Changes

==Baseball player to preacher==

==Baseball player to preacher==

[[image:Billysundaycard.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Billy Sunday on a baseball card]]

[[image:Billysundaycard.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Billy Sunday on a baseball card]]

His first career was as [[baseball]] player with the [[Chicago Cubs|Chicago White Stockings]] from 1883-7, the [[Pittsburgh Pirates|Pittsburgh Alleghenies]] in 1888-90, and briefly with the [[Philadelphia Phillies]].<ref>[http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/sundabi01.shtml Billy Sunday statistics], baseballreference.com</ref> He was a well-known and notable player (though not stellar), famous for his running speed in the outfield and as a basestealer. He was clocked rounding the bases in fourteen seconds, and in footraces he beat out both the fastest runner in a competing baseball league and a professional sprinter.<ref>Those races were reported in the ''Chicago Tribune,'' Aug. 21, 1885 and Nov. 9, 1885. The races are discussed in ''Sunday at the Ballpark: Billy Sunday's Professional Baseball Career 1883-1890'', by Wendy Knickerbocker, Scarecrow Press, 2000, p. 42-43, 45-47.</ref> A hard drinker off the field, in 1886 he was literally picked out of the gutter, drunk, by workers at the Chicago's [[Pacific Garden Mission]], was converted, and stopped drinking.

His first career was as [[baseball]] player with the [[Chicago Cubs|Chicago White Stockings]] from 1883-7, the [[Pittsburgh Pirates|Pittsburgh Alleghenies]] in 1888-90, and briefly with the [[Philadelphia Phillies]].<ref>[http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/sundabi01.shtml Billy Sunday statistics], baseballreference.com</ref> He was a well-known and notable player (though not stellar), famous for his running speed in the outfield and as a base stealer. He was clocked rounding the bases in fourteen seconds, and in footraces he beat out both the fastest runner in a competing baseball league and a professional sprinter.<ref>Those races were reported in the ''Chicago Tribune,'' Aug. 21, 1885 and Nov. 9, 1885. The races are discussed in ''Sunday at the Ballpark: Billy Sunday's Professional Baseball Career 1883-1890'', by Wendy Knickerbocker, Scarecrow Press, 2000, p. 42-43, 45-47.</ref> A hard drinker off the field, in 1886 he was literally picked out of the gutter, drunk, by workers at the Chicago's [[Pacific Garden Mission]], was converted, and stopped drinking.

In the spring of 1891 Sunday resigned his Philadelphia Phillies contract of $3000 for 6-7 months of work for an $83/month job as "Secretary of the Religious Department" at the Chicago [[YMCA]]. Two years later he became an advance man for revivalist [[J. Wilbur Chapman]], and learned how to organize revival meetings. In January of 1896 he went out on his own and hosted his first revival meeting in Garner, [[Iowa]], and he was ordained as a [[Presbyterian]] minister in 1903.<ref name=cc>[http://www.christianchronicler.com/history1/fundamentalism_and_billy_sunday.html Fundamentalism and Billy Sunday], ''Billy Sunday Was His Real Name'', by William McLoughlin, University of Chicago Press, 1955, p. 8-11.</ref>

In the spring of 1891 Sunday resigned his Philadelphia Phillies contract of $3000 for 6-7 months of work for an $83/month job as "Secretary of the Religious Department" at the Chicago [[YMCA]]. Two years later he became an advance man for revivalist [[J. Wilbur Chapman]], and learned how to organize revival meetings. In January of 1896 he went out on his own and hosted his first revival meeting in Garner, [[Iowa]], and he was ordained as a [[Presbyterian]] minister in 1903.<ref name=cc>[http://www.christianchronicler.com/history1/fundamentalism_and_billy_sunday.html Fundamentalism and Billy Sunday], ''Billy Sunday Was His Real Name'', by William McLoughlin, University of Chicago Press, 1955, p. 8-11.</ref>