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THE 1859 TUCKER-WHEATON CUP
SHAMROCK BATTLES ORANGE AFTER UPSETS IN THE L.C.S.

NEW YORK CITY & BOSTON (August 1857) – Last year the team with the best record in each league ended up taking each other on for the right to lift the Tucker-Wheaton Cup. That was not the case this year, as the #2 seed in each league reached the final battle of the base ball season.

Orange B.B.C. was in place to play for the Tucker-Wheaton Cup after an easy N.Y.L. Semi-final that was followed by a grueling Championship Series against #1 Kings County. Against Albany-based Minuteman, Orange lost the opener before winning the next three games and outscoring the Upstate champions 31-10 over the trio. The series against Kings County was a far tougher task – Orange winning Game One with the teams alternating victories until a seven-run rally by Orange in the late innings of Game Five sent them to the season's final series.

Shamrock B.C.'s road to the finals was the toughest any team has taken yet: two knock-down, drag-out, five-game series against the best the Northeastern League had to offer. The Semi-final against Inland champs Alleghany featured a pair of one-run games, the second of which saw Boston win the series on a single in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game Five. The League Championship Series featured FOUR games decided by a single run, and in Game Five Shamrock took down the almighty St. John’s with a three-run rally in the top of the ninth.

Orange & Shamrock might not have been the top seeds in their respective leagues, but they were most-deserving cup finalists who won over sixty percent of their games and feature plenty of star power. The main question going into the series was: would Shamrock’s two exhausting playoff series leave them with enough energy to make it through this one?

The answer was in the results:

After Shamrock had to go to extra innings to win Game One, it was finally too much for the N.E.L. champs and they slumped to three straight defeats – Orange B.B.C. becoming the first New York team to lift the Tucker-Wheaton Cup.

GAME ONE at the Upper Manhattan Base Ball Grounds needed eleven innings to decide the winner. The teams traded runs in the first inning and a second Shamrock tally was the only other run until the seventh, where Shamrock’s run was met with three by Orange. However, that rally was equaled with three runs by Shamrock in the top of the eighth to make the score 6-4. Orange scored twice in the ninth on a pair of singles to force the game into extra innings. In the top of the eleventh, Shamrock took the opener on a successful, and extremely gutsy, Squeeze Play by Walter Williams.

P.o.t.G.: Outfielder Koos Pieters (ORA) – 3/6, 1 R, 4 RBI

GAME TWO was when it all started to fall apart for Shamrock. Hosts Orange scored multiple runs in the first, fourth, sixth, seventh, and eighth innings en-route to a 17-4 demolition of the visitors from Boston. As a team Orange had twenty hits, four of their batsmen had three each, and they were led by Doc Matheson’s three runs and pair of RBI.

P.o.t.G: Center Fielder Doc Matheson (ORA) – 3/5, 2B, 3 R, 2 RBI

GAME THREE in Boston’s South End Grounds featured more Orange dominance. They scored twice in the first & three times in the second, and that was easily enough as Shamrock only scored once in the 8-1 Orange victory. Edward Huntley and Koos Pieters had three hits each, and Rainer van der Hout went the distance for the win.

P.o.t.G: Shortstop Edward Huntley (ORA) – 3/4, 2 R, 1 RBI, SB

GAME FOUR saw an early glimmer of hope for Shamrock. The hosts scored five runs over the first four innings to take a commanding 5-1 lead into the late stages of the contest. That lead evaporated thanks to five runs by Orange in the top of the seventh, with the key moment being Doc Matheson’s one-out triple that emptied the loaded bases. Shamrock tied the game in the bottom of the ninth with a Thomas Maloney single, but all that did was delay their demise slightly as William Lantz hit a run-scoring single in the top of the tenth to give Orange the 7-6 victory and the Tucker-Wheaton Cup.

P.o.t.G: Outfielder William Lantz (ORA) – 4/6, 2B, R, RBI, hit series-winning single in top of the 10th

The vote for Most Valuable Player came back nearly instantly since there was only name the most of the Writers’ Pool even considered: Edward Huntley, Orange’s superstar shortstop. Huntley was 11/20 in the series with a pair of two baggers, EIGHT runs scored in four games, three runs batted in, two walks, and a stolen base. Taking all three playoff series into account, Huntley had what was easily the best postseason run of any player in the N.B.B.O.’s three-year history:

• TOTAL (13 G) .492 AVG, 1.173 OPS, 18 R, 31 H, 8 2B, 1 3B, 0 HR, 18 RBI, 3 BB, 7 SB, 1.4 WPA, 1.1 WAR
• PER 162 G: .492/.522/.651, 224 R, 386 H, 99 2B, 12 3B, 0 HR, 224 RBI, 37 BB, 87 SB, 17.4 WPA, 13.7 WAR

Huntley’s performance in bringing the cup to New York City has almost certainly made him base ball’s first instantly recognizable star, and what should put a fright into the competition is that he is only 23 years old.

This was the first time the Tucker-Wheaton Cup was going to reside outside of Providence, but one gets the sneaking suspicion that St. John’s will try to take it back before long…