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Updated: May 28, 2025
Within my recollection, for many years the two most prominent, as well as most efficient officials, whose names were always coupled, were McClung, Referee, and Dashiell, Umpire. No two better officials ever worked together and there is as much necessity for team work in officiating as there is in playing.
The gong rang; the crowd seemed to hum and rustle softly to quiet attention; Umpire McClung called the names of the batteries; then the familiar "Play!" There was the usual applause from the grand stand and welcome cheers from the bleachers. The Rube was the last player to go out. Morrisey was a manager who always played to the stands, and no doubt he held the Rube back for effect.
I knew a little better than anybody else how conscientiously I had tried to be fair and to use sense and judgment, and the end of it all hurt a lot. "One friendship was made in these years that has been worth more than words can tell. I refer to that of Matthew McClung. To be known as a co-official with McClung was a privilege that only those who knew him can appreciate.
The North Carolina Standard of August 30, 1837, contains the following illustration of this ferocity exhibited by two southern lawyers in settling the preliminaries of a duel. "The following conditions were proposed by Alexander K. McClung, of Raymond, in the State of Mississippi, to H.C. Stewart, as the laws to govern a duel they were to fight near Vicksburg: "Article 1st.
"We never bides here so late in the year. 'Tis wonderful late for us. We always goes before the end of September month. This year I stays to help Mr. McClung." "It's a fine, big boat," said Charley. "She's a wonderful fine boat!" boasted Skipper Zeb. "Twenty-eight foot over all. I buys she last year from a schooner crew, south bound after the fishin' ends.
However, I consented; for appreciating that McClung was sincere in his statement that he would do nothing but referee, I was forced to accept the Umpire's task. It was a game full of intense rivalry. The desire to win was carrying the men beyond the bounds of an ordinarily spirited contest, and the Umpire's job proved a most severe task.
I could think of no way to figure it except that when the ball left him there was scarcely any appreciable interval of time before it cracked in Sweeney's mitt. It was the Rube's drop, which I believed unhittable. Berne let it go by, shaking his head as McClung called it a strike. Another followed, which Berne chopped at vainly.
But unfortunately, says McClung, "they had scarcely moved an hundred paces, when the report of several rifles was heard in the rear, in the direction of the Indian encampment. The troops instantly became very unsteady. At length a solitary voice, in the front rank, called out that their design was discovered, and that the Indians would soon be upon them. Nothing more was necessary.
"Billy Graves played on the team during most of these years, he being the most graceful football runner I have ever seen, unless it were Stevenson of Pennsylvania. "Lee McClung was a harder worker in his running than most of the men named above, but tremendously effective.
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