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 first convention of sixteen New York City area clubs in 1857 practically terminated the Knickerbocker era, when that club privately deliberated on the rules of the game. The last convention, with hundreds of members represented only via state associations, provoked the establishment of separate professional and amateur associations in 1871. 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.
Beside the playing rules and its own organization, the Association governed official scoring (reporting), "match" play, a championship, amateurism, and hippodroming or the integrity of the contest.[1] It permitted professionalism only for the 1869 and 1870 seasons. In its December 1867 meeting, its rules committee voted unanimously to bar any club "composed of one or more colored persons",[2] effecting the first known color line in baseball.
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 boring days of camp life between occasional skirmishes and battles expanded through various corps, regiments, brigades, and other units into a national game and 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.[3] 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.[4]
Professionalism
The NABBP was initially established upon principles of amateurism. However, even early in its history some star players, such as James Creighton of the Excelsior club of Brooklyn received compensation, either secretly or indirectly. In 1866, the NABBP investigated the Athletic club of Philadelphia for paying three players including Lip Pike, but ultimately took no action against either the club or the players. To address this growing practice, and to restore integrity to the game, at its December 1868 meeting the NABBP established a professional category for the coming 1869 season. Clubs desiring to pay players were now free to declare themselves professional.
Cincinnati's Red Stockings was the first to so declare and among the most aggressive in recruiting the best available players. Twelve, including most of the strongest clubs 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, in 1871 most of the leading professional clubs broke away to found the separate National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP). The earlier NABBP continued for approximately two years thereafter in a more diminished status before disbanding into state and regional organizations of the sport.
Members
Contrary to the organization name, NABBP members were clubs not players. Generally the clubs joined the association and retained membership by sending delegates to the annual convention, usually in the preceding December (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 (or even New Jersey) 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 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 sixteen did so.
- Brooklyn: Brooklyn Atlantics (to 1870, professional), Brooklyn Bedford (1857), Brooklyn Continental (to 1863), Brooklyn Eckfords (to 1870, professional), Brooklyn Excelsior (to 1870, amateur), Brooklyn Harmony (1857), Brooklyn Nassau (to 1859), Brooklyn Olympic (1857 and 1859), Brooklyn Putnam (to 1862)
- Morrisania (now in The Bronx, New York): Union (to 1870, professional) --that is, the Union of Morrisania
- New York: New York Baltic (to 1863 and later?), New York Eagle (to 1869?), New York Empire (to 1869), New York Gotham (to 1870, amateur), New York Harlem (to 1869?), New York Knickerbocker (to 1868?) --who would go down in history known as the New York Knickerbockers
- New York Mutuals (1858–1870, professional)
- Philadelphia Athletic (1861–1870, professional)
- Chicago White Stockings (1870, professional)
The five named in bold continued as sometime members of the 1871–1875 National Association, (the second of two successive "National Associations") considered the first professional league. Dates refer to NABBP membership, not baseball activity or legal organization, but not all clubs retained membership annually; in particular, the Civil War curtailed membership for 1862 to 1865.
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 New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1858, the only one of 25 members outside modern New York City; Niagara of Buffalo, New York in 1859, when the next furthest of 50 members was the United club based in Trenton, New Jersey; and the Detroit club of Detroit, Michigan in 1860, when five of 59 members were from outside adjacent New Jersey and New York states, the other four being further south in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and to the northeast in New Haven, and Boston. Six Philadelphia clubs joined for 1861 but the coming war curtailed the season; some of the 55 members never played a game of any kind. Then the war curtailed membership for 1862 until 1866 when some pre-war members rejoined.
For 1865 there were only 30 members with not one in New England and western outliers merely in Washington, Altoona in southwestern Pennsylvania, and Utica in central New York state. But the December 1865 meeting attracted triple the membership with scattered clubs from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. During the next three seasons, the National Association "filled" with clubs further west from St Louis and Iowa to the northeast in Boston and Maine. 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 Athletic of Philadelphia in 1868 and the Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1869. The latter were undefeated, with victories over all of the leading clubs (including ultimate 1868 and 1869 champions Mutual and Atlantic), but they never faced a reigning champion in a deciding game, partly because in scheduling tours of continental scope they practically opted out.
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 Chicago White Stockings when Mutual left the field in protest. Officials decided to revert the score to the end of the last completed inning and awarded the game, and thus the championship, to Chicago. The Mutual club declared itself champion.
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
- 1870 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 Cincinnati Reds claim the Cincinnati Red Stockings lineage as baseball's first fully professional team, BUT the modern Reds didn't start play until 1882, twelve years after the old Red Stockings folded. Half the Cincinnati team, including their ownership, started a new team in Boston in 1871 that became the old Boston Braves in the National League of 1876, which became the first team in a half-century to break the 8 teams/franchise locations in the northeast United States by moving between the 1952 to 1953 seasons to become the Milwaukee Braves in Wisconsin joining others on the shores of the Great Lakes, and then becoming the Atlanta Braves, in Georgia, the first team in The South, though that team/franchise originally started as a member in the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP / 1871–1875) from the get-go.
Another team that claims lineage from the NABBP is the Buffalo Bisons, currently a minor league ("Triple AAA") baseball squad that counts the Niagara club as a predecessor; like the Cincinnati situation, the Bisons have not operated continuously, as the team did not play for eight seasons in the 1970s.
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.
- ^ Early Innings: a documentary history of baseball, 1825–1908, compiled and edited by Dean A. Sullivan, published 1995 by University of Nebraska Press
- ^ 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
- ^ https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-3659453141/the-antebellum-growth-and-spread-of-the-new-york-game
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