Whether people stood for or against the Reverend William A. Sunday, they all agreed that it was difficult to be indifferent toward him. The religious leader was so extraordinarily popular, opinionated, and vocal that indifference was the last thing that he would get from people. His most loyal admirers were confident that this rural-breed preacher was God's mouthpiece, calling Americans to repentance. Sunday's critics said that at best he was a well-meaning buffoon whose sermons vulgarized and trivialized the Chris

tian message and at worst he was a disgrace to the name of Christ (Dorsett 2).

In a short autobiography written for The Ladies' Home Journal, he begins with the words "I never saw my father." In the first few pages of this revealing tale he recalls ten deaths in addition to that of his father. Four aunts and an uncle died of tuberculosis, and then a grandmother he loved dearly died of the same disease. Billy was six years old when she died. "I would leave her coffin," he recalled, "only when forced to do so. The second day after the funeral my mother missed me. They called and searched everywhere; finally my dog picked up the scent and they followed my tracks through the snow to the grave, weeping and chilled through with the November winds. For weeks they feared I would not live."

After listening to the gospel hymns that reminded him of his mother, something in Billy began to stir. Whatever the source of this inner restlessness, the veteran of three baseball seasons stood up at the street preacher's invitation and abruptly announced to his teammates on the curb, "Boys I bid the old life good-bye." Billy considered going down during the invitation but did not. After several days of agonizing over this Billy went back to the mission and decided, "With Christ you are saved, without him you are lost" (Sunday "Satan" 4). He "committed" his life that night to a cause that he saw was more important than any baseball game ever played.

In 1880, two months before his eighteenth birthday, Billy Sunday decided to give up the rural life. He moved thirty miles east to Marshalltown, an agricultural service community that was becoming a small city. He was recruited by the Fire Brigade and began to work in a furniture store. Billy began to play baseball each time the Marshalltown team took the field. The boy from Story County not only made the team but also immediately distinguished himself as a base stealer and left fielder. He helped the team prove themselves as one of the finest in the state.

It was Sunday's speed that ultimately won him a permanent spot with the Chicago club, because this ingredient was part of Pop Anson's recipe for success. Anson made Sunday a member of his twelve-man squad in 1883. The rookie played very little that first season, he took the field, in only fourteen games, but he also served the team by handling all of the business management for Anson while they were on the road.

As painful as these deaths all were, Billy Sunday soon experienced a more hurtful separation. By 1872, Mrs. Sunday and her parents were so impoverished that they could not feed and clothe all the children. Thanks to a state senator, they re assigned to one of Iowa's three well-run Civil War Soldiers' Homes located in Glenwood, about a hundred and fifty miles from the Sunday homestead. Billy remembered the departure this way:

The results were not stellar, but the rookie showed marked improvement. Sunday batted .241 in fourteen games his first year, and he hit .222 after forty-three games in 1884. In 1885 he played in forty-six games, raising his batting average to .256. In 1886 Sunday played twenty-eight games and batted .243. During the season of 1887 he was a starter in fifty games and rapped out fifty-eight hits, pushing his average to a career high of .291. He also stole thirty-four bases that year.

Luck changed for Billy's family, but only for a short time. His mother remarried and had two more children. Sadly, the second child, a girl, died in a fire when she was three. Not long after, Mary Jane's second husband died also. These untimely deaths left a mark on young Billy that staye

Some common words found in the essay are:
Jesus Christ, Pop Anson's, Garden Mission, Home Journal, Soldiers' Homes, Soldiers' Home, York Times, Christ Dorsett, Reverend William, Aunt Iowa, jesus christ, pacific garden mission, baseball player, pacific garden, billy sincere, farm boy, sunday's life, garden mission, mary jane, league baseball, civil war,
Approximate Word count = 2459
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)