National Association of Base Ball Players
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The National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) was the first organization governing American baseball. (The sport was spelled with two words in the 19th century.)
The first convention of sixteen New York City area clubs in 1857 effectively terminated the Knickerbocker era, during which the rules of the game were largely at the discretion of individual clubs. Besides governing the playing rules and its own organization, the Association established standards for official scoring (reporting), "match" play, a championship, amateurism, and the integrity of the contest (then known as
The last convention, held in 1871, with hundreds of members represented only via state associations, provoked the establishment of separate professional and amateur associations. The succeeding National Association of Professional Base Ball Players is considered the first professional sports league; through 1875 it governed professional baseball and practically set playing rules for all. Because the amateur successor never attracted many members and it convened only a few times, the NABBP is sometimes called "the amateur Association" in contrast to its professional successor.
Growth
Prior to the American Civil War (1861–1865), the beginnings of baseball competed for public interest with cricket and regional variants of baseball, notably town ball played in Philadelphia and the Massachusetts Game played in New England. In the 1860s, aided by the War, "New York" style baseball (as often played by Union Army troops passing the uneventful days of camp life between occasional skirmishes and battles) expanded through various corps, regiments, brigades, and other units into a national game. In addition, the parallel civilian NABBP, as its governing body, expanded into a true national organization, although most of the strongest clubs remained those based in New York City, Brooklyn and Philadelphia. By the end of 1865, almost 100 clubs were members of the "National Association" organization. By 1867, it had over 400 members, including some clubs from as far away as the Pacific Ocean west coast in San Francisco and south to the Gulf of Mexico coast in Louisiana. Because of this growth, regional and state organizations began to assume a more prominent role in the governance of the sport. Baseball's exploding popularity, however, was not confined to the NABBP organization, whose core lay in the vicinity of New York City; there were thousands of organized baseball clubs nationwide by 1870, the majority of which were not Association members.[2] For example, on the eve of the Civil War there were no fewer than seven baseball teams in distant New Orleans, none of which belonged to the NABBP; a tabulation by historian Richard Herschberger turned up over 900 baseball clubs by 1860, in which year the Association's membership stood at 60.[3]
Professionalism
The NABBP was initially established upon principles of
Cincinnati's Red Stockings was the first to so declare and was among the most aggressive in recruiting the best available players (as a result of which they became the most dominant club of the era). Twelve clubs, including most of the strongest in the NABBP, ultimately declared themselves professional for the 1869 season.
Conflict arose, however, between amateur and professional interests. Important issues included how the championship was to be decided and regulating players jumping from one team to another. As a result, after three years of this experiment, most of the leading professional clubs broke away in 1871 to found the separate National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP). The earlier NABBP continued for approximately two more years with a more diminished status before disbanding into state and regional aggregations.
Members
Contrary to the organization name, NABBP members were clubs, not individual players. Generally the clubs joined the association and retained membership by sending delegates to the annual convention, usually in the December preceding each season (the ancestor of modern Major League Baseball's so-called Winter Meetings). Membership mediated by state associations was introduced only after ten years; then dozens of clubs from a distant state could join and remain in the NABBP by organizing a state association whose delegates would participate in the national meeting.
The number of clubs at the convention, and thus in the association, increased from 16 to 25 after the first year, and to 50 by spring 1859. This list gives the sixteen who convened in 1857, followed by the three later members who survived to be charter members of the new National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs (known later simply as the "National League") in 1876; none of the original sixteen made it into the National League.
- Brooklyn: Eckford(to 1870, professional), Excelsior (to 1870, amateur), Harmony (1857), Nassau (to 1859), Olympic (1857 and 1859), Putnam (to 1862)
- Morrisania (now in The Bronx, New York): Union (to 1870, professional) – that is, Union of Morrisania
- New York: Baltic (to 1863 and later?), Eagle (to 1869?), Empire (to 1869), Gotham (to 1870, amateur), Harlem (to 1869?), Knickerbocker (to 1868?) --who would go down in history known as the New York Knickerbockers
- Mutual (New York) (1858–1870, professional)
- Athletic (Philadelphia) (1861–1870, professional)
- Chicago White Stockings(1870, professional)
The five named in bold continued as sometime members of the 1871–1875
Newark, New Jersey is one of the cities to the west across the Hudson River from New York City. Eight Newark clubs were sometime members and two more clubs from Newark, the Empire in 1858 and the Eckford in 1870, played matches with member clubs.
- Newark members, all years, ordered by first membership: Newark Base Ball Club (1860–1869) – that is, "Newark of Newark" or "Newark Newarks", Newark Eurekas (1860–1869), Newark Adriatics (1861–1862), Newark Americus (1865–1869), Newark Pioneer (1865–1867), Newark Active (1867–?), Newark Excelsior (1869), Newark Amateur (1870)
The members farthest from New York in the early years were the Liberty club of
For 1865 there were only 30 members with not one in
. By 1867 there were too many delegates to handle in convention, so membership via state associations was introduced for 1868 and, perhaps for that reason, there is no reliable enumeration of the members from 1868 to 1870.Champions
The 1857 Atlantic Club of Brooklyn and the 1858 Mutual Club of New York appear to have been recognized as the best clubs of these respective seasons, but scheduling was insufficient overall between New York City and Brooklyn clubs to establish a definitive champion. In 1859, though, Atlantic did emerge as decisive champions of baseball with an overall record of 11 wins and 1 loss and series victories over both Eckford of Brooklyn and Mutual. Thereafter, a formalized challenge system developed whereby the championship, symbolized by a "pennant", would change hands upon the defeat of the existing champion in a two out of three series. Such "series" could actually occur over several weeks or months, with games against other clubs played in between, so the format does not closely resemble the modern World Series in determining baseball's champion. But a series was limited to a season; one win in one or two games did not carry over to next spring.
Without a regular schedule of games, neither the number of wins nor winning percentage necessarily indicates team strength, much less identifies the best team or a credible champion. A challenge format makes sense for that purpose, and it fits the convention whereby contestants meet on the field with money or a trophy at stake. A trophy base ball, provided by the home club and used in the game, was commonly at stake; the pennant provided by the Association was a second trophy at stake in some games. Unfortunately, the strongest team in a given year did not always have an opportunity to play for the championship, as the strongest boxer or chess player may annually have an opportunity in the challenge formats that developed in those sports.
Indeed, in several NABBP seasons it appears that the strongest team never played a series for the championship, including at least
Decisive games were also marred by disputes. In 1860, reigning champion Atlantic of Brooklyn and challenger Excelsior of Brooklyn split their first two games. In the third, Excelsior was leading, 8–6, and had men on base, but chose to withdraw because of rowdy behavior by Atlantic partisans and gamblers. The game was declared a draw, and the championship retained by Atlantic.
In 1870, Mutual of New York was leading, 13–12, in the deciding game of its series with the
End of Year Champions
- 1859 Atlantic of Brooklyn
- 1860 Atlantic of Brooklyn
- 1861 Atlantic of Brooklyn
- 1862 Eckford of Brooklyn
- 1863 Eckford of Brooklyn
- 1864 Atlantic of Brooklyn
- 1865 Atlantic of Brooklyn
- 1866 Atlantic of Brooklyn
- 1867 Union of Morrisania
- 1868 Mutual of New York
- 1869 Atlantic of Brooklyn
- Chicago White Stockings
Teams with most wins
The won–lost–tied records compiled by Marshall Wright (2000) are not consistently limited to matches between NABBP members.
- 1857 Atlantic (Brooklyn, New York) 7–1–1
- 1858 Mutual (New York) 11–1
- 1859 Excelsior (Brooklyn, New York) 12–3
- 1860 Excelsior (Brooklyn, New York) 18–2–1
- 1861 Mutual (New York) 8–2
- 1862 Eckford (Brooklyn, New York) 14–2
- 1863 Eckford (Brooklyn, New York) 10–0
- 1864 Atlantic (Brooklyn, New York) 20–0–1
- 1865 Atlantic (Brooklyn, New York) 18–0
- 1866 Union (Morrisania, New York) 25–3
- 1867 Athletic (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) 44–3
- 1868 Athletic (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) 47–3
- 1869 Cincinnati (Cincinnati, Ohio) 57–0
- 1870 Mutual (New York) 68–17–3
Legacy
The Chicago Cubs, who played their first season in the NABBP in 1870 as the Chicago White Stockings, is the only surviving team from the old NABBP.
The current
Another team that claims lineage from the NABBP is the Buffalo Bisons, currently a minor league ("Triple A") baseball squad that counts the Niagara club as a predecessor. Like the Cincinnati situation, however, the Bisons have not operated continuously: the original Bisons moved to Winnipeg midway through the 1970 season, and the Queen City had no baseball until the Jersey City A's moved to town in 1979 and assumed the Bisons identity.
Notes
- ^ "Hippodroming" commonly means play in the interest of gamblers, maybe including team members. That may cover losing rather than winning, winning by a small rather than a large margin, and falling behind early in the game. It may cover particular events rather than the decision or the score in runs, such as putting out a particular player or hitting a foul ball. The integrity of the contest (modern terms), if not hippodroming itself, also covers theatrical play and friendly play. Roughly, the participants and spectators should all know whether everyone is playing to win. The Association did not schedule championship games (or any others) and clubs sometimes agreed to play a friendly rather than a championship game only at the ballpark just before the event.
- ^ In Illinois alone there were 312 clubs by 1870, and 21 of 22 towns with a population of 5000 or more had at least one. http://protoball.org/Preliminary_IL_Data_on_Early_Base_Ball
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on March 10, 2016. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
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References
- Block, David (2005). Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search For The Roots Of The Game. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-1339-5
- Goldstein, Warren (1991). Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-9924-0
- Seymour, Harold (1960). Baseball: The Early Years. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505912-3
- Wright, Marshall D. (2000). The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857–1870. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-0779-4