BOSTON. Published by OLIVER DITSON & C0. 451 Washington St. NEW YORK CHICAGO CINCINNATI SAN FRANCISCO PHILA. C.H.DITSON & CO. LYON&HEALY. DOB MEYER & NEWHALL. McCURRIE.WEBER & CO. J. E.DITSON & CO. 1869 sheet music dedicated to the ladies of Cincinnati The Team that Couldn't Be Beat: The Red Stockings of 1869 by Joseph S. Stern, Jr. hen the umpire's traditional cry of "play ball" opens the 1969 season Wat Crosley Field, it will mark the one hundredth anniversary of the nation's first professional baseball team: the Cincinnati Reds, successors to the remarkable Red Stockings. Never in the history of the game has there been another season like that first one for the Red Stockings. In 1869, their initial year as a professional team, they took on all comers, semi-professional and amateur, from coast to coast, emerging undefeated in every one of their sixty-nine games. This in- credible record focused national attention on the emerging spectator sport of professional baseball, and bestowed fame on the Red Stockings as well as on their hometown of Cincinnati. When the Red Stockings finally lost their first game (on a fluke play) in 1870, the tension that had steadily built up over two years of undefeated competition was justifiably relieved. But with this first defeat the heart also went out of the ball club. The holy crusade was over; something had snapped; the team actually disbanded at the end of the 1870 season. But it left profes- sional baseball firmly established on the national scene—and this, rather than its extraordinary debut, was the most significant contribution of the immortal Red Stockings. Baseball, with its familiar diamond-shaped infield, developed in America in the 1830's as an outgrowth of the English game of rounders or town-ball. It was an amateur game for gentlemen with time on their hands. Though Thomas Jefferson demeaned games played with a ball as not being so useful as recreation with horses or guns, baseball developed rapidly. Prominent families enjoyed it, and gentlemen's baseball clubs were arranged informally to promote the sport. It soon became apparent that the game was not only enjoyable but, along with cock-fighting, animal-baiting, boat racing and boxing, a good spectator sport as well. From informal club "pick-up" games it was an easy step to organized teams. The Knickerbocker Club of New York, begun in 1845, is generally credited with fielding the first of these. 25 The "Knicks" laid down rudimentary rules that with a little imagination would be recognized by the modern fan. The pitcher tossed underhand from a spot forty-five feet from home plate (overhand pitching didn't begin until 1884). The catcher stood directly behind the batter only when the runners were on base. Originally it took nine balls to earn a walk, and the batter got two chances for a called third strike. The home team chose which half it wanted to bat. The ball itself was similar to today's. The players wore uni- forms of blue wool trousers, white flannel shirts and straw hats, and they played barehanded. Then as now, there was an umpire, but he was chosen from among a group of prominent citizens esteemed for fair play. Perched on a stool between first base and home plate, this official cut a dignified figure in his Prince Albert coat, silk hat, and cane. The players likewise were gentlemen of leisure who supposedly played the game simply for the sport. As competition grew keener, however, club mem- bers found they really wanted to win. They began to invite would-be gentle- men with particular baseball ability to join their rosters. One of these, who was to figure prominently in the annals of the Red Stockings, was Harry Wright. A young Englishman of working class background, he played cricket with the St. George Cricket Club of Brooklyn, and also was an excellent base- ball player. Wright joined the Knickerbockers as a gentleman jeweller's ap- prentice. He was an amateur in name only, being paid "under the table" for his services. Before long dozens of Harry Wrights were being asked to join clubs; if a team wanted to win, the unwritten rule of "gentlemen only" was out. By 1859, the New York area alone boasted twenty-five or more baseball clubs. On March 9 of that year, the clubs met at Cooper Institute in New York City to establish rules and regulations for an over-all amateur body—The Na- tional Association of Baseball Players. This association of individual players served as the nucleus of organized baseball. During the Civil War organized baseball was suspended, but the game was tremendously popular among the soldiers. On Christmas Day, 1862, two "picked nines" of Union Army soldiers played before an estimated 40,000 of their comrades at Hilton Head, South Carolina, possibly the largest crowd in the nineteenth century to witness a sporting event. President Lincoln liked baseball and often took his son Tad out to the ball game, to watch local army teams near Washington. It was during the Civil War that baseball began to be referred to as the National Game. A contemporary Currier and Ives print depicting a baseball scene was titled "The American National Game of Baseball." After the war baseball began to come into its own; the days of the strictly amateur game for "gentlemen only" were waning. With more leisure time for all, blue collar workers wanted to play too, and these men, often being hun- grier, played to win. Local pride naturally made for intense rivalries. Origi- nally clubs played only against neighboring teams, but from these games 26 would emerge the best team, which soon was playing its counterpart in an- other city. With better performances, clubs began to charge admission. As early as 1864, the New York Mutuals charged ten cents admission when they played the Brooklyn Atlantics. The smell of commercialism was in the air. As good players won greater recognition, clubs began bidding for their services. At first, sub rosa offers were made, in the form of shares of the gate receipts and bribes from gamblers. The best players were quick to take ad- vantage of this bull market. Al Reach, who later started the famous A. J. Reach Sporting Goods Company and was a star infielder for the Philadelphia Athletics, took a straight salary in 1863. Reach's success, and that of others like him, made such a sham of amateurism that the National Association of Baseball Players declared amateurs should be separated from professionals, and defined a professional as one who plays for money. The lure of good pay soon made professional ball playing a coveted career; young working class men saw an opportunity for fame and fortune. In 1868, the Brooklyn At- lantics were a typically motley team: their pitcher was a stone mason, the catcher a postal employee, one of the infielders a shipping clerk, another a glass blower. Soon the teams became mixed, part professional, part amateur, but some clubs tried hard to preserve their original intent by developing sec- ond teams, strictly gentlemen amateurs. These were derisively referred to as "muffins" (like "duffers" in golf) by the pros who were attracting the spec- tators. Still, there were, as yet, no all-professional teams. In 1868, the New York Clipper, SL popular theatrical newspaper which also covered sports such as boxing, crew racing, sculling, cock fighting, billiards, rackets, the turf, the trigger (pigeon shooting), chess, aquatics, sailing, bull- fighting, and snowshoe racing, began to take baseball seriously. In an effort to dignify as well as publicize the game, its editor, Frank Queen, offered a gold ball to the nation's championship team and individual medals to the outstanding players at each position. The Clipper was the sole arbiter of who was best, and Queen became to early day baseball what Walter Camp became to football when he created the "All American" awards. The Clipper awards were highly coveted and immediately lent prestige to the game. The June 8, 1868, Clipper boasted: The Clipper, as the leading organ of all legitimate sports, was the first to recognize in the game of baseball a recreation that was destined to be the National Game of America. With the sole desire to foster a spirit of emulation among clubs and players we offer these prizes. It matters not to us who wins in our noble game. We know no North, no South, no East, no West. Although the East has heretofore been the great base- ball playground of the country, the West is making rapid strides and bids fair to outstrip the East. 27 Henry Chadwick, a writer for the Clipper and a baseball enthusiast, became the game's greatest publicist. He could describe a game in a wonderfully ex- citing manner, but he was disturbed by the inconsistent status of the team players themselves. While championing all-professional teams, he publicly de- nounced the so-called amateurs who accepted fees or who became "revolvers" (players who left their club in the lurch if they had a better offer from an- other club ). In previewing the coming 1868 season, Chadwick let it be known which teams he considered best. They included the Brooklyn Atlantics, the New York Mutuals, the Troy Haymakers, the Chicago White Stockings, the Phila- delphia Athletics, the Baltimore Marylands, and the newly-formed Red Stock- ings of Cincinnati, an obscure but up-and-coming club with a unique charac- teristic. Each member of the Cincinnati team, he noted, was under contract to play for the whole season as a professional player at a negotiated rate of pay.