The practice was common enough that it had become an institutional norm, a fiction that everyone maintained because enforcing it rigorously would have depleted the talent pool for American athletics significantly.

Jim Thorpe played summer baseball in 1909 and 1910 for teams in the Eastern Carolina League.

He played for Rocky Mount and then for Fayetteville, North Carolina.

He was paid for this — accounts vary on the specific amounts, with figures ranging from around $2 per game to $60 per month depending on the source and the period — and he played under his own name.

That last detail was the difference between Thorpe and his peers who were doing the same thing.