I bought a book recently on ebay. As you can see, the publisher is listed as Frederick Schmidt, ex-NL pitcher. I originally thought that he might be
Bill Smith, pitcher for the 1886 Detroit Wolverines and also known as Frederick William Schmidt (a couple of people suggested this)
The book has a nice photo cover of McGraw
However, on baseball reference, Billy Smith is shown as being born and dying in New Orleans, so the Chicago connection isn't immediately apparent. The publisher is thus more likely
Crazy Schmit (as someone else suggested), who has a Chicago connection.
And, to top off this purchase, this book isn't listed in
The Baseball Index or in Grobani. The Library of Congress has no listing for it that I can find. As you can imagine, I'm very excited to have acquired it.
Max