Many of the players who had at first signed to go backed out at almost the last moment, among them being Mike Kelly of the Bostons and Mike Tiernan of the New Yorks.

The following team to represent All-America was finally gotten together: John M.Ward, shortstop and captain; Healy and Crane, pitchers; Earle, catcher; Carroll, Manning and Wood on the bases, and Fogerty, Hanlon and T.Brown in the outfield.

George Wright accompanied the party to coach the two teams in their cricket matches.

One of the pleasantest incidents of the year 1888 that I can recall to mind occurred during our last trip to Washington.

Frank Lawler, who was them a member of Congress from Chicago, and who was as big-hearted and wholesouled a fellow as ever stood in shoe leather (he is dead now, more's the pity), learned of our projected trip and procured for us an audience with President Cleveland at the White House, where we met with a most cordial reception, and I think I am violating no confidence when I say that had we been at home when the election took place in November following, he would have received the vote of every man in the team, though I am afraid this would not have affected the result to any appreciable extent.
When I was introduced to him as the captain and manager of the Chicago Club he shook hands with me in a most cordial fashion and remarked that he had often heard of me, a fact that did not seem so strange to me as it might have done some seventeen years earlier, when my name had never been printed in anything besides the Marshalltown papers.
The impression that I gained of President Cleveland at that time was that he was a level-headed, forceful business man, a genial companion, and a man that having once made up his mind to do a thing would carry out his intentions just as long as he believed, that he was right in doing.