TO: Dr. Robert J. Matthews (Robert.j.Matthews@ABS.gov)
FROM: Anthony R. Perry (Perry.a@UVA.com)
Bob,
Thank you for the expedient reply. Nothing quite compares to sharing memories of baseball with an old friend.
Researching that 1910 Legacy Cup, I can’t help but feel that those must have been some of the very best days for a Richmond Rifles fan. An extraordinary run—three Cups in four years, never as the best team in the league, capped by an unthinkable five-game comeback after starting the series 0-4 against a formidable Cleveland lineup.
To our mutual joy, I am sure, I’ve attached a photocopy of a 1910 Legacy Cup ticket stub from Libby Hill—no doubt saved by Seymour, as much the spectator as any, who did not catch a single pitch at that fateful series. Incredible to think that old “Machine” Robley caught all 107 innings of that playoff run, especially considering he was coming off a recently fractured foot at 37 years old and hit .344 in 32 at-bats.
As numerous historians have written, the 1910 Legacy Cup performance by “Jellybean” Jacks is considered one of the greatest playoff pitching performances of all time. Manager “Pop” Barrows sent out Jellybean for an excruciating sixty-two innings that postseason–nearly triple the previous record. Some authors claim that old Jellybean never recovered from the herculean comeback. Richmond fans never forgot Jellybean’s heroic shouldering of that legendary series.
To me, the 1910 Legacy Cup will always be one of my favorite Richmond Rifles stories. After one of the hottest starts in franchise history, the team collapsed in the summertime, barely making the playoffs, only to rally and sweep the seemingly invincible Brooklyn Whales in the Eastern League Cup, lose four straight in the Legacy Cup, then battle back to four straight wins at home in the last four games at Old Libby Hill and defeat the Athletics at home in Game 9. Baseball doesn’t get any more dramatic than that. What a way to conclude 16 seasons at the original ballpark of the Rifles.
I want to share one more historical tidbit with you that, I think, eludes the majority of baseball history. Did you know that it was the 1910 Legacy Cup where our friend “Bulldog” Seymour met and fell in love with none other than Lydia Bozeman, heiress to the Jacob Bozeman fortune? Newspapers didn’t cover at all, but what a wonder that the backup Catcher for the 1910 Richmond Rifles somehow won over the heart of Jacob Bozeman’s only child and eventually caused her complete disownment from the Cleveland magnate’s fortune! Willy and Lydia would marry just a year later; Lydia was immediately disinherited, and the couple spent sixty-three years together in that apartment near Libby Hill–season ticket holders until Lydia’s death in 1986. I’m sure you show many fans her small memorial in the Rifles Hall of Fame–but did you know it was the Legacy Cup where the pair met?!
After a couple weeks of careful inventory, I’ve catalogued and documented each artifact from Mrs. Fellows. “Bulldog” Seymour may not be a household name among Rifles historians, but the care he took to preserve history is unparalleled among Rifles players. I’m pleased to report, after several long parlor talks about the Rifles in the same home that “Bulldog” Seymour spent his best years, Mrs. Fellows agreed to donate all of her late great-grandfather’s possessions to the Richmond Rifles Hall of Fame.
As the longstanding curator of the Hall, let me be the first to congratulate you on this enormously fortuitous treasure.
Your friend in baseball,
Tony
SEPTEMBER, 1910
LIBBY HILL, RICHMOND, VA
1910 LEGACY BASEBALL LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP, GAME 5
It felt good to be home.
The closeness of the early autumn air surrounded Willy like a familial embrace, with the morning sunlight sparkling off the James River.
Willy often compared the rich forests of Virginia to his home. Virginia and Kentucky were distinct in several ways–first in the shades of their soil; Kentucky, a vivid orange, and Virginia an inelegant black. Their rivers moved with opposite urgencies–though far inland, the waterways of Virginia and Kentucky were near indistinguishable. The forests of Kentucky were rocky, winding, and dark; Richmond’s coastal groves were low, flat, and sheltered by towering pines and waylaying swamps. Still, to Willy, Richmond, Virginia was a thousand times the home as Cleveland, Ohio.
As the train’s brakes engaged and steam hissed from the Monroe engine, Willy leaned out the window to steal a glimpse at Libby Hill. Despite his team’s historically abysmal performance against Cleveland in the Legacy Cup, it was good to be home. It was a truly glorious ballpark–nothing particularly elegant, and undoubtedly old-fashioned–but he loved it all the same. It rested on the highest point in Richmond–towering above the far side of Main Street, overlooking the James, where British explorers once climbed and gazed out over all Virginia and provided her namesake without hesitation–so identical was her riverbend beauty to that ancient castle town. In the morning light, Libby Hill’s eastern flanks were lit with a bronze pallor that set the ballpark aglow, high on top of that rolling, emerald world.
So enamored was Willy Seymour in his reverie of Libby Hill that he literally jumped into the air when, as he stepped down from the coach car with his trunk in his arms, he nearly toppled the petite blonde woman in a scarlet pullover.
“You!”
Scrambling, at first, to apologize and help the small woman back on her feet, Willy dropped her arm mid-aid as he recognized her face. It was the same loathsome woman he’d met before the first game of their abysmal stretch in Cleveland. She fell, for a second time, to the dusty pavement.
“How’s that for southern hospitality,” the woman muttered, dusting her pants (she was wearing pants!) and rising on her own. She looked Willy up and down.
“Well?”
Willy puzzled, beside himself. His teammates were piling off the train and rushing to catch their respective trolleys home. “Well, what?”
“Are you going to welcome me to your city, or what?”
The woman placed her hands on her hips and stared at the man expectantly.
“Lady,” Willy said, picking up his trunk once more, “you are something else.”
“You have no idea,” the woman replied, adjusting her cap. For the first time, Willy detected a smile at the edge of her eyes. She shrugged him off, looking to the south and thumbing at the silhouette of Libby Hill.
“That’s your ballpark, huh?”
Willy nodded.
“A beautiful park, I’ll admit it.” The woman offered with a mock sigh. “A shame you’ll have to get swept by Cleveland at home.”
For his own first time, Willy smiled.
“If you think we’re about to be swept, you really don’t know shit about the Rifles.”
With a rueful laugh, the rude, awkwardly dressed woman took a step closer. “Want to bet on it?”
Maybe it was the humidity. Maybe it was the long train ride home. Maybe Willy was tired of being backup–of being the best player to not be best. “Machine” Robley cast a long shadow, and it never seemed fair to Willy that he should do his very best all his life, playing this game he loved, only to ride an eternal bench as more god-gifted Catchers passed him by. Maybe he was just annoyed.
“What’s it worth to you?” Willy asked the strange woman, a twinkle in his eye. “Richmond comes back, five games to four. What’s your bet?”
The woman smiled. A shout erupted behind them, as a group of men in expensive suits with red “C”s affixed to their lapels–clearly from the Cleveland car–began pushing their way toward the woman, calling out “Lydia!”
The young woman–Lydia–widened her white grin.
“Oh, you’ll think of something.”