While with the players who took part in the world tour between the 1888 and ’89 seasons, Si Goodfriend observed:
“My experience in traveling with baseball clubs, the circumstances of which necessarily brings about a close association, has impressed me with the fact that most of them are, as a rule, men of far more intelligence and better manners than they are generally given credit for.”
Among those players were all four members of the Chicago White Stockings “Stonewall Infield:” Adrian Constantine “Cap” Anson, Nathaniel Frederick “Fred” Pfeffer, Edward Nagle “Ned” Williamson, and Thomas Everett “Tom” Burns.
Goodfriend said of Anson:
“Decidedly the most unique and interesting figure of all is that of Captain Anson. He shows the same peculiarities of temperament off as on the ball field. He takes advantage of every point he sees and, and holds it…He may not admire a fellow baseball player personally, but this will not induce him to detract from his skill or standing as a player.
“’Old Anse’ has genuine sporting blood in him, and will bet on anything that turns up…There isn’t anything (aboard)the ship he won’t bet on if he has a fair chance of winning. Anson’s nature is not nearly as harsh as some people imagine. The rippling water in the moonlight or the graceful soaring of a bird will draw out the greatest sentiments from him.”
Like John Tener, Anson would enter politics, but was less successful. After being elected Chicago’s city clerk in 1905, he was defeated in the Democratic primary for Cook County (IL) Sheriff in 1907
“Cap” Anson
Of Pfeffer he observed:
“(He) is handsome and has no striking mental characteristics. He has a long, flowing, brown mustache and soft brown eyes, both of which would readily come under the head of a womanly ‘lovely.’ To show the nature of the man I need only mention a little incident that is causing him much worry at the present time. His only relative is his mother who lives in Louisville. Before leaving on the trip he promised to write to her regularly and while on the ocean he promised to cable home from every point possible. He did not know there was no cable from Honolulu, and now he is worrying himself that his old mother will be anxious about him until he can cable from Auckland. It will seem an age to him until that city is reached.”
Pfeffer, along with “Monte” Ward was a leader in baseball’s nascent labor movement, Pfeffer was frequently at odds with Anson, and led the exodus of most of the White Stockings’ starters to the Players League. Despite that, in 1918 Anson called Pfeffer the game’s all-time greatest second baseman after sportswriter Grantland Rice said Eddie Collins of the White Sox was the best ever.
Fred Pfeffer
Williamson, he said, was “unassuming” and:
“(A) big tender-hearted fellow, whom everybody likes. He writes in an exceedingly clever and interesting style, and can ‘fake’ a good story like a veteran journalist.”
Ned Williamson with White stockings mascot
Williamson wrote his own dispatches from the tour which became popular features in Chicago papers. He injured his knee on the tour and A.G. Spalding refused to help him with medical expenses; the 36-year-old Williamson jumped to the Players League in 1890, but his health began to deteriorate that year while playing for the Chicago Pirates. He died of tuberculosis in 1894.
Goodfriend on third baseman Burns:
“(He) is a bright, intelligent man, who spends most of his time in reading; works of a standard heavy and weighty character being favorites. He has the reputation of being a great dresser, and is said to have as many trunks with him as a New York belle would carry to Saratoga.”
Tom Burns
Nearly a decade after the tour, Burns would be the man who replaced Anson as manager of the Chicago National League ballclub. Burns took the reins of the “Orphans” in 1898, ending Anson’s 19-year run as manager.
Burns was named manager of the Jersey City Skeeters in the Eastern League in 1902, but died just weeks before the beginning of the season.
Baseball History Daily 
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