1899 New England League

Aggressive expansion back to eight teams: away from and north of the new Eastern League team in Worcester: Tim Murnane's New England League reinstalled teams in Portland, ME, the 1870's baseball hotbed of Fitchburg, the port town of Manchester, and a brazen franchise in Cambridge, a stone's throw from Boston. But the best laid plans went to waste when Fitchburg failed from the start, moving to Lawrence in northern Massachusetts before disbanding June 1st. Cambridge disbanded the same day.

Murnane resisted playing a split season and carried on with a wobbly six teams, redrawing the schedule. On August 5th, Brockton disbanded, Pawtucket disbanding immediately after. Only then did Murnane call one of the latest split season second half starts in history for his four remaining teams. It was a short second half, but it was not without controversy.

The scheduled end of the season was September 11th. But entering Labor Day, September 4th, when Newport led with a 12-8 record and Manchester was in second place at 13-9, the league announced it would fold that night. Mike Finn, manager of Newport and ex-major leaguer John Irwin, manager of Manchester, in a panic to win the pennant, tried to fit as many games as they could against their opponents. Newport hastily scheduled a triple-header and swept it against last-place Taunton: 4-0 in the morning, and 12-4, and 11-1 in the afternoon. Newport's record closed at 15-8.

But the news from Manchester hit like a bombshell: two games had been swept from the first-half champs Portland in the morning, and four games were scheduled for the afternoon: six games in one day. Manchester took the first five, each in nine innings, 14-7, 12-8, 12-2, 8-4, and 9-4, but apparently did not have time to finish the sixth game as darkness was approaching in the second inning. But, Portland refused to continue and Manchester claimed a sixth win: a 9-0 forfeit. Manchester was thought to have won the second half pennant with a 19-9 record.

Murnane threw out the final three Manchester games on the grounds that they were "too many in one day." Newport won the pennant by percentage points.