When the Locals Beat the Pros

Baseball has been popular in Marlborough since the mid-1800's, and its most memorable game came on October 5, 1901, when amateurs from Marlborough and Franklin defeated the professional Boston Americans, later the Boston Red Sox, after Boston completed its first professional season. The Americans had finished second in the American League with a 79-57 record behind the Chicago White Sox. Played at Prospect Park on Prospect Street, the game drew up to 1,000 spectators, and Cy Young played right field for Boston. Boston took an early 3-0 lead, but the locals scored 3 runs in the eighth to tie the game and won in the ninth with an RBI walk-off single. Two years later, the same Boston Americans won the first World Series title. Marlborough's most accomplished professional player was catcher Charles “Duke” Farrell, who played in 1,565 Major League games with 1,572 hits and 916 RBI's. In 1897, he reportedly threw out 8 of 9 runners trying to steal in a single game, a Major League record said to still stand today. Farrell played 3 years for the Boston Americans and was Boston's catcher when it won the 1903 World Series, then retired after eighteen seasons, returned to Marlborough to manage a hotel, died in 1925, and was buried in Immaculate Conception Cemetery.

Marlborough, Massachusetts · United States