No. 634
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
May 31, 2022

Threatening an Umpire.

President Byrne saves the bones of umpire Jimmy Clinton from a severe and undeserved pounding at Brooklyn, N. Y.
May 31, 2022
...
...

Just to show that life is full of unexpected turns, on June 18, 1178, a group of medieval English monks threw a fine puzzle in the laps of astronomers that lingers to this day.On that day, shortly after sunset, five monks at the abbey of the Christ Church of Canterbury (on the site of Canterbury Cathedral,) noticed that something very odd was happening in the sky.  Gervase, who was
More...
Strange Company - 7/13/2026
"As his son I am proud of hisefforts to succeed in life"Jefferson Randolph Smith IIIArtifact #93-2Jeff Smith collection(Click image to enlarge) oapy's son hires a legal firm to stop the defamation of his father's name. At age 30, Jefferson Randolph Smith III, Soapy and Mary's oldest son, was protecting his father's legacy and his mother's reputation from "libel" and scandal. He was also
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
The first things I noticed about 2029 First Avenue were the decorative lintels above the second floor windows. Attractively styled for window lintels on upper First Avenue, I figured this stubby holdout wedged beside two brick buildings between East 104th and 105th Streets must have been a former stable. I imagined that those roll-down window […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 7/13/2026
Youth With Executioner by Nuremberg native Albrecht Dürer … although it’s dated to 1493, which was during a period of several years when Dürer worked abroad. November 13 [1617]. Burnt alive here a miller of Manberna, who however was lately … Continue reading
More...
Executed Today - 11/13/2020
The Confession of Mary Cole, 1813.Cornelius and Mary Cole lived in a farmhouse in Sussex County, New Jersey, with their two children and Mary’s widowed mother, Agnes Teaurs. Cornelius bought the property from Agnes in exchange for an annuity of $50 per year for the rest of her life. Mary and her husband did not live happily with Agnes. According to Mary, her mother was always very hard on her,
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 7/11/2026
Join us on our Facebook page as we begin counting down the days to August 4th and all of the events leading up to the day. https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 7/7/2026
  [Editor’s note: Guest writer, Peter Dickson, lives in West Sussex, England and has been working with microfilm copies of The Duncan Campbell Papers from the State Library of NSW, Sydney, Australia. The following are some of his analyses of what he has discovered from reading these papers. Dickson has contributed many transcriptions to the Jamaica […]
More...
Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
A Female Gambling House in Boston. | They Ran a Snide Game.

Threatening an Umpire.

Threatening

Poor Jimmy Clinton was in pretty hard luck May 19 in Brooklyn while attempting to umpire the second game of the championship series between the Brooklyn and St. Louis clubs. He made some pretty bad breaks and the crowd got on to him, and the more he tried to square himself the ranker be got until, by the close of the game, he had the cranks worked up to such a pitch that it required the combined efforts of the police and the players, all armed with clubs and headed by President Byrne to prevent him from being lynched. In fact, it was really the cunning of Byrne alone that saved him, as the energetic little gentleman restored peace by pouring oil on the troubled waters.


National Police Gazette, June 5, 1886.