In the expanded eight-team Cen Cup playoffs, the quarterfinal round was a best-of-three, with the top seed hosting all of the games. The Mountain City club of Altoona had the NABU's best record (102-38), led by Charlie Ferguson; all he did was bat .416
and lead the league with 36 wins on the mound. But the wild-card Phillies were not impressed, as Bill Joyce drove in three runs in a 6-3 Game 1 win. Needing a win in Game 2, Ferguson had two of Altoona's 13 hits and tossed a six-hitter in a 4-2 victory. In Game 3, the Phils jumped to a 3-0 lead and Tom Lovett held Altoona to five hits in a 6-2 win...and, just like that, the loop's top team was out.
Philly (1896's Cup runner-up) wasn't the only big-city club to make it to the semifinals: the Brooklyn Eckfords thumped Newark in two straight, 8-3 and 11-2, as every man in the line-up drove in at least one run, including five by Henry Larkin. In the other two quarters, Rockford banged out 24 hits as they swept away Dayton, 12-2 and 7-2, while Wilmington dusted off Hartford, 5-3 and 3-2.
In the semifinals, the Rockford Forest Citys went into the City of Brotherly Love and emerged with a pair of victories in the best-of-five series. In Game 1, Gus Weyhing not only held the Phils to seven hits, but he had three himself, scoring as many runs as he had allowed in a 7-2 win. And in Game 2, hurler Dad Clarkson drove in three runs with his bat and allowed only three (all unearned) in a 5-3 victory. The series went back to Rockford, and Weyhing came up aces again, pitching 11 innings and reaching on an error (by back-up shortstop Dan Coogan) in the last of the 11th to send Forest City to the Cup Finals, 5-4.
Meanwhile, in Delaware, a mad crowd packed Brandywine Springs Park in Wilmington as the Quicksteps took two from the Eckfords of Brooklyn. The first game was easy: Wilmington ace Harley Payne shut out Brooklyn for eight innings in a 5-1 victory. But Game 2 was wild: the Qs were ahead, 7-6, after eight when Eckford exploded for four tallies in the top of the ninth, thanks to four hits, an error and a hit batsmen. But Wilmington stormed back in the bottom of the stanza, as they scored four times themselves, with the last three coming home with two outs: a wild pitch, a walk to Frank Grant, and an error by shortstop Arthur Irwin that allowed Grant to score the winning run in a 11-10 decision. A demoralized Eckford side went back to Brooklyn, and starter Kid Nichols gave up seven runs in the first three innings. Wilmington won, 9-6, sweeping the series and sending the Quicksteps to their first Cup Final.
