Cincinnati Red Stockings
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The Cincinnati Red Stockings of
Thanks partly to their on-field success and the continental scope of their tours, the Red Stockings established styles in team uniforms and team nicknames that have some currency even in the 21st century. They also established the color red as the color of Cincinnati (continuing with the modern Cincinnati Reds), and they were the origin of the "Red Sox" in Boston Red Sox.
Baseball club
The Cincinnati Base Ball Club, or simply Cincinnati Club, was established July 23, 1866, at a downtown law office, drawing up a constitution and by-laws and electing officers including Alfred T. Goshorn as president. A few years later Goshorn earned international fame as Director-General of the (U.S.) Centennial Exposition held 1876 in Philadelphia. Founding member George B. Ellard also led the Union Cricket Club, and the relationship between them proved decisive for the baseball club's success.[2]
The ball club's first home field was at a location stated as "the foot of Ninth Street, in the Mill Creek bottoms."[Cincinnati Enquirer, October 4, 1939, p.32]
After playing four matches that first summer, Cincinnati joined the NABBP for 1867 and concluded an agreement to play at the Union Cricket Club grounds (just west of Lincoln Park, a site now occupied by Cincinnati Union Terminal). George Ellard's son says that "a great number of the cricket club members" joined and so "the team was greatly strengthened and interest in baseball gained a new impetus." Plans for a new clubhouse and "more substantical" enclosing fence were approved in April and the commercial basis was approved in June: members of both clubs admitted free to all matches; otherwise "ten cents for home matches and twenty-five cents for foreign matches. Ladies free." (Ellard 23–27).
The team was soon nicknamed "Red Stockings" in reference to the main feature of the uniforms designed by Ellard; long stockings were then a novelty in team uniforms.[3]
About half of the 1868 Red Stockings were eastern imports, presumably compensated somehow. The two leading batsmen,
First professional team
When the
The professional Cincinnati Red Stockings played their first game May 4, 1869, with a 45–9 win over the Great Westerns of Cincinnati. The team won 57 games and lost zero, counting only matches with Association clubs.[5] They played over 60 games counting outside teams.[citation needed] Their commercial tour of continental scope, visiting both Boston and San Francisco, was unprecedented and may be essentially unrepeated. The first season ended November 6 at home with the Cincinnatis beating the Mutuals of New York 17–8.[6]
With the same regular nine, the
Perfect season
In 1869, the Red Stockings posted a perfect 57–0 record,[7] the only perfect season in professional baseball history. This was the first team to play on the East and West coasts in the same season. More than 2,000 people greeted the team when it arrived in San Francisco at 10:00 p.m. "They really helped nationalize the game and put Cincinnati on the map as a baseball town," said Greg Rhodes, a Reds historian who wrote The First Boys of Summer (Road West Publishing Company, 1994), along with Cincinnati Enquirer reporter John Erardi, about the 1869–1870 Red Stockings.[citation needed]
1870–1871
On June 14, 1870, after 81 consecutive wins since assembling as the first openly professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings lost 8–7 to the Brooklyn Atlantics before a crowd of 20,000 at the Capitoline Grounds. Bob Ferguson scored the winning run in the 11th inning on a hit by pitcher George Zettlein.
The Executive Board now led by President A.P.C. Bonte recommended on November 21, 1870, that the club not employ a nine for 1871, for that had become too expensive. The spokesmen anticipated "a development of the amateur talent of our club, such as has not been displayed since we employed professionals." The officers subsequently decided to disband the company (the players having disbanded via the market) and a public meeting of the members put that decision into effect.[8]
Harry Wright was hired by Boston businessman Ivers Whitney Adams to organize a new pro club in Boston. Wright persuaded three Cincinnati teammates to join the 1871 Boston Red Stockings in the first professional league, as it turned out. Ex-Cincinnati Red Stockings moved around some (see the note on Team members) but Boston retained both Wright brothers throughout the five years of the National Association.
The current Cincinnati Reds club identifies itself with the Cincinnati Red Stockings,[9] despite reorganization and defections in the early years.
The distinct Boston Red Stockings, beginning business with half of the Cincinnati team, both followed the young tradition and spread it to Boston. Eventually, the Boston Red Stockings evolved into the
Players
Ten men composed the 1869 team and the First Nine returned for 1870 in the same roles.
- Asa Brainard, Pitcher
- Doug Allison, Catcher
- Charlie Gould, First Base
- Charlie Sweasy, Second Base
- Fred Waterman, Third Base
- George Wright, Shortstop
- Andy Leonard, Left Field
- Harry Wright, Center Field/Manager
- Cal McVey, Right Field
- Dick Hurley, substitute
From 1867 Harry Wright fulfilled the duties of modern field managers, general managers, and traveling secretaries. In 1868 he and Brainard shared the pitcher and second base positions with Allison, Gould, and Waterman already manning the other bases. For the crosstown rival Buckeye club, Sweasy and Leonard played second and third with Hurley a substitute. Among them only Gould was a Cincinnati native; the others were from the East, presumably compensated somehow by club members if not by the clubs.
For 1871 the Nine split between two teams in the new all-professional
Andy Leonard rejoined Gould, the Wrights, and McVey in Boston for 1872, the first of four consecutive championship seasons there. After one miss Harry won his last two championships as a non-playing manager in 1877–1878 with Leonard and brother George still among his regulars. Gould and McVey left in 1873, although McVey returned for 1874–75 only.
Record
Before Cincinnati hired its team for the 1869 season, the strongest clubs were located from Washington to Troy, New York. In 1867 and 1868, Cincinnati was beaten only by clubs from that eastern corridor, winning 16 and 29 games without defeat against western opponents.[12]
Year | Games | Won | Lost | Tied | Rank in games (or wins) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1867 | 18 | 17 | 1 | 0 | 16 (10th in wins) |
1868 | 43 | 36 | 7 | 0 | 3 (4th) |
1869 | 65 | 65 | 0 | 0 | 1 (1st) |
1870 | 74 | 67 | 6 | 1 | 3 (2nd) |
Championship matches with professional teams 1869–1870
Year | Games | Won | Lost | Tied | Rank in games (or wins) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1869 | 19 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 8 (1st in wins) |
1870 | 34 | 27 | 6 | 1 | 4 (2nd) |
Notes
- ^ "1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings". Cincinnati Red Stockings Vintage Base Ball Team. Retrieved 15 October 2010.
- ^ George Ellard's son Harry, writing forty years later, is the principal source on the cricket club and the relationship between the two clubs, as well as George's personal role. The Union Cricket Club was established 1856; George Ellard was president in 1867, span not reported, and he signed Harry Wright in 1865 (according to his son).
- ^ Ellard (1908) credits his father with designing the first version, including a white flannel shirt (plain?), and with responsibility for the annual order. "As the long red stockings were necessarily made to order, they were quite expensive, for they were up to that time unknown. Mrs. Berthra Bertram of Elm Street made the uniforms for Cincinnati and many other clubs through the early eighties."
- ^ "History: Legend of the Cincinnati Red Stockings". 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings Vintage Base Ball Team. Archived from the original on 24 July 2008. Retrieved 15 October 2010.
- ^ "1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings Tour (57W–0L)". 19C Baseball. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
- If I Never Get Back: A Novelby Darryl Brock (1989) uses the Red Stockings 1869 season as the backdrop. It features a man who finds himself transported back in time where he travels with the team. Brock uses the actual players by name and the actual playing schedule.
- ^ Rhodes, Greg. "June 14, 1870: The Atlantic Storm: Red Stockings suffer first defeat". Society for American Baseball Research. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
- ^ Ellard [1908]: 155–56.
- ^ "History: Timeline". Reds.com. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
- ^ Most of the strongest "amateur" clubs of the 1860s had been paying their first nines under the table, or paying them salaries for no-show "jobs."
- ^ Marshall Wright (2000) lists multiple fielding positions where known, including a total of 16 listings for the Nine in 1868, all in the infield. Cincinnati's best batsman was its left fielder, John Hatfield of New York who jumped back to the New York Mutuals next year, but the pattern that leading players were in the infield was common. For annual rosters and other playing data see Wright (2000) on 1857–1870 and Baseball-Reference on the major leagues from 1871.
- ^ Wright (2000) has published records for dozens of NABBP teams and hundreds of games every season, relying on a mix of match and season records in contemporary newspapers and guides. The overall records do not perfectly cover either all games played or all championship matches between NABBP members but the records of championship matches between professional members may be reliable.
References
- Ellard, Harry ([1908] 2004). Base Ball in Cincinnati: A History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-7864-1726-9
- Frommer, Harvey (2005). "First Professional Baseball Team: Flashback". Retrieved 2006-08-26.
- Wright, Marshall (2000). The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857–1870. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-910137-58-7
External links
- Library of Congress American Memory catalog page for "First Nine of the Cincinnati (Red Stockings) Base Ball Club" (lithograph). Cincinnati, OH: Tuchfarber, Walkley & Moellman. 1869.[1]
- "1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings Vintage Base Ball Team". Retrieved 2 March 2020.
- "19c baseball". Retrieved 2 March 2020.
- "Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame & Museum". Reds.com. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
- Olds, Chris (10 February 2009). "Bernice Gallego's 1869 baseball card sells for $75,285". The Beckett Blog. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
- "Union Grounds". Society for Cincinnati Sports Research. Archived from the original on 22 June 2010. Retrieved 2 March 2020.