Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1916 — DISTRESSING ANCIENT HISTORY [ARTICLE]

DISTRESSING ANCIENT HISTORY

That Is Readily Rmllnl hy Many Oitiwns of Renswlaer. Bob Berry hill of Lebanon was in the city yesterday. If printed in the personal column of the Journal the at)ov« announcement would mean very little to the average reader. It would simply indicate that a gentleman unknown to the majority of the. people of Monticello today was here, probably on business. I But coupled with the st^ement that Bob Berryhill was the captain and catcher of the ball team that put it all over Rensselaer’s bunch ♦ Of Chicago players in the most historical baseball game ever played in this part of the state, all of the old-timers at once know who Bob is. It was on old settlers’ day in 1894, as we get it, being a stranger to all the facts, that this game was played, the result relieving the Rensselaer sports of rolls of the long green sufficiently large to swab out a joinj of stovepipe. Re,nsselaer had cleaned up on Monticello in a previous game and the local fans and sports had >a burning desire to get their money back and with it enough Rensselaer capital to start a bank. And his-

lory says they got it. Rensselaer went to Chicago for a team and Montioello went to Lebanon, where Bob Berryhill was managing a team and working behind the hat. The emmisaries from this city were Tony Anheier and Charles Sill. The* were instructed to get a team that could heat anything Rensselaer could dig up. They didn’t know where they could get s*ch a team, hut they started out to find it. Their travels took them to Lebanon, whose baseball team was attracting the attention of this part of the state by reason of the fact that it was a consistent winning bunch. And it was revealed afterwards that the good fates -directed the enimisaries to Lebanon for the reason that the team secured by Rensselaer from Chicago to clean up Monticello had been beaten in three straight games at Lebanon only a *short\time before the famous game was played here. Lebanon had the Chicago team's number and it was a lead pipe cinch tfiat they would bring home the bacon to the Montioello speculators. It was just as if the Rensselaer sports had come over and handed our sports their money—thrust it upon them in fact, and on their taking it whether they wanted to or not. Well, history says that the game ! was played west of the B. B. Baker i place before a crowd of people est* mated at 5,000. There, is no way of knowing how much money changed hands, but it is conservatively estimated that $5,000 would not be i nut ting it too high. One thing is certain, if the Rensselaer crowd had not provided themselves with return tickets they would have been compelled to walk home or jump a freight.

For twenty-two years, we are told, that game of ball has been played over in Monticello on an average of at least once a month. And it is almost as frequently referred to in Rensselaer, though not discussed so jubilantly. it was played over again yesterday while Bob Berryhill was here and no one enjoyed the recollections of it more than he did. Bob is now superanuated so far as baseball playing is concerned, but he was once one of the stars of the game. |He is now employed by the Bell Telephone company in a traveling capacity. Monticello Journal.