[FuzzyRussianHat]

Indianapolis was looking to be the first National League team to win the pennant twice, having also beaten Brooklyn back in the 1885 League Championship Series. Pittsburgh was making their first NLCS trip and was the favorite with home field advantage. However, the Pirates notably looked middling in the final month following their dominant first half. They had split their six regular season games against the Clowns.

The game one pitcher’s duel went to Indianapolis’s Hardie Henderson over Pittsburgh’s Mark Baldwin in a 3-1 Clowns road win. Over 8.2 innings, Henderson gave up only two hits and an unearned run, walking five with five strikeouts. Jack Rowe was 3-4 with a double, triple, run, and two RBI.



Indianapolis was up 3-0 early in game two, but Pittsburgh’s three-run bottom of the sixth inning evened it up. It stayed there until the top of the tenth inning with the Clowns scoring on a sacrifice fly. The first two Pirates went down in the bottom half, but the next two earned walks. King Kelly then came up with a two RBI walkoff double, giving Pittsburgh the 5-4 win to even the series.



The Clowns scored six runs in the second inning, a cushion that held in a 7-3 win in their first home game of the series.



Indianapolis took game four 6-3 for the 3-1 series lead. Jack Lynch on the mound allowed two runs over seven innings with six hits and four strikeouts.



In game five, Indianapolis clinched the NLCS at home on an 11-5 win over Pittsburgh. The Clowns came out firing with a six-run first inning with three more in the second. Hardie Henderson struck out 11 over 7.1 innings on the mound and was 3-3 at the plate with two RBI. Indianapolis hit three homers in the game. Catcher Jack Rowe was series MVP, going 8-20 with one homer and four RBI.