Was the NA (1871-75) a "Major" League?

[Beady]

TonyK, on page 125 of the 19th Century Encyclopedia, the picture of the two teams should reflect that Providence is on the right and Boston is on the left. Boston was never known as the Red Caps, at least as far as I was able to discover. I have a framed picture of it on my basement wall.

I take it this must refer to the first edition of the 19th C. Encyclopedia. I have the newer one, which came out a year or so ago, and it doesn't have any photographs on page 125. Thumbing quickly through that section of the book, I don't see a photo corresponding to this, so it has probably been omitted altogether.

[philliesfiend55]

1. More than 100 NL players came from the NA.
2. The NA consisted of most of the best players in the nation.
3. Contemporaries and researchers consider it a major league based on definitions of a major league.

MLB also tends to ignore the records and achievements of 19th Century players but that doesn't make it right.

I've always heard that 1876 was considered the start of major league baseball. However a baseball encyclopedia I own lists the year by year totals of the National Association and the American Association of the early 1870s as well. They don't include the totals of those leagues into a player's career totals however, but still they list the year-by-years.
Seems like they are hedging their bets: While not exactly considering those leagues major leagues they still present their yearly totals. If sentiment grows to count those leagues as major leagues then at least you have the yearly stats and the reader can add them into the career totals.

[rrhersh]

There has been talk that different parties or organizations representing baseball history may get together and iron out differences on statistics as well as other matters, perhaps including the NA's status. So rrhersh may get his wish.

It may be worth expanding on my take on this, as it isn't precisely my wish that the NA be included among the major leagues. My wish, inasmuch as I have one in this matter, is that the issues be better understood.

By my understanding of the NA, the question of major league status is meaningless. The system of major and minor leagues had not yet developed. To even ask the question is to impose an anachronistic interpretation on the facts. The major/minor system isn't unambiguously present until 1883. There are earlier organizations which can plausibly be considered proto-minor leagues, but not before 1877. The development of the major/minor system is a hugely interesting aspect of baseball history of this period. Worrying about which neat category to stick any given organization is at best irrelevant, and at worst distracting and obfuscatory: I don't care whether we pound this square peg into the round hole or the triangular one.

But that is approaching the question from the standpoint of organizational history. My sense is that much of the impetus for this discussion comes from the stats people. The not-so-hidden subtext is that the real question is whether we pay attention to the NA or ignore it. This is in the same way that any book with the words "encyclopedia" and "baseball" can be assumed to include only major league baseball unless explicitly stated otherwise: as if the minors and semi-pros and amateurs and schools and little leagues aren't playing baseball.

To the extent that I care about how the NA is classified, I prefer it be counted as major because that forces people to consider it at all. Some will notice that the NA differred from 20th century leagues, might wonder why this is, and learn something interesting about the development of early organized baseball.

As for the people interested in historical stats, I honestly don't understand why you care whether the NA is classed as major or minor or not classified at all. If you are interested in looking at the best batter of any given year, what does major/minor matter? For that matter, what does the NA matter? The best batter of any year from 1871 to 1875 will play in the NA, but obviously not the best batter or 1869 or 1870. I find bewildering the idea that we are interested in the best batter of each year, but only beginning with some externally imposed starting year, whether it is 1876 or 1871.

[rrhersh]

By several modern sources Boston is referred as the "Red Caps" in 1879 when the photo was taken. However, their caps are whitish. According to old publications, they were known throughout the 19th Century as the Reds or Beaneaters or both.

The vast majority of the time, from 1876 on, they were called the "Bostons". This banal fact of life gets overlooked in the quest for colorful nicknames. (In a similar vein, Robert Ferguson may or may not have been called "Death To Flying Things" but in actual practice his nickname was "Bob".) From 1871 to 1875 they were often quasi-formally called the "Red Stockings" but with the advent of the National League this practice was largely abandoned.

I have a hypothesis about the "Red Caps" fantasy. There in fact was as "Red Caps" club at that time, in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Red Caps of St. Paul won the League Alliance pennant in 1877. The Bostons won the National League pennant that year. I have a sneeking suspicion that some modern researcher (perhaps in connection with the creation of the Big Mac) stumbled across a reference to the pennant-winning Red Caps, didn't understand what he saw, and misinterpreted this as referring to the Bostons.

In any case, the underlying premise of the standard list of team nicknames is flawed, projecting late-20th century practice to the earlier era. The idea that the Brooklyn club was cycling through from one year to the next a list of three or four nicknames is patently ridiculous. Additional mistakes in detail such as the "Red Caps" debacle are almost beside the point.

[TonyK]

My sense is that much of the impetus for this discussion comes from the stats people. The not-so-hidden subtext is that the real question is whether we pay attention to the NA or ignore it.

As for the people interested in historical stats, I honestly don't understand why you care whether the NA is classed as major or minor or not classified at all. If you are interested in looking at the best batter of any given year, what does major/minor matter? For that matter, what does the NA matter? The best batter of any year from 1871 to 1875 will play in the NA, but obviously not the best batter or 1869 or 1870. I find bewildering the idea that we are interested in the best batter of each year, but only beginning with some externally imposed starting year, whether it is 1876 or 1871.

If the top pitchers and top hitters are from the 1871-1895 time period then something must be wrong with the formula you are using. Those guys can't possibly be that good. This leads to lengthy discussions over the quality of play back in the 19th Century. It is impossible for us to determine just how good ML baseball was from 1871 to 1900 for several reasons.

[Beady]

...If you are interested in looking at the best batter of any given year, what does major/minor matter... The best batter of any year from 1871 to 1875...

The point here has nothing to do with how players of the 19th century would compare with those of the 20th or 21st centuries, as a group -- in fact, precisely the opposite. He's simply saying that the best players of the early 1870's were, let's say, Deacon White and Ross Barnes, or whatever names you'd prefer to substitute, and whether the NA is counted as a major or not will not make any difference to that. The NA is what it is.

[ItsOnlyGil]

So we all know how much academic weight MLB's decisions carry on such things, but regardless of the "official" position, should the first professional baseball league, the National Association of 1871-1875, be considered a "major" league.

Yes, it should.

[Calif_Eagle]

Yes, it should.

I just finished reading the whole thread, found it fascinating... If the NA wasnt baseball's "major league" of 1871-1875... then what was? It HAD to be, even if only by default. Besides, the whole notion of "major league" had to start somewhere... it seems the NA and the NL of 1876 were pretty similar. I'd vote with those opting for 1871 and the NA.


Regardless of how limited the talent pool was, or the fact that todays notion of "major league" bears no resemblance to what they (the NA) were doing... the bulk of the best, & best known players were playing in the NA. It was the very top competitive situation that existed in & for the sport of baseball at that time. It HAD to be "major league" even if the caliber of play was probably pathetic compared to today, with players being drawn to MLB from all over the world vs the relatively few people even aware of the sport, let alone interested in playing the game, back then.

[ItsOnlyGil]

The National Association is some pretty old stuff. Heck, the National League did not occur until just before the Battle of Little Big Horn ("Custer's Last Stand"). So, the NA is not too far removed from the Civil War.

Thinking about transportation options at that time ..... I just don't know. I guess railroads were somewhat reliable in the more built up areas, but subject to attack, and other problems, elsewhere. So "is it a Major League" ?
Well, certainly. But did it include all worthwhile players? Not always practical.

[TonyK]

The 1968 Baseball Records Committee was made up of David Grote, NL Public Relations Director; Joe Reichler, MLB Public Relations Director; Bob Holbrook, AL Office; Jack Lane, BBWAA; and Lee Allen, of the National Baseball HOF.

While they researched ancient baseball records and made revisions to them, the committee recommended that the NA not be considered a major league due to it's erratic schedule and procedures. Researchers Bob Tiemann and Bob Richardson began the task of compiling Official NA records from old boxscores.

Marc Onigman, a writer for Sports Illustrated, on May 24, 1982 wrote a piece calling the committee's decision ridiculous. According to the ESPN Encyclopedia, 2006 Edition, the National Association was indisputably the major league of it's day. Numerous baseball websites incorporate NA records into their ML records sections. At one time it was common to have two sets of ML records...NA records followed by records from 1876 on. A modern trend is to focus on records from 1901 on and skip everything before that year.

I looked at writeups from the NY Clipper of 1879-80 and read over John Ward's book from 1889 to try and find out what they said about the NA back then. Ward devoted a chapter on the history of pro baseball yet wrote only one sentence about the change from the NA to the NL in 1876 as if it hardly mattered. I do know that the NL in the 19th Century was known by many people as simply "the League". If every ML from 1876 until now used the name Association (ex. Federal Association, American Association, Union Association) rather than League, would we be calling them Major Associations instead of Major Leagues?

[SABR Steve]

Either the author made the mistake or the editor did. Have you contacted David Nemec and pointed out this error?

A book over 800 pages in length likely contains several errors no matter how good the factchecker or proofreaders are. The last ten books I have read had between two to twenty two errors in them.

I don't know of many true 19th Century baseball scholars. Most knowledgable researchers of that era recognize they know very little about those times. Quotes from a small handful of books available provide most of our knowledge. There is a lot left to research.

I've communicated with Nemec in the past, but not on the picture. Pictures are mislabeled a lot.
I may be a little hard on David Nemec, but one of the problems with historians such as him is that they ignore the rules of the day.

[SABR Steve]

It may be worth expanding on my take on this, as it isn't precisely my wish that the NA be included among the major leagues. My wish, inasmuch as I have one in this matter, is that the issues be better understood.

By my understanding of the NA, the question of major league status is meaningless. The system of major and minor leagues had not yet developed. To even ask the question is to impose an anachronistic interpretation on the facts. The major/minor system isn't unambiguously present until 1883. There are earlier organizations which can plausibly be considered proto-minor leagues, but not before 1877. The development of the major/minor system is a hugely interesting aspect of baseball history of this period. Worrying about which neat category to stick any given organization is at best irrelevant, and at worst distracting and obfuscatory: I don't care whether we pound this square peg into the round hole or the triangular one.

But that is approaching the question from the standpoint of organizational history. My sense is that much of the impetus for this discussion comes from the stats people. The not-so-hidden subtext is that the real question is whether we pay attention to the NA or ignore it. This is in the same way that any book with the words "encyclopedia" and "baseball" can be assumed to include only major league baseball unless explicitly stated otherwise: as if the minors and semi-pros and amateurs and schools and little leagues aren't playing baseball.

To the extent that I care about how the NA is classified, I prefer it be counted as major because that forces people to consider it at all. Some will notice that the NA differred from 20th century leagues, might wonder why this is, and learn something interesting about the development of early organized baseball.

As for the people interested in historical stats, I honestly don't understand why you care whether the NA is classed as major or minor or not classified at all. If you are interested in looking at the best batter of any given year, what does major/minor matter? For that matter, what does the NA matter? The best batter of any year from 1871 to 1875 will play in the NA, but obviously not the best batter or 1869 or 1870. I find bewildering the idea that we are interested in the best batter of each year, but only beginning with some externally imposed starting year, whether it is 1876 or 1871.

A friend of mine said, "Actually, there was no need to differentiate between 'major" and "minor' until there was a minor league." That sounds rather good.

[SABR Steve]

The vast majority of the time, from 1876 on, they were called the "Bostons". This banal fact of life gets overlooked in the quest for colorful nicknames. (In a similar vein, Robert Ferguson may or may not have been called "Death To Flying Things" but in actual practice his nickname was "Bob".) From 1871 to 1875 they were often quasi-formally called the "Red Stockings" but with the advent of the National League this practice was largely abandoned.

I have a hypothesis about the "Red Caps" fantasy. There in fact was as "Red Caps" club at that time, in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Red Caps of St. Paul won the League Alliance pennant in 1877. The Bostons won the National League pennant that year. I have a sneeking suspicion that some modern researcher (perhaps in connection with the creation of the Big Mac) stumbled across a reference to the pennant-winning Red Caps, didn't understand what he saw, and misinterpreted this as referring to the Bostons.

In any case, the underlying premise of the standard list of team nicknames is flawed, projecting late-20th century practice to the earlier era. The idea that the Brooklyn club was cycling through from one year to the next a list of three or four nicknames is patently ridiculous. Additional mistakes in detail such as the "Red Caps" debacle are almost beside the point.

You're not entirely correct. Although nicknames were not really official they did exist contrary to what some historians have written. I have somewhere a list of nicknames published in The Sporting News in the 1890's. I also have access to George Tuohey's book, "The Boston Base Ball Club," published in 1897. That book refers to the team as "Reds." The nickname "Beaneaters" is not in the book but is referenced in The Sporting News a lot. I ran across a short item from 1890 that The Boston club of the Players League was christened "Red Stockings." They were in fact referred to as the Reds too.

I sort of like your sneaky feeling about where the Red Cap thing came from, but somewhere in my stuff I have notes about color schemes that were applied to positions and/or clubs at one time.

I had started a book about the Boston Brave franchise some years ago. My chapters were by year, so that my first chapter was "1871." Alas, I abandoned it after doing the 1912 chapter.

BTW, I also have a book entitled "Baseball, 1845 - 1881," by Preston Orem.

[SABR Steve]

As for the people interested in historical stats, I honestly don't understand why you care whether the NA is classed as major or minor or not classified at all. If you are interested in looking at the best batter of any given year, what does major/minor matter? For that matter, what does the NA matter? The best batter of any year from 1871 to 1875 will play in the NA, but obviously not the best batter or 1869 or 1870. I find bewildering the idea that we are interested in the best batter of each year, but only beginning with some externally imposed starting year, whether it is 1876 or 1871.

To answer your question, my quest was to list batting champions, original, intermediate, and posthumous. I also searched the statistics from original to the latest revised numbers. For instance, Ross Barnes was the champ for 1873, and discovered five different averages from different sources. The trouble with the years before 1871 is available numbers. There are some years containing disputes such as 1893 in which four different batters were declared the champion at one time or another. What you find bewildering, I find challenging and fun. It keeps me out of trouble.

[Beady]

It's all speculation as we stand now, but I don't find the St. Paul hypothesis very plausible. Now that I think about it, I'm more inclined to suspect that Red Caps reflects somebody's desire to distinguish Boston from the real Red Stockings after Cincinnati came back to big time baseball in 1876.

I believe I have seen the Red Cap nickname used for Boston in a work that substantially predates the Big Mac -- I believe it may have been the Orem book Steve mentions -- but I don't recall the Big Mac indulging in any foolishness about nicknames anyway. Boston was just "Boston" as far as they were concerned.

Nobody doubts teams had nicknames, but they were not only informal but ephemeral and irregular. If you read one paper for a city you may see one nickname for its team, while another paper uses a different one. I have read game accounts that refer to the Washington team as the Senators while the box score calls them the Nationals. Chicago had one of the most famous names, White Stockings, yet they changed their stocking color about 1886 or 1887 and simply threw away the nickname. Anyway, the team that played in Boston was most commonly called "Boston" or "the Bostons," and Cincinnati's team was generally called "Cincinnati" or "the Cincinnatis" and so on. The nicknames gradually came into more prominent usage and began to stabilize, but it was a very slow process. Imposing these nicknames on early teams is an artificial exercise, but it doesn't really do any great harm.

[ItsOnlyGil]

Anyway, the team that played in Boston was most commonly called "Boston" or "the Bostons," and Cincinnati's team was generally called "Cincinnati" or "the Cincinnatis" and so on. The nicknames gradually came into more prominent usage and began to stabilize, but it was a very slow process. Imposing these nicknames on early teams is an artificial exercise, but it doesn't really do any great harm.

The no nickname identification method (Boston Nationals or Bostons, for example) is the approach typically seen on baseball cards of the era.

[spark240]

Did it have the best players? It clearly did, so it was indisputably "major league".

the bulk of the best, & best known players were playing in the NA.

And how exactly do we know that?

Isn't it conceivable that the NA, and early NL, players are remembered today (well, in some circles), and believed to have been the best of their time, because those organizations eventually yielded what we know as the major league system?

This isn't to say that the best teams in those organizations weren't the best teams around--that's another matter--but given how many fine players were still spending much or all of their careers in the official minor leagues, two generations after the NA, it seems pretty likely to me that many of the best individual talents of the 1870's didn't necessarily need to be playing in those leagues.

[TonyK]

And how exactly do we know that?

Isn't it conceivable that the NA, and early NL, players are remembered today (well, in some circles), and believed to have been the best of their time, because those organizations eventually yielded what we know as the major league system?

This isn't to say that the best teams in those organizations weren't the best teams around--that's another matter--but given how many fine players were still spending much or all of their careers in the official minor leagues, two generations after the NA, it seems pretty likely to me that many of the best individual talents of the 1870's didn't necessarily need to be playing in those leagues.

Suppose you are correct and many of the talented players were playing outside of the NA from 1871 to 1875. They had to play somewhere and play against decent opponents. Do you know of any other teams or players who might be considered NA caliber?

I used figures of 90% to 98% of NL players who probably came straight from the NA. I'm assuming a few teenagers were brought up to the 1876 NL directly from their town teams or independent teams. It would be a good research project to obtain the actual numbers to see if I was correct.

[jalbright]

Doing a quick look at the top seven teams of the 1875 NA (the ones around all year) and the 8 teams of the 1876 NL, the starters of the NA were basically the starters of the NL. Few starters didn't make it to the new league, but a fair number of subs seem to have moved. Maybe a half-dozen starters didn't cross over (and Cap Anson moved from bench to starting), and about 27-28 backups from those seven teams didn't. In terms of playing time, I wouldn't be surprised if 85-90% NA players in the first year of the NL was on the mark. How much you count the guys from the teams that didn't play all season will affect your results. FWIW, there were 65-70 starters (no more than 2 pitchers would qualify per team in those days) and about 101 players overall considered from baseball-reference.com.

[jalbright]

In addition to the above, I think the NA definitely passes the simplest test for a "major league"--was there enough of a concentration of top talent to say that the best of that league was definitely among the top talent of the day? This is a test I use for blackball leagues, which on average weren't as good as the majors, for a number of reasons. However, their best talent matched up well with the best of the majors. Where enough of the best of blackball concentrated, you can see who the best were in that group at that time, and those who could consistently be in the best are the guys we have to pay attention to. I think I could add the requirement that it be a real league (round robin play against each team several times) to give the leader board some credibility, but the NA does that, too.

[timmyj51]

Cheez! This discussion is STILL going on! Just two questions: (1) Did NA
have the best players? (2) Did NA have the strongest teams? End
of discussion. Let's start a new topic....like how many angels can
sit on the head of a pin. Be a lot more interesting than this worked-to-death
topic.

[TonyK]

Cheez! This discussion is STILL going on! Just two questions: (1) Did NA
have the best players? (2) Did NA have the strongest teams? End
of discussion. Let's start a new topic....like how many angels can
sit on the head of a pin. Be a lot more interesting than this worked-to-death
topic.

Los Angeles or Anaheim?

[spark240]

Suppose you are correct and many of the talented players were playing outside of the NA from 1871 to 1875. They had to play somewhere and play against decent opponents. Do you know of any other teams or players who might be considered NA caliber?

No, I don't.

I believe there were many talented players--who could have been "major leaguers"--playing outside the NL/AL even into the 20th century. Wouldn't it be strange to assume that the early days of the proto-major leagues were more effective at talent concentration than the majors of a succeeding generation? I don't know.

I used figures of 90% to 98% of NL players who probably came straight from the NA.

From a field-level perspective, the top teams basically continued operations from one season to the next. The NA was likely as good as the early NL--and vice-versa.

I think the NA definitely passes the simplest test for a "major league"--was there enough of a concentration of top talent to say that the best of that league was definitely among the top talent of the day? This is a test I use for blackball leagues, which on average weren't as good as the majors, for a number of reasons. However, their best talent matched up well with the best of the majors.

I'm assuming that the term "top talent" refers to individual players, not teams.

With the bolded qualifiers, that's a really generous application of "major league." By that definition, I think you'd have to look at not only the Players and Federal but also certain periods of leagues like the Eastern, International and Pacific Coast. That suggests that the quality of being a major league isn't just a matter of having some top talents (though talent is essential). It's a structural question as well.

All these leagues (including the blackball circuits) did include some great talent and are worthy of study and appreciation, whatever they're termed.

The NA and the early NL were good leagues, the most that could be said in their day.

A friend of mine said, "Actually, there was no need to differentiate between 'major" and "minor' until there was a minor league." That sounds rather good.

Right. So which structure do we look to as drawing the meaningful or lasting distinction, and therefore the inception of both categories? The earliest "classifications" of the National Agreement of the 1880s? The establishment of the NAPBL following the 1901 season?

[jalbright]

What I call the "simplest" test of a "major league" is mostly aimed at how one deals with the greatest players of that league. If there's enough of a concentration of top talent of the day in that league, those players who can consistently lead such leagues deserve to be treated as the best of their time and then evaluated with that in mind.

[TonyK]

Los Angeles or Anaheim?

Nobody got this?