St. Louis Brown Stockings
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The St. Louis Brown Stockings were a professional baseball club based in St. Louis, Missouri from 1875 to 1881. Joining the National Association (NA) in the final season of that league, the Brown Stockings were the first team to represent St. Louis in a professional baseball association (Spink 1911). The original Brown Stockings, or Browns, helped found the National League in 1876 and completed the first two NL seasons, thus playing either two or three seasons in a major league depending on whether or not the National Association as a major league|NA is considered a major league]].
Like the White Stockings in Chicago (est. 1870), the Brown Stockings in St. Louis (est. 1875) adopted uniforms and acquired a nickname by descent with variation from the famous Red Stockings of Cincinnati (est. 1869), the first professional baseball team, which garnered much public interest due to an undefeated streak during a barnstorming tour in 1869-1870.
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[edit] Legacy
A few years later, a new baseball club in St. Louis reused the Brown Stockings colors and nickname. The new Brown Stockings, soon called Browns, were a charter member of the American Association in 1882 and they survive today as the National League St. Louis Cardinals.
The "brown" tradition in St. Louis was revived again in 1902 when the newly major American League established its own club in there. The NL club had abandoned its brown color for red two years earlier, and with it acquired the nickname Cardinals (with a famous "red" tradition well-established in Cincinnati). The AL St. Louis Browns challenged the NL Cardinals for the St. Louis market for more than fifty years before moving to Baltimore in 1954 and taking up the local "oriole" tradition.
[edit] Trivia
- A true professional team with players recruited nationally
- Played the full 1875 season (68 games)
- Joined the newly formed National League in 1876
- Played home games at Grand Avenue Grounds, later called Sportsman's Park
- Dropped out of National League following 1877 season, due to a gambling scandal
- Played as an amateur team during 1878-1881
- Folded when a new St. Louis Brown Stockings professional club was organized in 1882
[edit] Sources
- The Baseball Encyclopedia, MacMillan, various editions beginning in 1969
- Green Cathedrals, by Philip J. Lowry
- Ballparks of North America, by Michael Benson
- St. Louis' Big League Ballparks, by Joan M. Thomas
[edit] References
- Spink, Alfred H. ([1911] 2000). The National Game: Second Edition. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0-8093-2304-4. (The first edition was 1910. This is one of the first baseball histories. In "The Game in St. Louis" (p35-54), the founder of The Sporting News is covering baseball in his adopted city.)
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