Porter's Pennant Push Prepares Prime Plans

Found this article on the PO from June 26, 1908. The next day's paper had parts of the followup article cut off but it was clear that the team lost, badly.

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COURT HOUSE BASEBALL TEAM TO SEEK HONORS ON THE DIAMOND

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Walter Porter, the genial custodian of Boone county's dog tax and hog tax, has exerted his ingenuity to the sticking point by organizing a baseball club that has been basely termed by one of the prominent news sheets of Lebanon, as the Court House Rats.
Porter is to be named the man behind the bat for the aggregation, while Huber, the yellow-haired lad who sets things down in black and white for keeps in the recorder's office, is to perambulate with more or less energy in the outfield back of first base. Chester Darnell, the Arlie Latham of the court house club was signed by Porter, but the appearance of lassitude in the work of J. Chester caused him to be released to Mechanichsburg, last Tuesday. County Superintendent Guillion has been signed to play second, and Walter Hodge, title expert sometimes, has signified his willingness to attempt the stopping of all wild throws toward first base. Otha Hedrick, bell-weather of the auditor's office, thinks he has the ability to corral the swift ones between second base and third, and has so impressed Carr Porter. John Hornady, when first approached in regard to signing with the team, seemed very much impressed with the proposition, but on second thought remembered that he had recently installed a new garden at his residence lately acquired, and feared that baseball and Celtic tubers would not affiliate.
The question of a box man worried the astute manager for some little time, but upon the representations of George Darnell, who used to be taken out of the box with startling regularity by the Danville Browns, Porter, with a sigh of resignation permitted him to affix his name to a contract. Frank Hutchinson, he of the blatant voice, was inveighed into promising his efforts to the club, and great things are expected of him in center field.
As a whole, the club promises to be the most heartrending association of athletes that has appeared in the spot light for many moons. While it is not the intention of Fatty Porter to weary the teams by long road trips through the effete East, he will, nonetheless, book only those teams that seem worthy of the court house club's steel. The South Side Business Men's Club, and Adler's and Eichmans' are to be the first opponents to this scintillating team, and further the affiant saith not.
With the proper backing, Porter believes that his aggregation will make as many runs in the whole game as do their opponents in one inning, and to those who follows the dope, the hope seems to be well founded, indeed, indeed.

NOTES

Hodge is expected to be a shining light at first, his great point being his ability to coach himself, in critical pinches.

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A dispatch from Mechanicsburg to the effect that Darnell will be returned, was received late today. An effort will be made to sell him to Ratsburg, in the Eastern League.

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It seems probable that Frank Hutchinson will replace porter in the catcher's box, as Porter is not inclined to abstain from his habit of argument and eating, and it is feared by his team-mates that his obesity will not be sufficiently diminished in time for the opening game.