[Howard W. Rosenberg]

There's not even one reference to it in the aforementioned book, but the arguably most impressive World Tour artifact, for being one-of-a-kind in baseball history, is:

The Ed Williamson letters (sent to various newspapers, especially the Cincinnati Enquirer -- by far the greatest 19th-century daily newspaper, overall, for baseball coverage). They are the feature of the combined 34 pages of World Tour content of my 2006 book Cap Anson 4: Bigger Than Babe Ruth: Captain Anson of Chicago.

Originals of the Williamson letters likely do not survive, but they could provide an opening for anyone looking for a story-behind-the-story perspective on what makes 19th-century baseball so different from the 20th century. And that's because:

Williamson was an amazing writer -- no doubt a candidate for the wittiest writer of letters while an active baseball player. He was also the foil on the 1880s Chicago National League club to Anson, being excellent at "roasting" Anson's personality and his teammates as well.

Rather than trying to stress the baseball imperialism theme of the tour, my editorial focus was the personalities of Anson and his main teammates -- and, by that measure, the Williamson letters took the cake. And as the lead-in to Cap Anson 4's main presentation of the tour, there is a 12-page biography of Williamson that reinforces why he might be the most interesting 19th-century player no one knows much of -- except for having held, at one time, the all-time season home run record (albeit mainly due to a ridiculously small home ballpark). By the way, Ed, not Ned, was what Williamson was, by far, most widely called contemporaneously in newspapers.