National Association of Professional Base Ball Players

In 1869, the previously amateur National Association of Base Ball Players, in response to concerns that some teams were paying players, established a professional category. The Cincinnati Red Stockings were the first team to declare their intention to become fully professional. Other teams quickly followed suit. By 1871, several clubs, wanting to separate fully from the amateur association, broke away to found the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players. (The remaining amateur clubs founded the National Association of Amateur Base Ball Players, which only lasted two years). In 1876, wanting an even stronger central organization, six clubs from the NA and two independents established the National League: Boston Red Stockings, Hartford, Mutual, Athletic, Chicago, and the St. Louis Brown Stockings from the NA plus independent clubs Louisville and Cincinnati.

The NA was the first professional baseball league. Its status as a major league is in dispute. Major League Baseball and the Baseball Hall of Fame do not recognize it as a major league, but the NA comprised most of the professional clubs and the highest caliber of play then in existence. Its players, managers, and umpires are included among the "major leaguers" who define the scope of many encyclopedias and many databases developed by the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) or Retrosheet.

Several factors limited the lifespan of the National Association including dominance by a single team (Boston) for most of the league's existence, instability of franchises as several were placed in cities too small to financially support professional baseball, lack of central authority, and suspicions of the influence of gamblers.

Professional baseball clubs in the 19th century were often known by what is now regarded as a "nickname", although it was actually the club's name. This was a practice carried over from the amateur days. The singular form of a "nickname" was often the team name itself, with its base city "understood" and was so listed in the standings; for example the Atlantic Base Ball Club, which was located in Brooklyn. Rather than "Brooklyn Atlantics", the team was simply called "Atlantic", or "Atlantic of Brooklyn" if deemed necessary by the writer. Another common practice was to refer to the team in the plural, hence the "Bostons" the "Chicagos" or the "Mutuals". Frequently sportswriters would apply a creative pseudonym to call the team by in newspaper articles, often using one with something to do with the team colors, such as the Red Stockings or Red Caps (Boston), White Stockings (Chicago), Green Stockings (Mutual of New York), and Canaries (the yellow-uniformed Lord Baltimore).

This practice of using the singular form of the "nickname" as the team name faded with time, although as recently as the early 1900s the team generally known as "Philadelphia Athletics" was shown in the American League standings as the traditional way of "Athletic". That team sported an old-English "A" on its jerseys, as had its nominative predecessors.

Later, the Encyclopedia of Baseball attempted to retrofit the names into a modern context. In the following list, the bold names are the names most often used by contemporary newspapers in league standings, and the linked names after them are those typically ascribed to the teams now, using the Encyclopedia of Baseball standard.[1]

• Boston – Boston Red Stockings (1871–1875)
• Chicago – Chicago White Stockings (1871, 1874–1875)
• Forest City – Cleveland Forest Citys (1871–1872)
• Kekionga – Fort Wayne Kekiongas (1871)
• Mutual – New York Mutuals (1871–1875)
• Athletic – Philadelphia Athletics (1871–1875)
• Forest City – Rockford Forest Citys (1871) (A second league club with the same name as the Cleveland entry)
• Troy or Union – Troy Haymakers (1871–1872)
• Olympic – Washington Olympics (1871–1872; 1875)
• Atlantic – Brooklyn Atlantics (1872–1875)
• Eckford – Brooklyn Eckfords (1872)
• Lord Baltimore – Baltimore Canaries (1872–1874)
• Mansfield – Middletown Mansfields (1872)
• National – Washington Nationals (1872; 1875) Washington Blue Legs (1873)
• Maryland – Baltimore Marylands (1873) (played at Madison Avenue Grounds)
• Philadelphia – Philadelphia White Stockings (1873–1875) (also sometimes called "Pearls" or "Phillies")
• Resolute – Elizabeth Resolutes (1873)
• Hartford – Hartford Dark Blues (1874–1875)
• Centennial – Philadelphia Centennials (1875)
• Elm City – New Haven Elm Citys (1875)
• St. Louis – St. Louis Brown Stockings (1875)
• St. Louis Reds – St. Louis Red Stockings (1875) (this club's jerseys featured an actual image of a red stocking, making this an "official" name).
• Western – Keokuk Westerns (1875)

Season	Champion	Record (win pct.)	Manager	Ref.
1871	Philadelphia Athletics	21–7 (.750)	Dick McBride	[2]
1872	Boston Red Stockings	39–8–1 (.830)	Harry Wright	[3]
1873	Boston Red Stockings	43–16–1 (.729)		[4]
1874	Boston Red Stockings	52–18–1 (.743)		[5]
1875	Boston Red Stockings	71–8–3 (.899)		[6]

Individual statistics from tie games count towards players' career totals, but tie games are excluded when computing winning percentage and games behind.

• James W. Kerns 1871
• Robert V. Ferguson 1872–1875

Eight players that played in the Association have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, with George Wright being the first NA inductee in 1937 and Deacon White being the most recent in 2013.

• David Pietrusza Major Leagues: The Formation, Sometimes Absorption and Mostly Inevitable Demise of 18 Professional Baseball Organizations, 1871 to Present Jefferson (NC): McFarland & Company, 1991. ISBN 0-89950-590-2
• William J. Ryczek Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of Baseball's National Association Jefferson (NC): McFarland & Company, 1999. ISBN 978-0-9673718-0-1

• "First National Association Game". Retrosheet. Retrieved July 28, 2020.