Willis S. Arnold was born March 2, 1851 in Middletown, Connecticut, the second son of James and Fidelia (Brown) Arnold. James Arnold was a rule maker; eventually both sons would take up the same trade by the 1870s. Likely learning the game while learning the trade, Billy Arnold would take up the game of baseball. He’s listed as the left fielder for a club formed in Middletown in 1870. After his baseball career ended, he went back to work taking up as a grocer in Middleton, where he apparently ran afoul of the law for trying to sell liquor without a license.

Willis Arnold’s major league career consisted of two games in right field with the Middletown Mansfields of the National Association in 1872. He got a lone hit in seven trips, scored twice and stole a base. In the field, he captured two fly balls and made nary an error. In Arnold’s first game, Middletown lost 10 – 0 to Troy; the second was a win, 8 – 2 over the Brooklyn Atlantics at home. With that, Arnold’s lot was over with the club. The Mansfields won but 5 of their 24 games that year and returned to the amateurs after the season was over.

In the late 1870s Arnold was a manager of baseball teams in Albany, New York. Soon after his legal issues with selling alcohol, Arnold returned to Albany and opened a saloon and grocery there. He got married, but the marriage did not include children.

Arnold died of apoplexy in the Albany County almshouse hospital on January 18, 1899 – not quite 48 years old. After his death, he was buried in Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands, New York, sharing a plot with his wife, Mary.

Notes:

1860, 1870, 1880 US Census
1892 NY State Census

“Connecticut News,” Hartford Courant, February 15, 1870: 4.
“Sporting Matters,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, April 17, 1880: 4.
“News of the State,” Meridan Daily Republican, June 8, 1882: 4.
“Billy Arnold is Dead,” Buffalo Express, January 19, 1899: 9.