THE PROFESSIONAL SEASON OF 1888.

The season of 1888, in the professional arena, was marked by several
events which placed it on record as the most noteworthy, known in the
thirteen years' history of the National League. In the first place it was
the inaugural year of the grand movement made by the President of the
Chicago Club, to extend the popularity of our national game beyond the
American continent; an event which exhibited the characteristic energy,
pluck, liberality and business enterprise of Mr. Spalding, in a very
marked manner; the grand success which the venture met with being a well
merited reward for the large financial outlay which he incurred in the
experiment. Secondly, the struggle for the championship of the League,
resulting as it did in the success of the New York club, gave to the East
a lead in the pennant races which they had not held since 1884, when the
Providence club won the championship, Chicago having held the honors in
1885 and 1886, and Detroit in 1887. The past season, too, excelled all
previous years in the vast assemblages of spectators who were gathered at
the grounds of the prominent clubs on holiday occasions; as also in the
immense aggregate of people who patronized the professional contests of
the year. It was also an exceptional year in regard to the close and
exciting contest for the League pennant, between the four leading clubs of
that organization; and at the end of the championship season the sequel of
the contest for the base ball championship of the world finished off the
campaign of 1888, in a manner that greatly added to the honors won by the
victorious League club from New York. The contest for the American
Association championship was also one of the interesting events of the
season, and one, too, which taught aspiring clubs a lesson which they can
well profit by; and that is, that success in championship contests is due
far more to able management, competent captaining, and thorough team work,
than to the gathering together of the strongest of star players in a club