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Billy Sunday, 1862-1935
In 1891, Billy Sunday, the star left-fielder for the Philadelphia Phillies, was offered a contract paying him considerably more money per month than an industrial worker would earn in a year. But he left the game -- for considerably less money -- to become an evangelist and Bible teacher for the YMCA. Converted four years previously and having heard the call, he would go on to become one of America's most popular evangelists. Although his career waned in the 1920s, he was still in demand, and he traveled and preached until his death, eventually reaching more than 100 million people. Ironically, his gifts as an orator and preacher eventually earned him more game and money than baseball.
George Bellows, one of the preeminent illustrators in the early twentieth century, made a drawing of Sunday for Metropolitan Magazine in 1915; this 1923 lithograph reproduces his magazine illustration in reverse.
George Bellows, 1923 |