Inducted into the Shrine of the Eternals at Hoboken was Mutuals star first basemen Joe Start and "Slammin' Sam" Woolverton, legendary shortstop of the Tri Mountain club. Both were among the original players in the National Association's first year in 1871.
Start's ballplaying began way back in 1859, as a sixteen-year-old with the amateur Enterprise club in Brooklyn; he would play twelve years in the old NABBP and sixteen more seasons with Mutual, for an incredible 28 years in uniform!
Woolverton, a near-unanimous selection, started playing with the National club of Albany in 1866 as a thirteen-year-old prodigy; after "retiring" for a season (in reality, he went back to school), Sam played three more years in Albany before joining the Tri Mountains, for whom he was the immovable object at shortstop for eighteen years.
[Editor's note: Woolverton was one of the "extra" players I pulled out of the NABBP who never really played in the NA; I should've made him at least a few years older, but it's too late now!]
