future, may be named, first, the success of the Eastern Club of New York,
in winning the pennant from the West; secondly, that of the Chicago Club
in attaining second place in the race in the face of drawbacks which,
under any other management, would have sufficed to have left the Club
among the tail-enders; and thirdly, the remarkable failure of the Boston
Club to attain even one of the three leading positions in the race, after
that club had incurred such a heavy expense in strengthening its team with
"star" players. The success of the New York Club in winning the
championship, introducing, as it did, a new possessor of the League
pennant and its accompanying honors, may justly be regarded as an
advantage to the general interests of the National League, inasmuch as it
is anything but desirable that one club should, season after season, carry
off the honors, as the old Boston Club did in the early history of the
professional championship contest; or as the Chicago Club has done in
monopolizing the championship of the National League during the past
thirteen years of its history. Such monopoly of the honors of each
season's campaign, by one or two of the leading clubs of each year,
materially lessens the public interest taken in the annual competition.
Besides which, it interferes, to a costly extent, with the financial
prosperity of a majority of the competing clubs. Now that a club, new to
championship honors, has replaced one of the monopolists, the other
previously unsuccessful clubs will begin to entertain hopes of being able
to "get in at the death," as the fox hunters say, in future pennant races,
if not this ensuing year, and thereby a new interest will be imparted to
coming campaigns.

A feature of the past campaign of 1888 worthy of remark, too, is the fact
of the surprisingly good work on the field accomplished by the so-called
"weakened Chicago team." While this work was unquestionably due in a great
measure to able management, the assisting element of "temperance in the