Colorful Reporting of 1908 Baseball

With baseball and track seasons in full swing around the state, it is interesting to review some of the sports reporting in Wyoming weekly newspapers during the olden days. Although this item – with mistakes and all – is from the June 25, 1908, issue of “The Saratoga Sun,” readers are urged to substitute their hometown and a rivalry with a neighboring town when reading.

We Got Walloped

Score 9 to 14 in favor of Hanna nine – Game hotly contested

Last Sunday afternoon on the diamond at Hanna, and amidst a flood of sand and dust, hooting of horns and medley of voices, Saratoga went down to defeat for the first time this season before the lads that dig for coal.

From start to finish the game was close and exciting and looked to be Saratoga’s game up to the ninth inning, when the umpire, assisted by a comedy of errors on part of the Saratoga boys, gave the game to Hanna.

The score stood 9-9, with Hanna at the bat. In their half, they piled up five runs, while the best Saratoga could do was to get a man on third, where he ended the inning by interfering with a thrown ball, and the game was over – Saratoga 9, Hanna 14.

Notes on the game

`We have not changed our mind regarding the Hanna nine. They are, in the main, gentlemen and play some ball. The umpire never gave Saratoga any the best of it. He lived in Hanna, and we don’t blame him.

There are a few of the ruffian element of Hanna that Saratoga would be delighted to meet.

One young fellow with a very red head got a slap in the face that put him down for the count. He was real tame for the rest of the game.

We shook our Sunday clothes the next morning for coin with which to buy a breakfast. We shook out about two pounds of Hanna real estate – the only thing brot back.

The Saratoga crowd contributed $700 or $800 to the Hanna sufferers during the foot race and ball game. Generous people these!

The Hanna aggregation rooted in nine different languages together with 87 megaphones, a brass band and a base drum.

If everybody had played the game that the battery did, we would have won in a walk.