Jersey City Skeeters
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The Jersey City Skeeters were a minor league baseball team which operated in Jersey City, New Jersey. The team began in the 1860s as an independent team, but by 1870 they had joined the National Association of Base Ball Players and won its amateur baseball championship.
By 1885, the team had joined the Eastern League, but they dropped out before the end of the season. The team rejoined the league the following year, finishing in second place.
In 1887, a Jersey City Skeeters team was playing in the International League, but in 1888, they were in the Central League, a much lower league, competition-wise.
The team participated in three other leagues before 1902, with little success. In that year, however, the city of Jersey City built the club a new stadium, and the team committed to the Eastern League. They finished in third place in their first year in the league, but in 1903, they fielded a championship team. That year, the team won their first 18 games, and had a stretch of 25 consecutive victories. They won the league with a record of 92-33.
That team was managed by 39-year-old player-manager Billy Murray, who stayed with the team through 1906, but the team never won another championship.
The Skeeters remained in the Eastern League and its successor, the International League until 1915, at which point the team's owner, Jack Dunn, moved the team to Baltimore, Maryland. A newly-organized International League formed in 1918, following World War I, and Jersey City received a league franchise. An attempt was made to change the team's name from Skeeters (so named because of the ubiquitous mosquitos in the New Jersey swamps), but fans rejected the proposed Colts nickname, and the Skeeters name stuck. In 1933, however, the Great Depression caused the folding of many leagues and teams, and the Jersey City franchise was moved to Syracuse, New York.
Jersey City returned to baseball in 1937, when the New York Giants moved their highest-level minor league team to Jersey City, calling the team the Jersey City Giants.
