CHAPTER XX. TWO WEEKS IN CALIFORNIA.

We were booked for a stay of two weeks in San Francisco, and that two weeks proved to be one continual round of pleasure for every member of the party. The appearance of the city itself was somewhat of a disappointment to me, and I soon grew somewhat tired of climbing up hill only to climb down again. The really fine buildings, too, were few and far between, the majority of them being low wooden structures that looked like veritable fire-traps. They are built of redwood, however, and this, according to the natives, is hard to burn. The fact that the towns had not burned down yet would seem to bear out the truth of their assertion, though the Baldwin Hotel was built of the same material, and that went up in flames a little over a year ago in such a hurry that some of the people who were stopping there thought themselves lucky to get off with the loss of their wardrobes and baggage, while others who were not so lucky never got out at all.

The natural surroundings of the city are, however, decidedly handsome, and I doubt if there is a handsomer sight anywhere than San Francisco Bay, a bay in which all of the navies of the world could ride at anchor and still have plenty of room for the merchant vessels to come and go. The shores of this bay are lined with beautiful little suburban towns that are within easy reach by boat and sail from San Francisco, and it is in these towns that a large proportion of the people doing business in the city reside. The people are most hospitable and at the time of our visit the base-ball foes and cranks, both in the same category, were as thick as were the roses, and roses in California greet you at every turn, not the hot-house roses of the East, that are devoid of all perfume, but roses that are rich with fragrance and that grow in great clusters, clambering about the doorways of the rich and poor alike, drooping over the gateways and making bright the hedges. Flowers were to be seen everywhere, and their cheapness at the time of our visit was both the wonder and delight of the ladies.

The day after our arrival, November 4th, dawned bright and beautiful, but the haggard faces and the sleep-laden eyes of the tourists when they assembled at a late hour in the Baldwin Hotel rotunda boded ill for a good exhibition of the art of playing base-ball that we were to give that day.

My forebodings in this respect proved true. The Haight grounds were crowded, 10,500 people paying admission to see the game, and great crowds lined the streets and greeted us with cheers as we drove in carriages to the scene of action. The practice work on both sides prior to the opening of the game was of a most encouraging character, but as for the game itself--well, the least said the better. Tired out with travel and the late hours of the night before, we were in no condition to do ourselves justice. We were over-anxious, too, to put up a great game, and this also told against us. Baldwin who pitched for us had no control of the ball, and the stone wall infield of the Chicagos, which included yours truly, was way off and could not field a little bit. The score, All-American 14 and Chicago 4, tells the story of the game. That the crowd was disappointed was easy to see. They were good-natured about it, however, and it is safe to say that they did not feel half so badly as we did. Our reputation was at stake and theirs was not. That was the difference.

Two days afterward the All-Americans played the Greenwood and Morans on the same grounds, and the 3,000 people who had assembled to witness the game saw the All-Americans get a most disgraceful trouncing at the hands of the local team, the score at the end of the game standing at 12 to 2. It was my misfortune to umpire this game, and I have often been accused since of having given the All-Americans the worst of the decision. It is always the privilege of the losers to kick at the umpire, however, and I have even been known to indulge in a gentle remonstrance myself when I thought the circumstances were justifiable. The truth of the matter is that it was the old story of late hours and a lack of condition, Crane being unsteady and the support accorded him not up to the standard, while the local club played a good game throughout, getting their hits in where they were needed and playing a really strong game in the field.

Before another crowd of 4,000 people, on November 6th, the All-Americans played the Pioneers, another local organization, and though Healy pitched a good game for the visitors they were beaten this time by a score of 9 to 4. Ward did not take part in the game on this occasion, he having taken a day off to shoot quail, and the defeat was largely chargeable to the costly errors divided up among Hanlon, Crane, Manning, Von Haltren, Wood and Fogarty.

In the meantime I had taken the Chicago team to Stockton, where on the same grounds as the All-Americans and Pioneers played we stacked up against the Stockton Club, then one of the strongest organizations in the Golden State. The 4,000 people assembled at the grounds there saw on that occasion as pretty a game as they could wish to see, the fielding on both sides being of the prettiest sort, and the work of the opposing pitchers, Tener for Chicago and Daly for Stockton, of the most effective character. At the end of the ninth inning the score was tied at 2 each, and the darkness coming on we were obliged to let it go at that, the people of Stockton being well pleased with the exhibition that they had been treated to by both teams, and especially jubilant over the fact that their own boys had been able to tie a nine of our calibre. The next day the Stockton team came down to San Francisco to measure strength with the All-Americans, Baker and Albright being their battery on this occasion, as opposed to Crane and Earle. The All-Americans, smarting under their two defeats at the hands of the local team, simply wiped up the ground with the Stockton boys on this occasion, pounding Baker all over the field and running up a score of 16 as against a single for their opponents. The showing made by the visitors on that occasion opened the eyes of the Californian ball-players and from that time on both the Pioneers and the Stocktons fought shy of both the visiting teams.

On the afternoon of November 10th we, and by that I mean the Chicago team, played the Haverlys before 5,000 spectators and defeated them after a pretty contest by a score of 6 to 1, Baldwin pitching an excellent game for the Chicagos, and Incell, who was at that time the idol of the Pacific Coast, a good game for the local team, though his support was weak.

The following day 6,000 people passed through the gates at the Haight street grounds to witness the second game between Chicago and All-American teams, and though this was marred by poor work here and there, the fielding was of such a brilliant character, especially the work of Chicago's stone wall, as to work the enthusiasm of the crowd up to the highest pitch. Tener and Von Haltren did the twirling on this occasion for Chicago and All-Americans respectively, and both of them were at their best. The All-Americans showed strongest at the bat, however, and as a result we were beaten by a score of 9 to 6. During the next week the team made a flying trip to Los Angeles, where two games were played, we being white-washed in the first one and beaten by a score of 7 to 4 in the second. This ended our ball-playing in California, for though it had been the intention to play a farewell game prior to our sailing for Australia, a steady rain that set in made this impossible.

When we were not playing ball we were either sightseeing in the neighborhood of San Francisco or else being entertained by some of the numerous friends that we made during our stay in "the glorious climate of California," the first supper at Marchand's being followed by a host of others, and dinner parties, banquets and theater parties were so thickly sandwiched in that it was a matter of wonderment that we were ever able to run the bases at all.

There was scarcely a single place of interest accessible to the city that we did not visit, from the Cliff House, which is one of the most popular resorts that Sari Francisco boasts of, its spacious grounds and verandas being thronged with people on Sundays and holidays, to the Chinese quarter, a portion of the city that no visitor to the Golden State should miss seeing, even if he has to make a journey of one hundred miles to do so.

The Chinese quarter of San Francisco is a city in itself, and one in which the contrasts between wealth and poverty is even more marked than it ever was in the Seven Dials of London.

The stores of the well-to-do Chinese merchants are filled with the richest of silks, the rarest of teas and the most artistic of bric-a-brac, the carvings in ivory and fancy lacquer work being especially noticeable, but close to them in the narrow streets are the abodes of vice and squalor, and squalor of the sort that reeks in the nostrils and leaves a bad taste for hours afterward in the mouths of the sight-seer. At the time of our visit both the opium dens and the gambling houses were running in full blast, and this in spite of the spasmodic efforts made by the police to close them. John Chinaman is a natural born gambler, and to obtain admission to one of his resorts is a more difficult matter than it would be for an ordinary man to obtain an audience with the Queen of England. He does his gambling behind walls of steel plate and behind doors that, banged shut as they are at the slightest sign of danger, would have to be battered down with sledges or blown open with dynamite before one could gain admission, and by that time the inmates would have all escaped and nothing would be left behind to show the nature of the business carried on.

Crime runs rampant in this section of the town, and when a Chinaman is murdered, in nine cases out of ten the slayer escapes punishment at the hands of the law, though he may have it meted out to him in some horrible form at the hands of the dead man's friends and relatives.

To go through the Chinese quarters by daylight is a sight well worth seeing, but to go through there with a guide after the night's dark shadows have fallen, is more than that. It is a revelation. These guides are licensed by the city, and are under the protection of the police.

They are as well known to the Chinamen as they are to the officers of the law, and the visitor is always safe in following wherever they may lead.

The tenement houses in the poorer sections of any great city are a disgrace to modern civilization, but a Chinese tenement house is as much worse than any of these as can be imagined. In one section of the Chinese quarter at San Francisco is a four-story building above ground, with a double basement below, one being under the other, and with an open court extending from the lower basement clear to the roof. In this building, which is jocularly styled by the guides, "The Palace Hotel of the Chinese quarter," and in which a hundred Americans would find difficulty in existing, over a thousand Chinamen live, sleep and eat, all of the cooking being done on a couple of giant ranges in the basement, which is divided up into shops, opium dens and sleeping quarters.

In these shops are some clever artisans in brass and ivory, and the locks that are turned out by hand by some of these brass-workers, and made to a great extent on the same principles as the celebrated locks made in this country by the Yale Company, are marvels of workmanship in all of their parts, the joints being as neatly filled in as though turned out by the latest improved machinery, the wonder of it all being that the principles upon which they were made have been known to the Chinese for thousands of years, the Yale locks being apparently nothing but a slight improvement on the original John Chinaman ideas.

In the opium dens one sees nothing but squalor and misery. A visit to one of them is a visit to them all, and one visit is generally enough to disgust the seeker after strange sensation, the acrid smell of the smoke and the noisome stench of the close rooms being almost unbearable.

The Joss Houses, in which are hideous idols before which tapers and incense are constantly burning, and the Chinese theaters, with their never-ending performances, are all strange sights in their way, and sights that are well worth the taking in. The Chinese quarter is a blot on the fair name of San Francisco, however, and leaving it one wonders how and why it has ever been allowed to grow into its present huge proportions. The memories of these after-dark trips still linger with me even now, like the shadow of some dark dream, and yet I am glad that I made them, if only for the purpose of seeing how the other half of the world manages to exist.

In company with Tom Daly, Bob Pettit, Harry Palmer and others of the party I enjoyed several horseback rides through the residence and suburban portions of the city, where I found much to wonder at and admire.

During our stay President Spalding, Captain Ward, Captain Hanlon, Mr. and Mrs. Ed Williamson, Messrs. McMillan and Palmer, and Mrs. Anson and myself were handsomely entertained at Oakland by Mr. Waller Wallace, of the California "Spirit of the Times," a paper now defunct, and the glimpses of the bay and city that we caught at that time made the day a most pleasant one, to say nothing of the hospitality that greeted us on every hand. Messrs. Spalding, Ward, McMillan, Palmer and myself were also handsomely entertained by the Press Club, and also by the Merchants' Club of San Francisco, an organization that numbered among its members at that time many of the leading business men of San Francisco and vicinity.

The day of our departure for Australia had been finally fixed for November 18th, and the evening before Spalding, as a recognition of the kindness with which we had been treated during our stay, gave a farewell banquet to the members of the California League and the San Francisco Press Club at the Baldwin Hotel, covers being laid for seventy-five guests, among them being several men of prominence in the social and business world of the Pacific Coast. The menu card for that occasion, which is circular in form and represents a base-ball cover, now lies before me, the idea originating in the fertile brain of Frank Lincoln. Under the heading of "score-card," on the inside, is the magic injunction, "Play Ball," with which the majority of us who sat at the table were so familiar, and among the courses, "Eastern oysters on the home run," "Green turtle a la Kangaroo," "Petit pate a la Spalding," "Stewed Terrapin, a la Ward," "Frisco Turkey a la Foul," together with other dishes, all of which had some allusion either to base-ball or to our contemplated Australian trip.

After we had played ball, the debris cleared away and the cigars lighted, there followed a succession of impromptu speech-making, the toasts and those who replied being as follows: "Early Californian Ball-players," Judge Hunt of the Superior Court; "The National League Champions, the New York Base-ball Club," ex-Senator James F. Grady, of New York; "The San Francisco Press," W. N. Hart, of the San Francisco Press Club; "The Good Ship Alameda," Capt. Henry G. Morse; "A G. Spalding and the Australian Trip," Samuel F. Short-ride; "The Chicago Nine," yours truly; "The All-Americans," Capt. John M. Ward; "The 'Base-ball' Cricketers," George Wright. In closing Spalding thanked the press and the base-ball people of the coast for the magnificent reception that we had received, and for all the kindness which had been showered upon us since our arrival, after which we bade farewell to those of our friends that we should not see again before our departure.

That night all was bustle and confusion about, the hotel. With an ocean journey of 7,000 miles before us there was much to be done, and it was again late before we retired to dream of the King of the Cannibal Islands and the Land of the Kangaroo.

Eleven years have rolled away since that trip to San Francisco was made and many of the friends that we then met with and that helped to entertain us so royally have passed over the Great Divide that separate the known from the unknown, but their memory still lingers with us and will as long as life shall last.

There was not a minute of the time that was spent on the coast that I did not enjoy myself. I found the Californians a warm-hearted, genial and impulsive people, in whose make-up and habits of life there still live the characteristics of those early pioneers who settled there in:

"The days of old, the days of gold, The days of '49."

and to whom money came easily and went the same way.