Richmond Press, Inc. Richmond, VA 1938
The Baconsville Gang
Baconsville was that part of Manchester (now called South Richmond, good gracious!) which lies at the end and to the east of Mayo's Bridge, and it may have been a name before the name Manchester was ever thought of, before even the name Rocky Ridge was ever heard, coming down from the time of Bacon's Rebellion. Or was it because old Mr. Bacon was boss of the paper mill? Anyhow, when I was a shaver and lived in Manchester there were several very agreeable boys, most of them much bigger than I, whose warm friendship I had. (They used to let me carry the bat when they were going a long way to play a match game with some other baseball nine.) So you may judge that I loved them with all my heart. At one time they had a nine called the Sandbriars: and there was an uptown nine that had the same name. Those uptown boys were good friends of mine, too; for behold! they lived on Terrapin Hill, to settle the controversy as to which had the right to the prized name of Sandbriars, they agreed to play a game and let the winner take all - name and all. So the game was played, on the baconville Sandbriar's diamond. The Terrapin Hill nine was doing very well, indeed, until the eighth inning- the score might have been sixteen to sixteen, or thereabout. But when we saw the left fielder of the Terrapins Hill team going at top speed over the street embankment after Billy Weieigner's fly, we said: Goodbye, old uptown Sandbriars. It turned out to be a home run that cleared the bases and won the game; and the Terrapin Hill nine marched uptown again without a name. I remember some of the old boys: Tom Milton, Willie Denby, Ezra Moody (he was a pitcher), Bonie Hobeck, (he was a catcher), Tom Chalkley, Newby Ferguson and others. Some of them afterward went on the Manchester Red Stockings, one of the best teams around these parts in the old days. Lord, how I loved those boys! They were all much bigger than I and they certainly were good to me! |
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