Everything about Philadelphia Athletics 1860-1876 totally explained
» This is about the first "Philadelphia Athletics" baseball team that played from 1860-1876. See Philadelphia Athletics (American Association) for the 1882-1891 AA Athletics and Oakland Athletics for the 1901-1954 American League Athletics.
Athletic of Philadelphia (also known as the
Philadelphia Athletics) was a prominent professional baseball team that played in the second half of the 19th century.
Forming and Success (1860-1875)
Early History
Philadelphia "had been a baseball town from the earliest days of the game", fielding amateur teams since at least the early 1830s. In 1860,
James N. Kerns formed a club, simply named "Athletic Base Ball Club", that soon dominated amateur play in the area (Jordan 1999).
Harper's Weekly chronicled a match between Athletic and
Atlantic of Brooklyn for the baseball championship in 1866. A famous Harper's illustration shows the Athletic players in uniforms with the familiar blackletter "A" on front.
When newspapers developed stand-alone game scores and league standings, the club was termed
Athletic (
Base Ball Club being dropped in any case). In prose the team was commonly called
the Athletics, plural, and later generations have usually called both club and team the "Philadelphia Athletics".
Athletic of Philadelphia is a compromise that contemporary readers would understand as an abbreviation for something like
Athletic Base Ball Club, of Philadelphia in distinction from clubs of the same name in other cities.
National Association
Athletic turned professional in the late 1860s and helped establish the first league,
National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NA), which began play in 1871. It played home games at
Jefferson Street Grounds until expulsion from the major leagues in 1876.
The Athletics were one of the most successful National Association teams, winning the first pennant with a record of 21 wins and 7 losses (.750), two games ahead of the Boston Red Stockings and Chicago White Stockings. Actually, the race was much closer: the primary official criterion then was neither games nor winning percentage, but wins, and the three clubs finished in the order given with 21, 20, and 19 victories. The final game of the season, played on October 30 in Brooklyn, saw Athletic defeat Chicago, 4-1, clinching the title. (
Nate Berkenstock, a 40-year-old amateur who played right field for Philadelphia that day due to injuries, made his only big-league appearance in that game.)
While Boston dominated the NA, winning the other four pennants, the Athletics and
New York Mutuals also fielded teams every year, with Philadelphia winning a few more games overall but never challenging Boston.
Dick McBride served as regular pitcher for more than a decade and as
captain throughout the NA seasons, which gives him
manager credit today. Other star players include
Al Reach in the 1860s and
Cap Anson who played from 1872 to 1875 (Anson took over as captain near the very end of the 1875 season).
During their five-year existence the Athletics won 165 games and lost only 86 for a
winning percentage of .657. Notable players on their roster included
Hall of Famer Cap Anson,
infielder Ezra Sutton, and
pitcher/
manager Dick McBride.
National League (1876)
During the summer of 1875, the
Chicago White Stockings moved decisively to improve its team by recruiting six stars then playing in Boston and Philadelphia. Four Red Stockings players (
catcher Deacon White,
infielders
Cal McVey and
Ross Barnes, and
pitcher Al Spalding) and Philadelphia Athletics
third baseman Cap Anson would play for Chicago in 1876, with
Ezra Sutton remaining in Philadelphia for the Athletics' final season.
Chicago's
William Hulbert, assisted by player
Albert Spalding and sportswriter
Lewis Meacham, moved at the same time to organize a new league. Hulbert recruited first the
St. Louis Brown Stockings of the
National Association, independent clubs from Louisville and Cincinnati (the
Louisville Grays and
Cincinnati Reds), and four eastern clubs: the Athletics,
the
New York Mutuals,
the
Hartford Dark Blues, and
the
Boston Red Stockings.
After having spent fifteen years as a strong and stable club, the Athletics fared poorly in the new
National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, finishing seventh with 14 wins in 60 games, 38 wins behind Chicago. Near the end of the season, the financially-troubled team refused to make a western road trip, finishing with 35 games played at home and 25 away.
Mutual of New York also refused, owing the western teams nine home games. Both clubs were expelled from the National League, which simply contracted from eight to six for the
1877 season.
The 1876 Athletics were managed by
Al Wright and played their home games at the
Jefferson Street Grounds. Their top-hitting regular was
left fielder George Hall, who batted .366 with a slugging percentage of .545. Another strong batter on the team was
third baseman Levi Meyerle, who hit .340. The best
pitcher on the team was
Lon Knight, who won 10 games, lost 22, and had an ERA of 2.62.
Record
Year W L T Games Rank in games (in wins)
1861 2 2 4 14
1862 1 1 2 non-member
1863 7 5 12 2 (4th in wins)
1864 8 1 9 10 (tie 3rd)
1865 15 3 18 2 (2nd)
1866 23 2 25 2 (2nd)
1867 44 3 47 1 (1st)
1868 47 3 50 2 (tie 1st)
1869 45 8 53 3 (3rd)
1870 65 11 1 77 2 (tie 3rd in wins)
Championship matches with professional teams 1869-1870
1869 15 7 22 3 (tie 2nd in wins)
1870 26 11 1 38 2 (3rd)
Professional leagues
1871 21 7 28 6 (1st place)
1872 30 14 3 47 4 (4th place)
1873 28 23 1 52 6 (5th place)
1874 33 22 55 6 (3rd place)
1875 53 20 4 77 3 (3rd place)
1876 14 45 1 60 7 (7th place)
Source for season records: Wright (2000) has published records for dozens of NABBP teams each season, relying on a mix of game and season records in contemporary newspapers and guides. Dozens of leading clubs by number of matches are included, as are many others. The records don't consistently cover either all games played or all championship matches between NABBP members.
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