St. Louis Red Stockings

The Red Stockings were an ametuer club organized in 1860s by Thomas McNeary. In 1875, they joined the National Association as a professional club in response to the formation of the St. Louis Brown Stockings. The Brown Stockings were a club of imported professionals signed during the off-season to play in the National Association. It lacked any local players, so club owner Thomas McNeary entered his club in the league, feeling he could draw crowds for the home players. They only played 19 games before dropping out of the league. The club's record for its brief tenure was 4 wins and 15 losses. Despite the abysmal performance, they placed 10th out of the 13 teams that competed in what proved to be the final season for the National Association. The Association collapsed that winter after the strongest teams pulled out and organized the National League.

Stats for the 1875 Red Stockings

The Red Stockings played their games at Compton Park (also known as Reds' Park) located where Compton crossed the Missouri-Pacific railway. The first base line ran along Compton Avenue, while the third base line ran along the train tracks. The site is currentlt the location for the repair facilities for Metrolink.

After the club dropped out of the National Association, it continued to play games against other professional and ametuer clubs. In November of 1876, the Red Stockings were instrumental in organizing the International Association of Professional Base Ball Players, which was an amalgamtion of ametuer and professional clubs like the National Association before it. The International Association lined up 13 clubs for the 1877 season, with 10 more joining during the season. The National League responded to the threat to its growing power by establishing the League Alliance, an organization of clubs which were affiliated with the National League, and which agreed to abide by the League's restrictions on player raiding and other matters, but which were not full members. This action effectively removed the threat the IA represented to the National League's growing power; many of the IA clubs also entered into the League Alliance, including the Red Stockings (or Reds, as they were now called), who were the Alliance champions for its inaugural season. Over the next few years the Association gradually faded away, and it ceased to exist after the 1880 season. The League Alliance lasted through the 1883 season before it was abolished in the wake of the National Agreement.

In 1879, remnents of the two St. Louis clubs, the Brown Stockings and the Reds, merged, and in 1880 the Sportsman's Park and Club Association was formed. Two of the principle figures involved in this reorganization were Al Spink and Chris Von der Ahe. Von der Ahe owned a saloon and boardinghouse near the Grand Avenue park where the new club would play its games, and he figured baseball fans would be good patrons for his business. Von der Ahe became a major figure in the formation of a new major league, the American Association, which first took to the field in the 1882 season. Al Spink and his brother Charles founded the Sporting News in 1886. The St. Louis Browns, Von der Ahe's club became the dominent team in the AA in the 1880's and ultimately became the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League.