to San Francisco afterwards and tried to collect the cost from Tilden, who responded by proposing to melt the sculpture down for its copper to cover the cost. Career Tilden was first recognized for his sculpture while in Paris. His first exhibited work, entitled The National Game, also known as The Baseball Player, or The Ball Player, was a sculpture of a baseball pitcher in his windup. The sculpture was admitted to the prestigious Salon event in 1889, where it won a medal. This was followed by The Tired Boxer (exhibited at the Salon Paris in 1890), The Young Acrobat (Salon 1891), The Bear Hunt (Salon 1892), and The Football Players (Salon 1893). Many detect a certain homoeroticism in his works because they feature young athletic men who are often unclothed. In the Football Players, many people have noted that the scene of two young football players, one is injured and resting on the shoulder of another, and the other is tenderly bandaging the wounds, shows the intimate male bonding in sports as of interdependence between the players. The gay and lesbian community has adopted the statue as representing the best ideal of the visible queer community on the Berkeley campus. He was a member of the National Sculpture Society. The Football Players marked the beginning of Tilden's association with his most important patron, James D. Phelan, who commissioned Tilden's next major work after returning to the Bay Area, the Admission Day fountain installed on Market Street in 1897, also known as The Native Son's Fountain. Tilden produced twelve models for Phelan; in a statement following the unveiling ceremony, Tilden said "God Almighty has given me a certain amount of grey-matter, and I was expected to return it with interest. To know that my work is appreciated is all the reward that I care for." Tilden's next major commission was for James Mervyn Donohue, in memory of his father, Peter Donohue. The Mechanics Monument commission followed Native Son's unveiling, and Lorado Taft said he could "feel only admiration for the ardent and intrepid sculptor who wrought this wonder in [six] brief months" despite "its lawless composition and its ragged contour". In 1901, Tilden was declared "violently insane" after an incident at his father-in-law's house where he without warning "began destroying the furniture in the room" in which his family was gathered. The incident had been exaggerated by a household servant.