Bill Rollinson played a single game at catcher for the Washington Nationals of the Union Association. He was hitless in three at bats and made four errors and allowed a passed ball in his eight innings of work. B-R.com says he played 10 innings, but the game was won by the Boston Unions in a rout and Boston didn’t bat in the ninth. In fact, the Globe had little nice to say about the Nationals. “…(T)he visitors might stand a fair show against…perhaps some of our suburban semi-amateur teams.”

For what it’s worth, the Globe also didn’t mention Rollinson by name or provide a box score, but it did note that the Nationals tried a new collegiate battery.

“Boston Unions, 11; Nationals, 1,” Boston Globe, June 18, 1884: 5.

Turns out – Bill Rollinson was a nom de sportif. Bill Rollinson was actually William Henry Winslow. That summer, Winslow was catching for Salem in the Massachusetts State Association – and he was given a tryout with the Nationals. Winslow took his degree from Brown University and became a longtime educator in Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia.

“State Championship,” Lynn Daily Item, June 16, 1884: 4.
“Base Ball,” Lynn Daily Item, May 26, 1884: 4.

The second child of four to Moses and Eunice Wadsworth Winslow arrived in Larone, Maine on June 10, 1856. Moses owned a sawmill and a grist mill and worked as a tanner. He was later selected to be the postmaster later in life. In fact, Eunice took over the postmaster role upon Moses’s death.

Professor Winslow graduated from Brown in 1880 and began teaching, which allowed him to play some baseball during the summers. At some point, he moved to New York and earned his doctorate at NYU. He became the superintendent of schools in Lonsdale, Rhode Island – and at the same time, earned a law degree from Hamilton College. Winslow spent more than 50 years in education, of which 18 years were in a superintendent role.

Winslow married the first time in 1880 to Esther Fiske, whose great-grandfather was in the “Army of Observation” on Prospect Hill outside of Boston when the Revolutionary War broke out. They had four children before Esther died in January 1899. The 43-year-old school superintendent next married Susan Lee Brooks in October 1899 and they had a daughter. He married Bessie (Miller) Lee in 1909 and they had five children. When not on the job, Winslow was both a mason and a member of the Quaker church.

Winslow died on September 28, 1938 from chronic mitral insufficiency and was buried in Mansassas Cemetery in Manassas, Virginia near his second wife.

Additional Sources:

“Prof. William H. Winslow,” Manassas Journal, October 6, 1938: 6.

“Moses Wadsworth and Hannah Stevens: Their Ancestral Lines and Their Descendants,” Edwards Brothers, Inc., Ann Arbor Michigan, 1941: 160.

Rhode Island Marriage Registrations
Maine Marriage Registrations
Sons of the American Revolution Registrations
Virginia Death Certificates

Image Source: FindaGrave.com