In the Beginning

Until the recent, historic reversal of fortune, Boston baseball had long been known for its protracted championship drought. There was a time, however, when the local nine brought home the title like clockwork.

The original Boston Red Stockings of the 1870s are relegated to a dusty corner of the city's sports attic. But the team became professional baseball's first dynasty by winning four consecutive championships in a league known as the National Association of Professional Baseball Players. Created in March of 1871, the National Association had the distinction of being not only the first professional baseball league, but the first pro sports league of any kind in America.

"Base ball," as it was known in the early 1870s, differed profoundly from today's game: fielders played without gloves; pitchers stood just 45 feet from home plate and threw underhand, albeit with remarkable swiftness; and batters walked only after nine balls. Even so, today's fans would have little difficulty recognizing the game.

The story of Boston's first major professional baseball team begins in the fall of 1870, when local businessman and sports enthusiast Ivers Whitney Adams sought to organize a top-class pro team for the city. Boston, whose population stood at 250,000, was one of the few major cities in the Northeast without an upper-echelon ball club. Adams contacted the nationally renowned Harry Wright, captain of the recently defunct Cincinnati Red Stockings, and offered him the job of organizing and running the proposed squad. A brilliant and innovative baseball mind, Wright would be regarded by many as the father of professional baseball. The Cincinnati Enquirer would call him "a base ball Edison," and baseball historian Lee Allen wrote that Wright "was to baseball what George Washington was to the presidency."

Wright accepted Adams's offer and assembled the best available talent. He brought three of his former Cincinnati players with him, the most important being his younger brother George. The 23-year-old shortstop had already established himself as the most skilled player in the country. Harry Wright also signed a young Illinoisan named Albert Spalding, who went on to become the first professional pitcher to amass 200 career victories. He was also destined to create the Spalding sporting goods empire.

On January 20, 1871, the Boston team was introduced to the public at a meeting at the Parker House hotel. The next day, the Boston Morning Journal declared, "Boston can now boast of possessing a first-class professional base ball club."

Within weeks, the team had leased a small wooden ballpark on Columbus Avenue, where it would play its home games. The South End grounds, Boston's first fenced-in ballpark, could seat about 4,000 fans, who paid 50 cents each to see a Red Stockings game. The site was used for baseball in various incarnations until Braves Field was constructed in 1915.

During the club's inaugural campaign, several key players sustained injuries, not the least of which was a leg injury that caused George Wright to miss about half of the season. And though the Red Stockings won 10 of their last 11 games, they fell a few games shy of the eventual champion, the Philadelphia Athletics. It would be quite some time before Boston played second fiddle again.

Harry Wright's leadership was unparalleled. He stressed cooperation and discipline as he guided his Red Stockings to four straight league championships from 1872 through 1875. The players were the darlings of the city. Boys flocked around them as they walked down the street, and fans from all walks of life idolized them. When four of Boston's star players left after the 1875 season to join the rival Chicago White Stockings, a publication known as The Worcester Daily Spy wrote that if they had stayed, the four "might have had their portraits in Faneuil Hall or their statues in the Public Garden."

Boston's dominance over the National Association, which seemed to increase each year, turned out to be partially responsible for the league's demise as it gave way to the new National League in early 1876. The Boston team transferred to the new league and resumed play as founding members, just as it had with the National Association five years earlier.

Remarkably, the old Red Stockings exist in a manner of speaking as today's Atlanta Braves, which can claim direct lineage and remain the longest continuously operating sports franchise in the United States.

Kerry Keene is a freelance writer and the author of 1960: The Last Pure Season and 1951: When Giants Played the Game.