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From the start of the 1902 season through to the end of the 1906 season it seemed only two teams played baseball, the Boston Minutemen of the Federal Association and the New York Stars of the Continental Association. In those five years only the Toronto Wolves in 1904 would give the respite for baseball fans in what became known as The Battle of the East.

The Stars had come into the 1902 season with confidence on the wane again, from 1895 to 1899 they had finished miles away from first place in the Continental Association, in fact four years in a row they never got closer than 34 games back of the leaders. It changed in 1900 though when they reached the heady heights of 2nd in the Continental, just 8 games back. However they dropped back to double digits in games back and a slump to 5th in the standings in the 1901 season.

The Boston Minutemen seemed to have arrived in calmer waters after finishing only 7 games back in 1901 after finishing 39 games back in 1900, it had been a few years since they'd topped the Federal Association in 1894 so a Boston and New York championship series seemed a longshot before the start of the 1902 season.

The Stars had finished the season with an 82-55 record, 6 games in front of the Chicago Cougars. They'd come into the 1902 championship series on the back of Bill Temple's pitching, Temple had finished the season with 30 wins out of his 42 starts leading the wins table by 7, he'd also topped the strikeouts table a whopping 110 more than his nearest rival James Wigfall (Brooklyn Kings). He fell short of the triple crown by 0.05 to Allan Allen's (Toronto Wolves) 1.82era, to miss the Triple Crown by the slimmest of margins.

The Minutemen had a closer shave with the other team in Chicago that being the Chiefs, finishing the season with an 83-55 record just 4 1/2 games ahead of the Chiefs. The Minutemen just like New York had relied on pitching but were the Stars relied on Temple, Boston spread the load with lefty Bill McDaniel (27) and righty Woody Trease (25) who combined to win 52 games for the Minutemen.

The start of the 1902 Championship Series didn't give away what was to come, there was a rivalry like any other two teams going against each other. It was actually after the Stars had won the series 4-2 that the whole story had come out on the hatred the two teams would end up feeling against each other, not only for that years series but for the years to come.

Harry Lutey third baseman of the New York Stars.

"We came into the championship series pretty confident to be honest, however George Cary our catcher got injured but Oscar Eckle moved from the outfield to take his place and Sam Beight came of the bench to the outfield but most of the guys had been together for a few years so we were used to each others play. Only new guys were John Dennison at first and John Stewart at second, the Boston team were full of guys who'd only just been with them for a year or two think Nelson Morris had been with them the longest and he'd only been there a few years.

The series started pretty quiet to be honest, Jacob Waters Boston's outfielder had a few words to say him being an ex New York Gotham's player but he wasn't playing well and when we went 3-1 up in the series he'd gone quiet. The fireworks started in game 5 when with home field advantage we felt it was over, it was Boston's catcher Walter Tuttle who'd started it. He must have felt they had nothing to lose. Our second baseman John Stewart had been hitting well and nothing was getting past him in the field, well that game he seemed of his game so when he struck out the third time Oscar Eckle asked him what was wrong. Now John didn't speak much English but him and Oscar got on well and could understand each other with their broken English and Spanish, Oscar asked John what was wrong, John pointed to his cleats which were covered with tobacco spit seems Tuttle was spitting on John's cleats when he batted. When Tuttle came to the plate to hit in the next inning he looked at Oscar and said "your friend needs a shoeshine" that was it, Oscar never even stood up and punched Tuttle in the nether regions well all hell broke loose. Ten minutes later Oscar had been kicked out of the game and Sam Beight had broken his hand, end of the game we led the series by only one going into Boston.

Boston was hell, it took us ages to get to the ballpark from the rail station. The Boston fans were throwing all kinds of things at the bus we travelled on, three windows were smashed and a couple players got cut by the flying glass. It was just as bad in the ballpark, well it was unnerving us and we were down 2-0 going into the 5th. Charlie Kinney had popped up to Boston's John Cook at second base, now Charlie was a big Norwegian who had this thing of running to the plate to bat but also running back to the dugout. Well while he's running to the dugout a bottle came flying at him, thankfully it didn't hit him but without breaking stride he leaped on the dugout roof and jumped into the seats. Now Charlie later told me "I got a few punches in before the coppers pulled me of, just not sure it was the guy who threw the bottle".

We turned it round after that and won the game and the series, the crowd were just as bad but thanks to our flying Norwegian we felt unbeatable".