The second season of my nineteenth-century Strat-O-Matic baseball league came to a thrilling end last night with the championship game between the Canaries and the Haymakers. Pud Galvin and Cy Young started for their respective teams. The host Haymakers wasted little time in getting on the board when Jesse Burkett hit a two-run shot off of Galvin in the bottom of the first. Galvin surrendered another run in the third on a sacrifice fly. All throughout, the Canaries managed to get men on base, but Young induced enough weak contact to keep the ball in the infield. In the fourth, with two on and two out, Wee Willie Keeler smacked a two-run single to extend the Haymakers' lead to 5-0. Al Spalding took over for the Canaries in the fifth, and he ended up pitching four innings of scoreless relief. Young, meanwhile, was cruising until the seventh, when Monte Ward -- the light-hitting middle infielder and Canaries' captain -- crushed a two-run homer to cut into the Haymakers' lead. The score remained 5-2 into the top of the ninth, when Rube Waddell relieved Young. The hard-throwing lefty tossed a scoreless inning to seal the deal, giving the Haymakers their first championship! The Playoff MVP award went to Jesse Burkett, who went 2-4 with the big first-inning homer; the iron-gloved corner outfielder also made a spectacular catch in the ninth to help preserve the win.
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