Back In 1905, There Was Baseball Game At Salt ...

Back in 1905, there was baseball game at Salt Lake City, Utah. The Rhyolites were playing the Beattys and the Beattys were up to bat. The pitcher threw the ball, the batter swung - and the ball rocketed toward 1st base.

The 1st baseman was a man named William Giffiths, and as he saw the ball coming his way, he was amazed to see it ricochet off a small stone and landing in his glove. He beat the runner to first easily.

The little stone had given Griffiths a luck break, but he decided it had no business on the playing field, so he walked over and picked it up. He started to raise his hand to throw it off the field when something caught his eye. He took a careful look at the stone and recognized free gold in it. Then he quietly slipped it into his pocket and went on with the game.

That evening, he returned to the ball park with a lantern and spent an hour scratching around in the soil until had accumulated a bucketful of rocks. By morning he knew that those rocks assayed at more than $900 a ton.

He called in two friends and with them quietly bought the ball park.

The mine was called First Base, and the first shaft entered paying ore at a depth of 33 feet. And Infielder Griffiths soon found himself a very wealthy man. (The Saturday Evening Post July/Aug 2000 H. Allen Smith and Ira L. Smith)