The baseball campaign was waxing hotter and hotter. The teams were so close together that, as they say of racing horses, “one blanket would have covered them.” So far, it was anybody’s race. In the East, Brooklyn was making a great spurt and had drawn up close to the front. Chicago was showing the way to the Western teams, but St. Louis was crowding close at her heels. It was a ding-dong, slam-bang race, with first one and then the other showing in front, and the whole baseball public was in a state of feverish excitement. Great crowds gathered around the bulletin boards in every large city. All agreed that it was the most even race in years. Huge throngs filled the playing grounds and the game was on the topmost wave of prosperity.