1884 World Series

1884 World Series

In baseball the 1884 World's Series was an early forerunner of the modern post-season championship series.

While the "Fall Classic" as we know it didn't begin until 1903, Major League Baseball had several versions of a post-season championship series before that.

The first such championship series was in 1884, between the Providence Grays of the National League and the New York Metropolitans of the American Association at the Polo Grounds in New York City.

In 1884, Metropolitans manager Jim Mutrie issued a challenge to his NL counterpart, Frank Bancroft of the Grays. Mutrie's challenge was for a best-of-three series. Each team would put up a thousand dollars with the winner taking the booty.

The "World's Series" would feature a pitching match-up of future Hall of Famers and 300-game winners Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn and Tim Keefe. That was the year Radbourn won his season-record 59 games (some sources say 60) for the Grays. Keefe was a "mere" 37-17. Playing under American Association rules, Radbourn and the Grays defeated the New York team in the first two games, 6-0 and 3-1.

Only the first game went the full nine innings; the others were called after seven and six, because of darkness and extreme cold, respectively. The third game arguably should never have been played as the format was best-of-three, and Providence clinched in two. It was played with the hope of generating further revenue.

The crowd for the third game comprised only 300 people. Radbourn, pitching his third complete game in three days, led the Grays to a 12-2 rout. For the series, Radbourn allowed 11 hits and no earned runs in 22 innings. Suggesting that the game was not being taken totally seriously, Keefe, the losing pitcher in the first two games, umpired the third one.

Local newspaper The New York Clipper called the series "The Championship of the United States." Several newspapers such as The Sporting Life penned the Grays as "World Champions", and the new title stuck.

The total attendance for the three games was 3,800. Despite the low attendance, the two leagues continued the series, and attendance and prize money increased each of the next two years.