decided to pay the players money. Of course, teams had been paying players for years, but always covertly; there seemed to be something unseemly, especially in the years after the war, about paying men to play a gentlemen’s sport. The Cincinnati businessmen decided there was something quite a bit more unseemly about losing. They paid a New York jeweler named Harry Wright $1,200 to play outfield, and they asked him to put together a baseball team that could stick it to the elitists from New York and other eastern cities.
Harry Wright traveled to New York and other eastern cities and hired a few of those elitists (including his brother George, widely viewed as the best player in the world). Years later, Harry Ellard, a Cincinnati journalist, published the list of players on that first professional team, their jobs, and their salaries.
Harry Wright
center fielder
jeweler
$1,200
Asa Brainard
pitcher
insurance
$1,100
Douglas Allison
catcher
marble cutter
$800
Charles H. Gould
first baseman
bookkeeper
$800
Charles J. Sweasy
second baseman
hatter
$800
Fred A. Waterman
third baseman
insurance
$1,000
Andrew J. Leonard
left fielder
hatter
$800
George Wright
shortstop
engraver
$1,400
Calvin A. McVey
right fielder
piano maker
$800
Richard Hurley
substitute
unknown
$600
It was $9,300 well spent. They called themselves the Cincinnati Red Stockings, named after the gaudy red stockings they wore. Theytraveled the country to play the best teams (charging 50¢ per ticket), and they were unbeatable. They won all 57 games they played in 1869. The games were not close. The Red Stockings beat the Atlantic Baseball Club 76–5, and they beat the Pacific Baseball Club 66–5. Rough statistics were kept—George Wright hit .633 with 49 home runs. The Red Stockings’ most daunting player may have been their pitcher, Asa Brainard. In those days, pitchers were supposed to pitch the ball underhanded—this is where the term “pitcher” came from—and they were supposed to let batters hit the ball. Of course, from the start, pitchers always looked for an edge. Brainard figured a way to sneak in a little extra wrist snap, which put spin on the ball and made it significantly harder to hit. Many people believe the term “ace” for outstanding pitcher began with Asa Brainard’s first name.
For a moment, in that year when Ulysses Grant became president and Susan B. Anthony formed the National Women’s Suffrage Association, Cincinnati was the hub of baseball. The moment did not last. By the end of the year, there were more than a dozen professional baseball teams, and after that, two dozen, and soon Cincinnati found itself priced out of the high-stakes game it created. The Reds, as they became known, joined the National League in 1876, but they won just nine of their sixty-five games. And soon after, they were thrown out of the National League because beer was sold in the stadium on Sundays.
Baseball years were trying after that. The Reds did get back into the National League, and they won the World Series in 1919 against the famed Chicago Black Sox, the team that got paid by gamblers to throw the Series. The Reds won the championship again in 1940, the year before America went to war. It didn’t satisfy anyone. Toward the end of the “Red Scare” of the McCarthy years and thereafter, from 1956 to 1960, the Reds changed their name to the more patriotic “Redlegs,” but the Redlegs drew so poorly that there was talk about moving them to another city. The Reds were good in the 1960s—they won a pennant in 1960 and almost won another in 1964—and theMachine won more games than any other team in the early 1970s, but those Reds were never the best. The only time they were first was on opening day—the first baseball game of every season was played in Cincinnati, a tip of the cap to the first professional baseball team.
“I don’t want to just start first,” Sparky Anderson said to reporters. “I want to finish first.”
Sparky
Harry Wright traveled to New York and other eastern cities and hired a few of those elitists (including his brother George, widely viewed as the best player in the world). Years later, Harry Ellard, a Cincinnati journalist, published the list of players on that first professional team, their jobs, and their salaries.
Harry Wright
center fielder
jeweler
$1,200
Asa Brainard
pitcher
insurance
$1,100
Douglas Allison
catcher
marble cutter
$800
Charles H. Gould
first baseman
bookkeeper
$800
Charles J. Sweasy
second baseman
hatter
$800
Fred A. Waterman
third baseman
insurance
$1,000
Andrew J. Leonard
left fielder
hatter
$800
George Wright
shortstop
engraver
$1,400
Calvin A. McVey
right fielder
piano maker
$800
Richard Hurley
substitute
unknown
$600
It was $9,300 well spent. They called themselves the Cincinnati Red Stockings, named after the gaudy red stockings they wore. Theytraveled the country to play the best teams (charging 50¢ per ticket), and they were unbeatable. They won all 57 games they played in 1869. The games were not close. The Red Stockings beat the Atlantic Baseball Club 76–5, and they beat the Pacific Baseball Club 66–5. Rough statistics were kept—George Wright hit .633 with 49 home runs. The Red Stockings’ most daunting player may have been their pitcher, Asa Brainard. In those days, pitchers were supposed to pitch the ball underhanded—this is where the term “pitcher” came from—and they were supposed to let batters hit the ball. Of course, from the start, pitchers always looked for an edge. Brainard figured a way to sneak in a little extra wrist snap, which put spin on the ball and made it significantly harder to hit. Many people believe the term “ace” for outstanding pitcher began with Asa Brainard’s first name.
For a moment, in that year when Ulysses Grant became president and Susan B. Anthony formed the National Women’s Suffrage Association, Cincinnati was the hub of baseball. The moment did not last. By the end of the year, there were more than a dozen professional baseball teams, and after that, two dozen, and soon Cincinnati found itself priced out of the high-stakes game it created. The Reds, as they became known, joined the National League in 1876, but they won just nine of their sixty-five games. And soon after, they were thrown out of the National League because beer was sold in the stadium on Sundays.
Baseball years were trying after that. The Reds did get back into the National League, and they won the World Series in 1919 against the famed Chicago Black Sox, the team that got paid by gamblers to throw the Series. The Reds won the championship again in 1940, the year before America went to war. It didn’t satisfy anyone. Toward the end of the “Red Scare” of the McCarthy years and thereafter, from 1956 to 1960, the Reds changed their name to the more patriotic “Redlegs,” but the Redlegs drew so poorly that there was talk about moving them to another city. The Reds were good in the 1960s—they won a pennant in 1960 and almost won another in 1964—and theMachine won more games than any other team in the early 1970s, but those Reds were never the best. The only time they were first was on opening day—the first baseball game of every season was played in Cincinnati, a tip of the cap to the first professional baseball team.
“I don’t want to just start first,” Sparky Anderson said to reporters. “I want to finish first.”
Sparky
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