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| Image courtesy of Frank Macon |
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| Image courtesy of Frank Macon |
 The York Daily News featured drawings (color added) like the one above with advertising for the team and in news stories. |
The year 1915 looked like a good one for York baseball fans. Manager Jim
Pierce had a lot of prospects in camp by early May and games between his
regulars and the yannigans were spirited. On May 1st the squad was part of
a double header with York College playing Seward (Concordia) and the
Yannigans playing the Regulars from the minor league team.
York had finished in fourth place in 1914. They had a winning record and a number of returning starters which gave them much optimism coming into the season. The season started out well for York but by June things were going poorly for York and for the league. After just a few games, Kearney and Columbus dropped out of the league leaving the league with just six teams. Then at the end of June, Grand Island withdrew from the league as they protested a number of fines levied against the team, their manager and a number of their players. The league then disbanded on June 29th. Officially York was in third place as the league dropped Norfolk one day before the entire league collapsed. Actually York was in fifth place by record when Grand Island and Norfolk are included.
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The first home game was played in adverse weather conditions which limited the crowd to a measely few hundred. In the crowd was Dick Kinsella a scout for the New York Giants. After the game he negotiated for Pat Murphy, a center fielder for the Prohibs. He arranged for Pat to go to Omaha to work with Pa Rourke's club. If he worked out the Giants agreed to pay York $1,000.00 for the players release. Murphy's time with Omaha was short lived and he was back in center garden for the Prohibs within a week.
York started the year with a good winning streak and after six games they were in first place with a 5-1 record. In June things went sour and the Prohibs went through an 18 game losing streak, broken when they beat Fairbury 4-2 in mid June.
Roster:
roster goes here