May 4, 1871: The 1st Professional Baseball League's 1st Game

The 1871 Kekiongas

May 4, 1871: The first professional baseball league's first game is played. The world of sports will never be the same.

It is played in Fort Wayne, Indiana, at what was officially named the Kekionga Ball Grounds, but nicknamed the Grand Dutchess. "Kekionga," pronounced "Key-KEY-ong-gah," was the original Native name of the place where Fort Wayne was built, and it means "blackberry bush." (I know, I know: It sounds more like a euphemism for breasts.) It became the capital of the Miami tribe, whose name predates not only the small Ohio city with the name, but the much larger Florida city with it.

The Fort Wayne Kekiongas first organized in 1862, but split up due to the manpower drain of the American Civil War. They tried again in 1866. In 1869, they famously lost 86-8 to the 1st openly professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. In 1871, they joined the 1st professional baseball league, the National Association.

Another member of this 1st league was Forest City, based in Cleveland. And if you don't think of forests when you think of Cleveland, well, this was over a century and a half ago. Forest City were the opponents for this 1st game.

The attendance was estimated at 200. Bobby Mathews, all 5-foot-5 and 140 pounds of him, just 20 years old, started for Fort Wayne. He allowed 5 hits, 3 of them to Fort Wayne 3rd baseman James "Deacon" White. In the top of the 9th inning, with Fort Wayne leading 2-0, it was raining, and umpire John Boake decided that play could not continue. If Cleveland protested this decision, it was not recorded. It was the first disappointment in the history of Cleveland professional sports. It would set a pattern.

This game would be the highlight of the Kekiongas' history. Attendance was bad, there weren't enough gate receipts to pay players their agreed-to salaries, the good ones left, the team had a bad season, and then, at the end of it, their ballpark burned down. (Insurance fraud?) 

Mathews would have more luck. In a major league career that would last through the 1887 season, he won 297 games and lost 248. Had he won just 3 more games to make 300, he would probably be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He won a National League Pennant with the 1879 Providence Grays, and an American Association Pennant with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1883. (That team had no connection besides name to the Philadelphia Athletics franchise that was founded in the American League in 1901, and has been in Oakland since 1968.) He died in 1898, from the effects of syphilis. No antibiotics in those days.

Deacon White would have an even better career. He would win NA Pennants with the Boston Red Stockings in 1873, 1874 and 1875; NL Pennants with the Chicago White Stockings in 1876, the Boston Red Stockings in 1877 (leading the NL in batting average and RBIs), and the Detroit Wolverines in 1887. He finished his career in 1890, with a .312 batting average. He died in 1939, mere weeks after the opening of the Hall of Fame. He was finally elected to it in 2013.

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May 4, 1871 was a Thursday. There were no other games that day.