The First Pro Base Ball Team

The game of baseball (as we know it – games of bat and ball were played since the early 19th century) traces its founding to 1845 when the first organized team in the United States, the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York City set down written rules. It was Alexander Cartwright, and not Abner Doubleday, who was the father of the national pastime.

By 1858 the game had become so popular that the National Association of Base Ball Players was formed and significant modifications began to be made in the old Knickerbocker rules. Organized baseball arrived in Cincinnati in 1866 and the Red Stockings, the namesake of the current Cincinnati Reds, and the Buckeyes became the dominant clubs in the city.

In 1869, as base ball became more popular and competitive, the Red Stockings under the leadership of captain Harry Wright (who is enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame) decided to put all of the players under contract, thus creating the first professional team.

The Red Stockings recruited some of the top players in the country (only one member of the team was from Cincinnati). Under the direction of Wright, the players underwent rigorous training and practice and developed many strategies (such as the relay throw) that we take for granted today.

The Red Stockings played from coast to coast, went 57-0 to record the only undefeated season in baseball history, and drew an estimated 200,000 spectators (the Red Stockings would win 130 games in a row before being beaten by the Brooklyn Atlantics in 1870). The national attention they brought to themselves and the sport of baseball proved that the public would support the professional game.

However, the financial strain on the local club was so great that the Cincinnati Red Stockings folded after the 1870 season. But enough other clubs had joined the professional ranks that the first professional league – the National Association – was formed in 1871.

The Cincinnati club never joined this league, but the club did reorganize in 1876 and joined the new National League. The Reds have represented Cincinnati in professional baseball ever since (the only exception being in 1881 when the Reds were thrown out of the National League for selling beer at the ballpark and allowing games to be played at their ballpark on Sundays).

Harry Wright organized, managed and played centerfield for the Red Stockings.

Originally a cricket player, Wright first played baseball with the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York. He guided the Boston Red Stockings to four straight National Association pennants from 1872 to 1875 and two National League titles in 1877 and 1878.

Among the numerous innovations he introduced were the practice of hitting pre-game fungoes to outfielders, backing up plays in the field and shifting on defense to account for hitters’ tendencies.

Wright died on October 3, 1895, in New Jersey and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953 by the Committee on Baseball Veterans.