[3] Immediately after his graduation from Dartmouth, Sanborn was assured of a teaching position at a school near Boston as soon as the fall term began.

He then accepted a temporary job in the Springfield Union of Massachusetts, issuing baseball articles and serving as chief editor on all matters pertaining to sports in the newspaper.

[2] By then, Yale and Harvard universities had selected the city of Springfield as neutral ground for playing their baseball and football matches.

During that time he became a close friend of Tom Burns, a versatile infielder and subsequently manager of the Chicago Cubs National League baseball club.

[3] Besides his newspaper work, Sanborn served as a freelance writer for several magazines and also contributed as Chicago correspondent for The Sporting News.