[thehef]

This is one of those "we may never know" scenarios...

LGO states that:

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Lewiston was scheduled to host two different opponents in the morning game (Augusta and Bangor), which of course is not possible.

That may be true based upon his source schedule (TSN?). However, the source schedule I used - the one pub'd in the 5/6/1901 Bangor Daily News - indicated the following Independence Day schedule:

Augusta @ Lewiston, am
Augusta @ Portland, pm
Bangor @ Portland, am
Bangor @ Lewiston, pm

No am/pm conflicts for any teams.

That said and as we all probably know, there are instances of conflicting minor league schedules being published. A handy example of this is the 1903 PCL schedule: the one pub'd in TSN on 3/7/1903 turned out to be significantly less accurate than the one pub'd in the 2/15/1903 LA Times. We'd think the later the publishing of the schedule, the more accurate it'd be. Alas, no. At least not in this example... It's this inconsistency that leads me to conclude that we may never know, as both errors and inconsistencies were all too common...

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

The best way to resolve the matter is to check newspaper or TSN accounts for the games actually played that day.

While usually solid advice ^^^, in this case we can't do that because two of the teams involved in the mystery - Augusta & Bangor - relocated a week prior to the July 4th games (to Lynn & Brockton; and disbanned right after those games), necessitating schedule changes.

What we DO know - from newspaper accounts - is that all eight New England League teams played home-and-home am/pm doubleheaders on 7/4/1901. But there were no split matchups (teams playing different teams on that same day). Here's that day's actual matchups:

Haverhill @ Nashua, am*
Nashua @ Haverhill, pm*
Manchester @ Lowell, am*
Lowell @ Manchester, pm*
*These games were all as originally scheduled, per the 5/6/1901 schedule printed in the Bangor Daily News.

Lewiston @ Portland, am
Portland @ Lewiston, pm
Brockton @ Lynn, am
Lynn @ Brockton, pm

Augusta had become the Lynn team, and Bangor had become Brockton. If the original split doubleheaders were legit, the likely reason for abandoning them simply had to do with geography. Prior to the relocations, the four teams involved in the split doubleheaders were the four northern-most teams - almost like a Northern Division, as the 8 teams at the time were clustered in two groups of four (north & south). However, after the two relocations, Brockton was the southern-most team, and Lynn was the 2nd-most-southern team. The map then essentially became a cluster of six teams in and around the Boston area, and two teams - Portland and Lewiston - on a northern "island." So, geographically, it made perfect sense for the 7/4/1901 schedule to a) have the two southern-most teams (Lynn and Brockton) square off, b) have the the two northern-most teams (Portland and Lewiston) match up, and c) leave the other four centrally-located teams to play as originally scheduled.

At any rate, the 7/4/1901 matchups that I went with in the schedule that I posted are as follows:

Augusta/Lynn @ Lewiston, am
Augusta/Lynn @ Portland, pm
Bangor/Brockton @ Portland, am
Bangor/Brockton @ Lewiston, pm
... along with the four asterisked matchups noted above that were played as originally scheduled.

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

Especially with these old schedules, I'm kinda' surprised when there aren't any errors in the published versions.

Um... yeah. Totally!