The Prescott Daily News · Prescott, Arkansas · 1917

Under Marquis of Queensbury Rules

April 1917, Prescott, Arkansas: the West Side Base Ball Association formally challenges the East Side Farmers Union, "commonly known as 'The Di Dappers,'" to a game of base ball, "under Marquis of Queensbury rules." Those are boxing rules. Given what they say the umpire did last time, the choice feels deliberate.

Some challenges are issued. This one was served: “The West Side Base Ball Association hereby challenges the East Side Farmers Union Base Ball Association, commonly known as ‘The Di Dappers,’ to play a game of base ball; said game to be played one day next week, under Marquis of Queensbury rules.”

Read that last clause again. The Marquis of Queensbury’s rules govern boxing. Nobody drafting a baseball challenge reaches for them by accident, and the next sentence supplies the motive: “The West Side has been reliably informed that the umpire beat them out of the last game by tipping their signals off to the opponents, and otherwise making decisions adverse to their team.” Reliably informed is doing beautiful work there. Every beaten ball club in history has been reliably informed of something similar.

The Di Dappers, for the record, is a team name worth the whole clipping, and the West Side closed with the traditional flourish of the confident: “However, they say with an even break of luck they can make the East Side look like the Hope S. S. League, ivory and all.” Hope was the town down the road, and “ivory” was the era’s slang for raw, untested ballplayers, the stuff scouts hunted. Translated: given one honest umpire, we will make you look like a Sunday School league of rookies.

The Prescott Daily News ran it among the local items of April 21, 1917, between lost signet rings and visiting cashiers, which is exactly where small-town baseball diplomacy belonged. No result appears on the page. The archive keeps the challenge and lets the reader score the game however the West Side’s luck deserved.