The Postseason Play of 1902

Abstract

initial postseason interleague series dates back to 1884, when the National League champion Providence Grays met the American Association pennant winners, the New York Metropolitans. Providence swept the series, three games to none, with Charles Old Hoss Radbourn pitching and winning every game. This series established the paradigm for postseason interleague competition, and the format was continued in subsequent years. By 1887 the Spalding Official Base Ball Guide observed that a supplementary series of postseason interleague matches had become a necessary adjunct of each season's contests in order to end all doubt concerning the honor of being the champion team of the United States. Furthermore, the 1887 Guide stated for the first time that this title was now justly termed the championship.The League vs. Association annual postseason series proved to be, on the whole, both commercially and artistically successful. This happy arrangement came to an end with the demise of the Association in 1891. At the conclusion of the 1891 season Boston had two teams, one representing the NL and the other the AA. Due to the ill-feeling between the two organizations, a series for the world's was not played.In the wake of the collapse of the Association, the NL restructured itself into a twelve-team monolith-The Big League. In 1892 an attempt to create two opponents from within this single organization was made by playing a split season. winners of the first half opposed the second-half winners for the Championship. According to the Reach Guide of 1893, the Eastern League had devised this plan in 1891 and so deserved credit for its introduction. However, the split-season format was so unsatisfactory that it was immediately abandoned. At the conclusion of the 1893 season, William C. Temple, of the Pittsburgh club, concocted a scheme whereby the first-place team would meet the second-place team in a postseason championship series. Mr. Temple commissioned a magnificent solid-silver trophy bearing his name and the event was dubbed The Temple Cup Series. Temple Cup series kicked off in 1894. In 1897 the fifth and final game in this artificial series was played before a crowd of only 750 people, underscoring the failure of the concept. magnates returned the silver cup to Mr. Temple with thanks, and postseason play was discontinued.In 1900 the Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph sponsored yet another postseason series between the first- and second-place finishers-in this case, the champion Brooklyn Superbas and the second-place Pirates. It was the final attempt at such a charade.As the nineteenth century drew to a close, baseball writers across the land lobbied for restoration of a two-league structure that would support a valid postseason series. ideal of two discrete major leagues was realized in 1901 when Ban Johnson declared his newly formed American League to be the peer of the National. Naturally, the NL scoffed at Johnson's claim of parity. two organizations waged unrelenting war against each other and the AL paid no regard to the reserve clause that bound players to NL clubs. Rosters were raided with impunity and the players were able to demand huge salaries as clubs bid for their services. A viable World's Series (the possessive term would not long remain in fashion) could only be held after the two warring factions had hammered out a peace accord. This required the National League to swallow its pride and recognize the American League as its equal.The issue of the various clubs' rights to players who had jumped their contracts (and lesser sore points) was resolved over the winter of 1902-1903. After two years of costly war, harmony between the warring factions was achieved. However, in October 1902 there was little or no direct communication between the two organizations. rancor resulting from the player raids made by the American clubs on the National rosters permeated the atmosphere. …