Many of the things that were said and done bordered on the things that are forbidden in a decent society. The sermon of pleasure was given three times in front of a mixed audience of men and women, boys and girls. If the sermons had been given to women in front of married women, if the sermons to men had been preached to mature men, if the sermon on pleasures had been preached to adults, there might have been excuses for them, and perhaps good of them. But an experienced journalist told me that the sermon on entertainment «was the boldest thing ever done in Syracuse.» I cannot and must not quote this sermon. [a friend] said that Mr. Sunday`s sermon on the issue of sex was crude and disgusting. He also heard the famous sermons on entertainment and alcohol. [He] says that on the whole, these are the ugliest, worst and most disgusting speeches he has ever heard from a religious platform or religious preacher. He saw people who had fainted under this terrible definition of sensuality and depravity. [38] Dimanche, which also played a leading role in the movement to ban the sale of spirits in the United States, reached the peak of its fame in its 1917 New York renaissance, two years before prohibition became national policy through constitutional amendments. He claimed that 1,000,000 «went on the trail of sawdust» to present themselves and confess their conversion to Christ as a result of his preaching. Considered sensationalist by some critics, he nevertheless won the enthusiastic support of evangelical churches and influential lay people.
In March 1891 Sunday requested the dismissal of his contract with the Philadelphia Ball Club. During his career, Sunday was never a great hitter: his batting average was .248 in 499 games, about the median of the 1880s. In his best season, 1887, Sunday reached .291, finishing 17th in the league. He was an exciting but fickle outfielder. In the days leading up to wearing the gloves, Sunday was known for his exciting catches with long sprints and athletic dives, but he also made a lot of mistakes. Sunday was best known as an exciting base runner who was considered by his peers to be one of the fastest in the game, although he never finished better than third in the National League for stolen bases. [15] At the age of fourteen, Sunday changed for itself. In Nevada, Iowa, he worked for Colonel John Scott, a former lieutenant governor, took care of Shetland ponies, and performed other agricultural duties. The Scotts offered a good home and the opportunity to go to Nevada High School on Sunday.
Although Sunday never graduated from high school,[5] he was better educated than many of his contemporaries in 1880.[6] He ended his sermons by inviting people to go «on the path of sawdust» forward in the tabernacle to indicate their choice for Christ. Sunday was a longtime Republican, and he represented the dominant political and social views of his home country in the Midwest: individualism, competitiveness, personal discipline, and opposition to government regulation. [63] Writers like Sinclair Lewis,[64] Henry M. Tichenor[65] and John Reed attacked Sunday as a tool of big business, and poet Carl Sandburg called it a «dishwasher oven» and a «bunk puller.» [66] Nevertheless, Sunday sided with progressives on some issues. For example, it condemns child labour[67] and supports urban reform and women`s suffrage. [68] Sunday condemned capitalists «whose private lives are good, but whose public lives are very bad,» as well as those «who would not reach a man`s pockets with the fingers of their hand,» but who «without hesitation would grasp the pockets of eighty million people with the fingers of their monopoly or commercial advantage.» [69] Although he never lost his compassion for the poor and sincerely tried to bridge the racial divide at the height of the Jim Crow era,[70] Sunday received contributions from members of the Second Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. [71] For example, during the sermon in Bangor, Maine, in 1927, Sunday told the men of the klansmen who briefly interrupted his sermon that «he did not believe that an organization was walking behind the cross. of Christ and the American flag could be anything but a force for good.
[72] [73] In 1893, Sunday became a full-time assistant to J. Wilbur Chapman, one of the most prominent evangelists in the United States at the time. Chapman was well educated and was a meticulous, «gentle and urban» dresser. [25] Personally shy, like Sunday, Chapman enjoyed respect in the pulpit, both for his strong voice and for his refined behavior. Sunday`s job as Chapman`s advanced man was to precede the evangelist in cities where he was to preach, hold prayer meetings and choirs, and generally take care of the necessary details. When tents were in use, Sundays often helped set them up. When Kelly was sold to another team in 1887, Sunday became Chicago`s regular right fielder, but an injury limited his playing time to fifty games.[26] The following winter, the Sunday was sold to the Pittsburgh Alleghenys for the 1888 season. He was their starting center and played a full season for the first time in his career. The crowd in Pittsburgh immediately took hold on Sunday; One journalist wrote that «the whole city is wild on Sunday.» Although Pittsburgh had a losing team in the 1888 and 1889 seasons, Sunday performed well in midfield and was one of the league`s leaders in stolen bases. [12] Sunday`s professional baseball career was launched by Cape Anson, an Indigenous Marshalltowner and future Hall of Famer, after his aunt, an avid Fan of the Marshalltown team, gave him an enthusiastic account of Sunday`s abilities. In 1883 A.G.
was appointed on Anson`s recommendation.