Cincinnati Reds (1876–80)

The Cincinnati Reds, also known as the Cincinnati Red Stockings, were a professional baseball team based in Cincinnati, Ohio that played from 1875–1880. The club predated the National League of which it became a charter member.

History

Lip Pike

John Joyce, who was an organizer of the Red Stockings club dismantled in 1870, reformed the club through a new company in 1875. Two players from the 1870 season returned as part of a new professional nine which played local amateur clubs.^[1] Joyce then sold the Reds to wealthy Cincinnati meat packer Josiah "Si" Keck during the winter. When the National League was formed on February 2, 1876 at the Grand Central Hotel in New York City, eight cities were selected to compete in the new major league: St. Louis, Hartford, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston and Keck's Cincinnati club.^[2]

The Reds began the 1876 season at Avenue Grounds. They were managed by player/manager Charlie Gould, and outfielder Charley Jones led the Cincinnati offense with 4 home runs and 38 runs batted in. The 1876 team finished a dismal 9-56, last in the new eight-team National League. In 1877, helmed by the managing trio of Lip Pike, Bob Addy, and Jack Manning, the Reds finished 6th in the National League. Pike, the second baseman, led the team with 4 home runs and rookie pitcher Bobby Mitchell led the team with 41 strikeouts.

In the 1878 season, player/manager Cal McVey piloted Cincinnati to second place in the league. Charley Jones led the team with 3 homers and Will White led the team with 169 strikeouts. Sharing the managing duties, catcher Deacon White and McVey managed the team to 5th place. Starting pitcher Will White hurled 232 strikeouts. Baseball Hall of Fame member King Kelly played on the 1878 and '79 Reds.

Managed by John Clapp in 1880, the Reds had a 21-59 record and finished 8th in the NL. The Cincinnati team was banned from the National League because it was expected to eventually violate two recently adopted rules: the team's ballpark, the Bank Street Grounds, marketed beer, and the Reds did not close their ballpark on Sundays. Though the team was banned months before these rules came into effect, the Reds did not contest the legality of their expulsion.

Instead, after not fielding a professional team in 1881, a reformed Reds team joined the American Association for its inaugural season in 1882. In this respect, the Reds entered the sort of corporate reconstruction navigated by teams such as Scotland's Hibernian F.C., which make a distinction between the company administering a club, and the club itself as a cultural entity (which might reform and continue playing after the corporate failure of its corporate identity). Accordingly, the current Reds organization counts the 1881 company as continuing the history of the 1875 club.^[3] Unlike Hibernian's case, in which the rest of the league agrees on the club's founding date, the modern Reds are nearly^[4] alone in dating their origins before 1881.

Year-by-year records

Baseball Hall of Famers

References

External links

• Team index page at Baseball Reference
• SCSR / 19th Century Cincinnati Base Ball