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DISASTER FOR KNICKERBOCKER! HOYT DONE FOR YEAR!
ALL-STAR OUTFIELDER INJURED KNEE RUNNING AFTER BALL ON SUNDAY

NEW YORK CITY (July 8, 1866) – Defending N.B.B.O. champions Knickerbocker have been dealt a major blow to their title defense after two-time All-Star outfielder James Hoyt severely injured his right knee while running after a ball during the team’s game against Metropolitan on Sunday afternoon.

Hoyt, the 1863 N.Y.L. Batsman of the Year, crumpled to the ground as if he had been shot while trying to get to a Metropolitan ball hit to the outfield gap, and after the contest was over one of his teammates remarked that “it looked like someone had hit his knee with a sledgehammer”. Hoyt was left unable to put weight on the affected leg, and team trainer Ernie Baldwin along with local doctors suspect that Hoyt will not be running any time soon. Suspicion is that he has torn one of the ligaments in his right knee, and if that is indeed the case then Hoyt will have his leg in a cast for some time.

(RANDOM NOTE: in real life, the first surgeries to repair torn knee ligaments were done around the turn of the 20th Century, while the surgical discovery of the various knee ligaments themselves was made in Ancient Rome around the year 170. The knowledge was lost for well over a thousand years after the fall of Rome.)

What makes Hoyt’s injury so troublesome for the Knickerbocker lineup is not simply that he is an extremely skilled player, but also that the team’s primary backup in the outfield, Charles Harrison, is a two-star talent who had never seen any playing time in the N.B.B.O. before this year and has never started a single game. He is regarded as a very good fielder on either side of the outfield, which would mean that he has never seen much game time because he has a very light bat.

Making matters all the more difficult for Knickerbocker is that the injury has come in the midst of a historic winning streak by main rivals Gotham, who are within a few games of matching the 20-game streak that St. John’s reeled off earlier this season. The timing of the two events could well mean that Knickerbocker’s defense of the Tucker-Wheaton Cup is ready to be buried even though there is almost a month left to play in the season.

Knickerbocker is currently five games out of first place in the New York City Championship, but after the developments of this weekend the team has quite the uphill climb ahead of them if they are to win it again.