Joe Blong and Cozy Dolan each won 30 games on the season, but now they would face each other in 1898's ultimate contest. The home team had won every game so far in the Cup Final, but it was the visitors from Cleveland who got on the board first with three runs in the second, with Blong himself driving in two. Fall River Hurler Dolan proved he could hit the ball, too, with a run-scoring single of his own in the bottom of the frame. FR kept threatening after that but were kept off the scoreboard -- they would leave 11 runners on base altogether -- until the eighth, when singles by Elmer Flick, Bill Niles and John Crowley cut the lead to 3-2.
In the top of the ninth, Blong drove in his second run of the game, scoring Mortimer Hogan to make it 4-2. But the Marksmen would not give up; after getting two quick outs, Blong hit Tom Lynch with a pitch, then allowed singles to Pete O'Brien and Dave Orr to load the bases. Up stepped Flick, with a chance to win the Cup with a long fly. The crowd roared as he slapped the spheroid to deep center field. 40-year-old Chick Fulmer, who CFC brought in as a defensive replacement, raced back and caught the ball -- giving Forest City its seventh Centennial Cup, and their first in thirteen years!
