for summing up the result of the season's play had arrived.
In its pitching department the team was particularly strong at that time as compared with some other of the League clubs.
Larry Corcoran, upon whose skill great reliance was placed, was at that time in the zenith of his glory as a twirler.

He came, if my memory serves me rightly, from somewhere in the neighborhood of Buffalo.