Of the American runners who have attained distinction in the long or middle distances, and proved an exception to our ruling mediocrity, Lawrence E. Meyers was first, both in point of time and in merit. Meyers was essentially a runner of the middle distances, and certainly one of the fastest all-round runners that the world has ever seen. He was an athlete of indomitable gameness, and there was none of the shorter distances at which he was not always willing and ready to compete. He made records in the short " trick " distances, and he several times won amateur championships in the hundred and two twenty ; but it was at the longer distances up to one thousand yards that he was most extraor dinary, and it was in these that, starting from scratch, he ran through fields of the best men that could be put up against him on dozens of tracks here and abroad. In personal appearance Meyers was thin almost to emaciation ; indeed, when he joined the Manhattan Athletic Club, under whose colors he did the greater part of his running, he was supposed to be an invalid. When in running condition he weighed only one hundred twelve pounds. He was all legs, slen der as these underpinnings were, and had prac tically no body at all above the waist. When he was on the track, however, this lack of roundness and symmetry was forgotten in the startling ease and smoothness of his long, light greyhound stride. When he ran in England in 1885 the Earl of Crawford is said to have exclaimed, at the Wigan Cricket Club games, " There is the only real runner I have ever seen ! " Meyers first appeared in 1878 at the games of the New York Athletic Club on election day. He received eighteen yards' handicap in the quar ter mile and won in 55 seconds. The next spring at the games of the Staten Island Athletic Club he won the same distance from scratch in 54 seconds. By the year 188o Meyers had rounded into something like what was to be his real form, and he won four American and four Canadian championships. The events in which the Ameri can championships were won were the one-hun dred and two-hundred-twenty yard dashes, the quarter and the half mile runs. The times for these four events were respectively : ion- seconds, 23* seconds, 52 seconds, and 2 minutes 4* seconds — none remarkable in itself, but all respectable and when it is considered that these times were made in open competition in one afternoon, the magnitude of the feat is apparent. During the early eighties Meyers met and vanquished almost every middle-distance runner of his day. In addition to his championship winnings in the sprints, which we have touched upon already, Meyers won the American amateur championship in the quarter-mile run in 1879, 188o, 1881, 1882, 1883, and 1884 ; the half-mile championship he won in 1879, 188o, and 1884. His quarter mile in 49* seconds, in 1881, was the best of these per formances, but he made records of 35 flat for three hundred thirty yards ; I minute 31 seconds for seven hundred yards; i minute 44* seconds for eight hundred yards; and 2 minutes 13 seconds for one thousand yards. After beating every thing in sight in this country, Meyers, went to England in 1885 and duplicated there his suc cesses here. The story of his races during that tour is merely a description of the various ways in which an invincible scratch man mows down the fields that are strung out against him. Here we find him giving the English champion, Cowie, eight yards' start in the quarter and beating him in 48-t- seconds ; there he runs a half-mile and a quarter-mile race over a grass course in the same afternoon, capturing the latter in 495 seconds. Local stars wager that the stranger cannot give them such-and-such a handi cap, as for example, this Widner runner who brags that Meyers can't beat him with thirty-five yards' start in the half mile. Meyers shrugs his shoulders, first ploughs through two rugged fields from scratch, and wins a half and a quarter, then tells the Widner challenger to take his distance. There are twenty other entries. Meyers passes them all, one by one, including the thirty-five yard man, has a clear field at the seven-hundred forty-yard mark, and wins in a romp, eight yards to the good, in i minute 572- seconds, over a rough grass course. At Smithport we find the Mayor pre senting him the prize with a congratulatory speech ; at Manchester he wins a quarter in 49 seconds with a broken shoe; at the Blackley Cricket Club's games, in the same city, he wins a half, on a grass track, in i minute 561 seconds, jumps into a cab, and is driven six miles to another track, where he runs a quarter in 491 seconds. This quarter was one of the races in which Meyers was beaten, third being the best he could get, and it illustrates the gaminess of the man that he would never refuse a challenge so long as he could stand up and have at least a chance of winning. He was not one of those athletes who treat their legs and lungs as grand-opera singers do their voices. Meyers's last appearance in England was on August 19, 1885, at Rockdale. Here he won the half mile in r minute 57 seconds, and ran a dead heat of 46* seconds in the quarter. Mason, the runner with whom the dead heat was run, started from the twenty-four-yard mark. He was too much
fatigued to run another heat, although Meyers was ready to accommodate him, and the race went to the American by default. Meyers's Eng lish tour marks the top and the practical finish of his running career. On his return to this country a delegation went down the harbor to meet and greet him, and a lavish collation was served at the Astor House in his honor. He presently an nounced his retirement from athletics, and on the evening of October 17, 1885, a big testimonial benefit and athletic meet was given for him at the Madison Square Garden. Meyers was heaped with glory and flowers, and some $4000 was pre sented to him as the profits of the entertainment. The famous runner then gradually dropped out of athletics, finally became a race-track book maker, was as reckless of even his mere health as, in his running days, he had been of his own com fort and prestige, and it was not long before he went completely to pieces.
This was the heyday time of our club athletics. With a man like Meyers running it was no wonder that the interest in the new sport grew amazingly and that English and Irish and Canadian athletes were attracted to try their fortunes here. Among these transplanted runners was the Englishman, E. C. Carter, picturesquely known during the later eighties to the club athletic public as " Eddie " Carter, the " Little Boy in Pink." This sobriquet was tacked upon him in England be cause of the somewhat flowery costume in which it pleased him to appear on the track. He had acquired a great reputation over there and had finished second to W. G. George, when he sailed for America in 1885. It was the psycho logical moment for a first-class distance runner to appear in this country, and Carter was taken up by the club athletes and made much of. He joined the New York Athletic Club, became cap tain of the Suburban Harriers, and interested him self much in cross-country running; and at the amateur championships he soon showed what he was made of. In 1886 and 1887 he won the championships in both the mile and the five-mile runs, smashing conclusively the record in the longer event ; he won the senior individual cross country championship in 1892, and the ten-mile championship in 1891, 1893, and 1894. It was at these long events that the " Little Boy in Pink " was best. Many of the records which he made during the latter eighties still hold for various distances, from five miles, which he did in 25 minutes 23i seconds, to nine and one-half miles, which he ran in 5o minutes 25* seconds. In speaking of cross-country running we shall have more to say of Carter.
" Tommy " Conneff, the greatest of our adopted runners, came from Ireland soon after Carter. He already had a reputation as a fast man at the long distances in his native land, and he soon established his position as the fastest man at all but the longest distances on this side of the water. Conneff was an excellent example of the stocky, solidly built long-distance runner. Men of his type rarely seem to excel at the middle distances, where a certain amount of speed and great length of stride are necessary ; but in the longer dis tances, where endurance is the most potent factor, they often perform better than tall, slender men of great length of limb. Thus, while slender, long legged Meyers might run at one hundred twelve pounds, Conneff was a short, chunky chap, scarcely more than five feet in height, and built like a gymnasium man. Conneff won the national cham pionship in the five-mile run in 1888, 1889, 189o, and 1891, and in 1890 he won also the champion ship in the mile and ten-mile runs.
After nearly ten years of track racing, Conneff still remained, in 1895, the best miler on this side of the water, and it was in the trial race to choose the men who were to compete against the Oxford Cambridge team in the autumn of that year that Conneff made his record. George Orton, who was also in this trial race, finished about one hun dred yards behind the champion, and " Eddie " Carter joined Conneff in the last lap and set the pace in the final three hundred yards. The half was run in 2 minutes 65 seconds, the three quarters in 3 minutes 1(4 seconds, and the mile in 4 minutes 152- seconds. This supplanted the pre vious world's record of F. S. Bacon of the Read ing and Ashton Harriers, made at the Stamford Bridge Grounds, in England, in July of the same year. Conneff had never been in as good form as he was that autumn, and it was the opinion of " Father Bill " Curtis, and other capable judges, that he could at any time have beaten his own record. The chance of a lifetime came at the international games, but Conneff contented him self with running the mile in slightly over 4 min utes 18 seconds, saving himself for the three-mile run which was to come later on. It was anything but good judgment, his friends thought, for the winning of the three-mile race could add practically nothing at all to his fame and he was fit at the time, in the opinion of such experts as Mr. Curtis, certainly to lower his own amateur record, and possibly to break George's world's record. The chance was lost, and Conneff never again attained such record-breaking form.