British Baseball News
Thursday 17 October 1889
The identities of all nine league champions are now known after the Yorkshire League tiebreaker game and the Irish League championship series took place this week. In Yorkshire, York travelled to Sheffield yesterday for what turned out to be a hugely dramatic game in which the lead changes hands no fewer than four times. Sheffield had welcomed back pitcher Ernest Davis from injury and although they fell behind in the first inning, they quickly turned it around and all looked well when they led 2-1 after two innings. Davis struggled in the third though, giving up five runs to put York 6-2 ahead and seemingly on their way to the title. Sheffield fought back, cutting the deficit to 6-4 after five and then in the sixth, scoring three more to move back ahead. Now it was York who needed to rally and so they did, responding with four in the seventh to lead 10-7. Sheffield tried to fight back again, but York added two more in the ninth and took the game 12-7, winning the championship for the first time.
Over in Ireland, Drumcondra were strong favourites to take the Irish League title for the second time in the competition's three years, but in the first game at home they crashed to a 6-2 defeat at the hands of Clonard. Drumcondra had scored first in the fifth inning, but Clonard immediately turned it around in the sixth to lead 2-1. Although the home team tied it up, Clonard scored twice in both the seventh and eighth innings to move 6-2 ahead and Drumcondra had no reply. That meant that they had to win the second game at Clonard and the game hinged on the second inning. Drumcondra had runners at every base with nobody out but could not score, then in Clonard's half of the inning they faced the same situation and got four runs in on an inside-the-park home run. Two more runs scored in the third to make it 6-0 and Drumcondra never got closer than three runs behind, eventually losing it 9-3 and dropping the series by two games to none.
We now move into the inter-league play-offs, with Clonard facing Glasgow in the Celtic Challenge which starts on Tuesday. Glasgow are favoured to win, possibly by three games to one, but Clonard have already proved many people wrong by taking the Irish League title. York on the other hand move on to the Alliance play-offs, which begin on Saturday.
FINAL REGULAR SEASON STANDINGS - 1889
(NB: x- indicates a team who won the championship play-off)