23 newspapers in the 1880s when newspaper editors began to realize that readers wanted statistics on the performances of their local team as well as on other teams and players throughout the country. Newspapers in the 1870s had only published the scores for a game or, at most, the score by inning. By the 1880s, the same newspapers were running box scores." The box score provided data to this relatively new sport and leisure activity. Inthe late 1880s, numerical analyses were increasingly becoming a determinant of the validity of thoughts and ideas. The compiling of statistical data brought modernity to a community and gave it kinship to an urban life.5o In addition to Nashville scores, The Nashville Daily American and the Nashville Banner printed the scores by innings of other Southern League teams and of more prominent national teams. Nashvillians began to follow the exploits and accomplishments of their local team and became more familiar with famous ballplayers throughout America. For instance, the crowds at the first game at Sulphur Dell against the National League's Chicago club probably came out more to see the famous hitters of Chicago than they did to see the hometown play. Cap Anson, the Hall of Fame player, received a standing ovation when he hit a double in the eighth inning, and the crowd watched in awe at the great swings Hall of Famer King Kelly took at the Nashville pitching." When the Nashville team acquired three players from Chicago later that year, 49 Carl Becker and Richard Grisby, "Baseball in the Small Ohio Community, 1865-1900," Sport in America: New Historical Perspectives, ed. Donald Spivey (Westport, CT:. Greenwood Press, 1985), 89. 50 Ibid. 51 The Nashville Daily American, 10 April 1885..