On the morning of September 17, 1862, Union Army General Joseph K. Mansfield led his troops in the Battle of Antietam. The horrific battle was ultimately a victory for the Union, but Mansfield was killed. Four years later, the General's grand-nephew, sixteen-year-old Ben Douglas Jr., started a ballclub in Mansfield's home of Middletown, Connecticut and named it after the Civil War hero. After playing other amateur teams in Connecticut, they joined the American Amateur Association in 1871 and turned pro with the rest of the AA in 1876.
But it wasn't until 1885 the Mansfields had a chance to win a Cup. Their opponents? The two-time defending champion Resolute club of Elizabeth, New Jersey.
After splitting the first two contests of the best-of-seven Cup Final in the Garden State, the clubs came up north to Connecticut to split two more games. In front of a packed house at Mansfield Grounds for Game 5, Resolute notched runs in each of the first three innings, with the home side getting two of their own, then tying the game in the sixth on light-hitting Nick Scharf's RBI triple. It stayed 3-3 after nine innings, then in the tenth, Curt Welch singled, stole second and went to third on a groundout. Up stepped Scharf again, who delivered a single to win the game, 4-3, and give Mansfield a 3-2 series lead.
But Resolute got that name for a reason: they scored three runs in the second inning, and that was all they would need as 33-game winner held Middletown to three hits in a 3-1 victory. Series tied!
So...it was one game for all the marbles, at Waverly Fairgrounds, Resolute's home ground. Middletown took a quick 1-0 lead in the first, and it stayed that way until the fourth, when they loaded the bases against Elizabeth hurler George Knight. Up stepped Frank Freeman, who hit Knight's first pitch over the wall in right-center field for a grand slam and a 5-0 lead. The rest was just a formality as Mansfield won, 8-1, to take the Cup back to the Nutmeg State.
