Baseball in St. Louis

The first reported baseball game played in St. Louis was on July 9, 1860, between two local clubs, the Cyclones and the Morning Stars, on a field located just west of the Fair Grounds, which is now Fairgrounds Park. In late 1870, the first national professional league was formed (playing its first season in 1871), and in 1875 two teams from St. Louis participated in the final season of this league, the National Association of Professional Baseball Players, marking the debut of St. Louis in the major leagues. On May 4, 1875, the St. Louis Red Stockings hosted the St. Louis Brown Stockings at their home field on Compton Avenue in the first professional league game in St. Louis history.

The final score was 15-9, with the Brown Stockings winning this inaugural matchup of St. Louis clubs in a professional league. The Red Stockings dropped out of the Association in July, while the Brown Stockings finished out the season in fourth place.

The following summer, the St. Louis Brown Stockings were a charter member of the newly formed National League, and you could say that St. Louis has never been the same since. In the almost 150 years since that first game, there have been six major league franchises playing in six different major leagues. These pages attempt to sort out the history of these clubs and present an overview of the story of baseball in St. Louis. It is a story not just about the St. Louis Cardinals, the only surviving franchise in St. Louis, but also the woeful Browns, the short-lived Terriers, and a cast of other teams, players and owners who have combined to make St. Louis one of the premier baseball towns in America.

These pages focus, for the most part, on baseball in the nineteenth century. The thirty year period from the rise of the first professional team in 1869 to the end of the century was a critical time for professional baseball. Clubs struggled to establish themselves as major league franchises, entire leagues rose and fell, and the owners and players engaged in battles over salaries, contracts, and profits (much as they still do today). These pages hopefully will give a sense of the greater conflicts in baseball during that time as well as describing the role St. Louis clubs played in the formative years of professional baseball.

There have been six franchises recognized as major league teams in St. Louis, starting with the Red Stockings and the Brown Stockings in the National Association in 1875. For each franchise, there is a brief history of that team and an all-time roster of players for that team. These pages do not cover the teams from the Negro Leagues, although I hope to expand to include these clubs in the future. I also hope to add photos of players, scorecards, and other items of interest. A few references are presented below; these can direct you to other sources of information on this topic and related ones.

The Major League franchises of St. Louis

St. Louis Red Stockings National Association (1875)	St. Louis Brown Stockings National Association (1875) National League (1876-1877)	St. Louis Maroons Union Association (1884) National League (1885-1886)
St. Louis Cardinals American Association (1882-1891) National League (1892-)	St. Louis Browns American League (1902-1953)	St. Louis Terriers Federal League (1914-1915)

There were five different professional major leagues during the period from 1871 to 1900. Here is a listing of the franchises for each of those leagues.
The National Association (1871-1875)
The National League (1876-1899)
The American Association (1882-1891)
The Union Association (1884)
The Players League (1890)

The National League, of course, continues to this day, and eight of its clubs have roots back into the 19th century.

The season-by-season standings for the American Association, from 1882-1891, along with a description of the franchise changes in the league during that period.

References

Most of the information in these pages came from the following sources:

"St. Louis' Big League Ballparks" by Joan M. Thomas (2004)
"Before They Were Cardinals" by Jon David Cash (2002)
"The Spirit of St. Louis: A history of the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns" by Peter Golenbock (2000)
"The Cardinals Encylcopedia" by Mike Eisenbath from the Series Baseball Encylcopedias of North America (1999)
"St. Louis Cardinals Encyclopedia" by Bob Broeg and Jerry Vickery (1999)
"The Great Encyclopedia of 19th Century Major League Baseball" by David Nemec (1997)
"The Beer and Whisky League" by David Nemec (1994)
"Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark" by Michael Gershman (1993)
"Green Cathedrals" by Philip Lowry (1992)
"The St. Louis Cardinals 100th Anniversary" by Rob Rains (1992)
"Lost Ballparks: A celebration of baseball's legendary fields" by Lawrence S. Ritter (1992)
"The St. Louis Cardinals: An Illustrated History" by Donald Honig (1991)
"Baseball: The early years" by Harold Seymour (1960, 1989)
"Redbirds: A Century of Cardinal's Baseball" by Bob Broeg (1981)

Most of the stats are from Total Baseball or the Sporting News Player Registers

Other good books on the Cardinals (by no means all of them!):
David Halberstam's "October 1964"
Bob Gibson and Lonnie Wheeler "Stranger to the Game"
Vince Staten's "Ol' Diz"

A good book on the Negro Leagues:
"Only the Ball Was White" by Robert Peterson