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1879-1880 Offseason
The sun glowed crimson over the Nebraska plains as a solitary buggy moved steadily across the budding plains. The long trip to Kansas City was well on its way giving Marshall Quisenberry and his father time to reflect. A year ago his father was dead set against the trip to Baltimore to play ball. “Too risky,” he had warned his son, “they’ll use you and not pay, I fear.” A summer later and now he was talking about using the money to buy adjoining land and being able to look forward to not owing the bank “everything we will ever have.”
The slow trot continued over the hours, in time Marshall will be moving east in a Pullman sleeper; through cutting through half a country to Baltimore. All the boys on the club were rough hewn—farm boys, factory workers, miner’s sons all taking a chance to escape a life of gnarled hands and broken muscles. “When you spend your life sweating blood,” his father would say to him, “you never think anything better will come along.” There was still hard work in the fall and winter, but the weight of the world was breaking above them.
“You’ll try to make it to Saint Louis in July.”
His father nodded. “It’ll be hard, but with the extra money they are saying they’ll pay, I think your mother and I can do it.” The contract Baltimore offered raised Marshall’s salary from $900 to $1500 for the upcoming season, as the Columbia Association feared losing its few stars to the Empire. “Never thought a man could make so much money playing a game.”
“It’s just like those actors who come through with the Chautauqua, they make just as much or even more.”
“Yes, but people will pay to watch those plays and such—have been for a long long time. But how long have people been paying to watch ball games, and I’m not talking about the odd nickel here or there for those traveling clubs,” his father’s eyes looked off at the horizon. “Need to take it while you have the chance I suppose.” Quiet settled in over the buggy again.
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