Without question Anson was one of the biggest single factors in the popularity and success of the National League. He was the idol of nineteenth-century boys everywhere and his face was as familiar to most Americans as Abraham Lincoln's. The hundreds of exhibition
games Anson's team played against local teams across the country did much to promote the NL and baseball as a whole. In his
autobiography, the great twentieth-century manager Connie Mack described the excitement when Anson came to Mack's hometown
of East Brookfield, Massachusetts. "It was a bigger event to us than the inauguration of a President," Mack remembered. "We cheered
ourselves hoarse as Pop Anson and his Colts trotted onto our sandlot. What a glorious sight it was!" Anson was
honest
reproached
revered
unsociable