1903 World Series Game Three Program....

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The finest example we've ever encountered from the first Fall Classic!

1903 World Series Game Three Program. The beginning of the relationship had been a contentious one. After a quarter century of unchallenged professional baseball supremacy, the National League quite reasonably considered mere existence of a viable competitor with wary disdain. Tensions grew as American League president Ban Johnson raided the talent pool of the entrenched Senior Circuit, snatching stars from Cy Young to Jimmy Collins and increasing the bargaining power of all National League players, draining black ink from team owners' accounting logs. All agreed that the brash newcomer was a thorn in the side of the National League.

The first signs of a detente came at the end of the 1902 season, as Pittsburgh Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss agreed to a four-game exhibition series against a cast of American Leaguers, emerging with a two games to one advantage, the other contest ending in a tie. Months later, the leagues signaled a truce with the formation of the National Commission to preside over organized baseball, empowered to hire and maintain umpiring crews, settle labor disputes and ultimately pave the way for the absolute rule of Kenesaw Mountain Landis that would follow the 1919 Black Sox scandal.

With the warming of baseball's cold war, the stage was set for the inaugural edition of a tradition that would come to be known as the World Series. Presented is one of just a handful of relics to emerge from that first battle between the teams flying the flags of National and American League superiority, thus one of the most significant publications from the full breadth of the baseball collecting hobby. It derives from the second contest of the 1903 World Series, a clash of Dead Ball Era titans that launched the most celebrated tradition of our national pastime.

The understated design of the program, essentially a standard four-page format with center scorecard and the usual array of local advertisements, speaks to the humble beginnings of the Fall Classic. Only in the bold cover text, "1903 Souvenir Card of the World's Championship Games, Boston vs. Pittsburg," and the twin portraits of dueling Hall of Fame player/managers Jimmy Collins and Fred Clarke, is the elite significance addressed.

This is the finest example of this elite rarity we've ever encountered, and it's difficult to imagine any exist that could challenge that assessment. A three-quarter inch (0.75") separation at lower spine is the most significant condition fault, followed by corner rounding and general age-toning. The program is scored at center for Game Three, a 4-2 victory for the visiting Pirates at Boston's Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds. We can spot all the key moments of the contest, from Honus Wagner's ground-rule double that resulted in the last Pirates run to Cy Young's name written in as starting Red Sox pitcher Tom Hughes was knocked from the game with no outs in the top of the third. The umpires' names are written at interior margin, and the attendance of "18,801" is likewise written on front cover.