Accompanying the Forest Citys was a large delegation of Chicago sporting men, who had come prepared to wager their money that the Marshalltown aggregation would be beaten by a score varying all the way from 8 to 20 to 1, and they found a good many takers among the townspeople who had seen us play and who had a lot of confidence in our ability to hold the visitor's score down to a low figure.
Upon the result of the game A.G.Spalding, who was the pitcher for the Forest Citys, alleges that my father wagered a cow, but this the old gentleman indignantly denies, and he further declares that not a single wager of any sort was made by any member of the team.
Be this as it may, one thing is certain, and that is that the game was witnessed by one of the largest crowds that had ever gathered around a ball ground in Marshalltown, and we felt that we had every reason to feel elated when at the end of the ninth inning the score stood at 18 to 3 in their favor.
So disgusted were the visitors and their followers over the showing that we had made in spite of their best endeavors that they at once proceeded to arrange another game for the next day, cancelling another date ahead in order to do so.
Speaking of this second game my father says: "The rules of the game at that time made the playing of a 'Ryan dead ball' compulsory, and this it was the province of the home club to furnish, and this was the sort of a ball that was played with the first day.

To bat such a ball as this to any great distance was impossible and our fielders were placed well in for the second game, just as they had been in the first, but we soon discovered that the balls were going far beyond us, and on noting their positions when our turn to bat came we found their fielders placed much further out than on the day before.

My first impression was that the great flights taken by the ball were due to the tremendous batting, but later on I became convinced that there was something wrong with the ball, and called for time to investigate the matter.
"On questioning our unsophisticated management I discovered that the visitors had generously ( ?) offered to furnish the ball for the second game, as we had furnished the ball for the first, and had been allowed to do so.

We later learned that they had skinned the liveliest kind of a 'Bounding Rock' and re-covered it with a 'Ryan Dead Ball' cover.

This enabled them to get ahead at the start, but after we had learned of the deception we held them down so close that they won back but a very small share of the money that they had lost on the game of the day before, though they beat us by a score of 35 to 5.
"Let me say right here, too, that the visitors had their own umpire with them, and he was allowed to umpire the game.