to the park that day. Waking the next morning, he realized he missed morning practice and raced to make it back to Providence for his start that afternoon. Though most players in the day were held to temperance clauses during the season, Grays manager Frank Bancroft was left with little choice but to pitch his drunkard ace. After five effective innings, Bancroft signaled for the team captain Joe Start to make a pitching change. Sweeney refused to budge and continued to pitch for another two innings. Before the start of the eighth inning, Bancroft insisted that Sweeney vacate the pitcher's box and move to right field. Possibly still drunk, as well as the prevailing sentiment of 1880s baseball being that finishing a game a pitcher started was a question of manhood, Sweeney flatly refused. When Bancroft threatened the pitcher with a $50 fine, Sweeney told him to take his fine and the rest of his salary, promptly quitting. Sweeney spent the rest of the game watching from the field in street clothes and left with two women, presumably prostitutes. The Grays, frustrated by not only Sweeney, but Radbourn's insubordination, expelled Sweeney from the National League. Radbourn, who had spent the last several weeks demanding he be paid for doing the work of two men, finally received his wish of being paid both his salary and Sweeney's, along with the promise of a full release from the Grays following the season, as long as he pitched out the season and tried to gain the Grays the pennant. He did just that, pitching almost every game afterward and leading the Grays to the National League championship. Radbourn finished the season with 59 wins, setting an MLB record that has never been broken. Meanwhile, Sweeney signed with the St. Louis Maroons of the Union Association and became the highest-paid player in the league. The Maroons roared through the "Onion League" and easily won the Union's only championship. For the season, Sweeney pitched 221 innings for the Grays, going 17-8 with a 1.55 ERA, and 271 innings for the Maroons, going 24-7 with a 1.83 ERA. Later baseball career It is possible that Sweeney's arm could not handle the strain of all those innings, because he never pitched as well again. The Maroons joined the National League for a brief time (1885–1886) and Sweeney continued to pitch for them. In 1885, battling arm injuries