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INLAND CHAMPIONSHIP ENDS IN THREE-WAY TIE
ALLEGHANY, PIONEER, & SUSQUEHANNA FINISH SEASON 40-30; EXTRA GAMES NEEDED

PITTSBURGH, SPRINGFIELD, MASS. & WILKES-BARRE, PENN. (Aug. 5, 1867) – Somehow, over the first ten seasons of play in the National Base Ball Organization none of the six regional championships ever needed a 71st game to decide their champion. In season number eleven that has changed, and it has changed spectacularly.

On the final day of the season, the four games that took place in the Inland Championship were as follows:

• 1:00 PM: Alleghany 12-5 at Sportsman’s
• 1:20 PM: Lake Erie 7-0 at Pioneer
• 1:20 PM: Scranton 14-9 at Reading
• 2:00 PM: Merrimack 3-8 at Susquehanna

The results left the final Inland Championship standings looking like this:





This means that not only does the NBBO have its first ever tie for a regional championship, but it is a three-way tie at that. Leaders Alleghany were 3-2 during their final series at Sportsman’s. Pioneer & Susquehanna, who entered Week Fourteen one game back, both went 4-1 in their final series, with Pioneer winning four times at home against fellow contenders Lake Erie and Susquehanna winning four times at home against Merrimack.

Pioneer are the ones left ruing their result on the final day, as they had made things look easy over their first four games against Lake Erie and had a one-game lead before going limp on the final day, being shutout at home with the pennant on the line.

With three teams tied for first place, the process for an end-of-season tiebreaker is not straightforward. Aware of the possibility of a three-way, or even four-way, tie atop Inland ahead of the final week, NBBO headquarters sent out telegrams to all teams stating that in the case of a multiple-team tie atop the standings the status of the tiebreaking games would be determined by the teams’ head-to-head records against one another.

With that in mind, here is how Alleghany, Pioneer, & Susquehanna fared against each other in 1867:

• Alleghany: 7-3 v Pioneer, 5-5 v Susquehanna, 12-8 overall
• Pioneer: 3-7 v Alleghany, 5-5 v Susquehanna, 8-12 overall
• Susquehanna: 5-5 v Alleghany, 5-5 v Pioneer, 10-10 overall

Since Alleghany had the best head-to-head record of the three they will have Monday off, while Susquehanna will host Pioneer on Monday afternoon since they were second of the three teams in terms of head-to-head record. The schedule for the next two days looks like this:

• Monday, 1:05 PM: Pioneer at Susquehanna
• Tuesday, 1:05 PM: PIO/SUS at Alleghany

After Tuesday’s tiebreaker formally decides the Inland champion, the Tucker-Wheaton Cup will begin on Wednesday.