1884 World Series

In baseball, the 1884 World Series was a post-season championship series 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.

While the 1884 post-season championship series was the first such to be referred to as the "World's Series," Major League Baseball considers the 1903 World Series the first.

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.

This pre-modern-era World 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 due to bitter cold. The Gray did not want to play due to the weather but were given the option of choosing the umpire if they would play. The Grays accepted and strategically chose Keefe, the Mets best pitcher. 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.

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