February 2, 1876: The National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs is founded. At some point, "baseball" began to be widely spelled as one word instead of two, and the name was officially changed to "The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs."
That name officially remains. But, from the start, pretty much everybody interested in baseball has called it simply "The National League," or "The NL" for short. When the American League was founded in 1901, baseball fans started calling that "The Junior Circuit," and the older NL "The Senior Circuit."
The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NA) was founded in 1871, as baseball's 1st professional league. But it was loaded with problems. Scheduling was an issue. Gambling was an issue. Teams starting and folding, and even moving in mid-season, was an issue. And, following the Philadelphia Athletics winning the 1871 Pennant, the Boston Red Stockings, 4 of whom had been the mighty Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869-70, winning the next 4 Pennants, by ever-increasing margins, was an issue.
Then there was the Davy Force controversy. After the 1874 season, Force, a 25-year-old infielder, signed with both his 1874 team, the Chicago White Stockings, and the Athletics. It was relatively common that players signed two contracts. A league judiciary committee awarded Force to the White Stockings, because he had signed that contract first. That was the way it was usually done: Figure out who had signed the player first, and send him there, and that was that.
However, Charles Spering, president of the Athletics, became president of the NA, and he ruled that Force belonged to the Athletics. The reversal, a clear conflict of interest, contributed to the motivation to organize a new league led by William Hulbert, a Chicago-based coal magnate, and president of the Chicago White Stockings.
In 1875, the Red Stockings went 71-8, winning the Pennant by 15 games. And 6 teams, including the venerable Brooklyn Atlantics, who never quite made the adjustment to the professional game, dropped out of the NA before completing their schedule.
On October 24, an editorial in the Chicago Tribune called for the formation of an organization of major professional teams, with these members: Chicago‚ Cincinnati‚ Louisville‚ Philadelphia‚ New York‚ Boston‚ and Hartford: "Unless the present Professional Association leadership adopts rules to limit the number of teams allowed to participate in the Championship season‚ all clubs will go broke."
Most likely, this editorial was written by Hulbert. Although he was born in Burlington Flats, New York, just 16 miles from the eventual location of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, Hulbert lived most of his life in Chicago, and said, "I'd rather be a lamppost in Chicago than a millionaire in any other city."
Also on this day, in Chicago, he met with the Red Stockings' ace pitcher, Illinois native Al Spalding. Hulbert stressed to Spalding that his roots were in Illinois, so he should play for the Chicago club. He also stressed to Spalding that, under the current conditions, the NA is going to result in all teams going broke. Hulbert said there must be tighter control, that teams must stick to their schedules and not leave opponents in the lurch, and that gambling must be driven out of the game.
Spalding, already of a business mind, and about to found the sporting goods company that still bears his name, agreed on all counts, and signed with the White Stockings for the 1876 season. He was at the top of his game that season, going 47-12, but was already more interested in running the ballclub and the sporting goods company, and only appeared in 61 more games, only 27 at the time of his last game in 1878. Not until Sandy Koufax, nearly 90 years later, would so great a player quit so early in his career.
The following winter, on February 2, 1876, Hulbert gathered some other team owners at the Grand Central Hotel in New York, and founded the National League, with these teams, running from east to west: The Boston Red Stockings, the Hartford Dark Blues, the New York Mutuals, the Philadelphia Athletics, the Cincinnati Reds, the Louisville Grays, the Chicago White Stockings and the St. Louis Brown Stockings. The Cincinnati and Louisville franchises were new, while the others were admitted from the NA.
Late in that first season of 1876, the Mutuals and the Athletics fell behind in the standings, and refused to make their respective last Western roadtrips, preferring to play home games against local non-league competition, to recoup some of their financial losses, rather than travel extensively and incur more costs.
Hulbert reacted to the clubs' defiance by expelling them, an act which not only shocked baseball followers -- New York and Philadelphia were the two most populous cities in the country, and in the League -- but made it clear to the remaining clubs that League scheduling commitments, a cornerstone of competitive integrity, were not to be ignored.
Both literally and figuratively, Hulbert meant business, and the rest of the teams got the message: If he was willing to sacrifice New York and Philadelphia in the name of integrity, then they'd better toe the line.
Because of such strong leadership, the NL gained the reputation as being a big improvement over the NA. In his 1960 book Baseball, the Early Years, baseball historian Harold Seymour suggested that it wasn't so much a victory of leadership, or a victory of superior play, but a victory of public relations, comparing the NL's supporters to "friends of the new American Constitution of 1789 (who) constantly praised the work of the Founding Fathers and blackened the previous period when America was governed under the Articles of Confederation... The constant refrain was, 'The National League was organized as a necessity, to rescue the game from its slough of corruption and disgrace.'"
But, despite now being in by far the biggest city in the new League, Hulbert's White Stockings did not dominate it. They did win the 1st Pennant in 1876, but Boston took the next 2. The White Stockings would win 5 Pennants in 7 seasons from 1880 to 1886, but then didn't win again for another 20 years.
The NL's membership changed dramatically: Of the 8 teams that played the 1882 season, the start of which included Hulbert's death, from a heart attack at only 49 years old, only 2 are still in business today, only 1 in the same city, and it does not have the same name. Hulbert's White Stockings, founded in 1870, were owned by Spalding after Hulbert's death. Spalding sold them in 1902, and they became the Chicago Cubs in 1903. The Boston Red Stockings, founded in 1871, went through a few name changes, before settling in 1912 as the Boston Braves. They moved to Milwaukee in 1953, and to Atlanta in 1966.
But 1882 would see the foundation of the 1st league to seriously challenge the NL: The American Association. From this league would come teams that would later join the NL: The Cincinnati Reds, the Brooklyn Grays, the Pittsburgh Alleghenys and the St. Louis Brown Stockings.
The Reds were the AA's founding team, and, unlike the Braves, are not connected to baseball's 1st openly professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869 and 1870. The Grays went through some name changes before settling on "Dodgers" in 1911. They hired Wilbert Robinson as manager in 1914, and were known as the Brooklyn Robins, but most people still called them the Dodgers, and the old name was officially brought back after Robinson was fired in 1931. They moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season.
An underhanded transaction in 1890 led to the Pittsburgh team being nicknamed the Pirates, and they officially adopted that name for the 1891 season. The Brown Stockings, or Browns, became the Cardinals in 1900.
The 1883 season would see the NL's Troy Trojans move to New York, where they became the Gothams and, in 1885, the New York Giants, moving to San Francisco after the 1957 season; and the foundation of a new team, the Philadelphia Quakers, who were renamed the Phillies in 1890.
The AA challenged the NL from 1882 to 1891. The Union Association tried to be a 3rd major league, but lasted just 1 season, 1884. The Players' League challenge of 1890 hurt the NL, and crippled the AA, resulting in consolidation into one National League of 12 teams for 1892. But 4 NL teams were dropped after the 1899 season: The Baltimore Orioles, the Cleveland Spiders, the Louisville Colonels and the Washington Senators.
That gave the American League a chance, and it got underway in 1901. Over time, 7 different AL teams would use names, or variations thereon, formerly used by teams in the NL or the AA: The Baltimore Orioles, the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago White Sox, the Milwaukee Brewers, the Philadelphia Athletics, the St. Louis Browns (who later became a different Baltimore Orioles) and the Washington Senators.
Of the 8 original NL cities, only Hartford and Louisville have not had major league teams since 1900. Both are now considered too small for it, although Louisville has been one of the more successful cities in Class AAA, one level below the major leagues.
The National League now consists of:
* Eastern Division: Atlanta Braves (Boston 1871-1952, Milwaukee 1953-1965), Miami Marlins (Florida Marlins 1993-2011), New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Washington Nationals (Montreal Expos 1969-2004).
* Central Division: Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, Milwaukee Brewers (Seattle Pilots 1969, American League 1969-1997), Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals.
* Western Division: Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, Los Angeles Dodgers (Brooklyn 1883-1957), San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants (New York 1883-1957).
Pennants Won, as NL members only (UPDATE: I've added those of 2022, '23, '24 and '25):
1. Dodgers, 26: 1890, 1899, 1900, 1916, 1920, 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1988, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2024, 2025. Plus, in the American Association in 1889.
2. Giants, 23: 1888, 1889, 1904, 1905, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1917, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1933, 1936, 1937, 1951, 1954, 1962, 1989, 2002, 2010, 2012, 2014.
3. Cardinals, 19: 1926, 1928, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1946, 1964, 1967, 1968, 1982, 1985, 1987, 2004, 2006, 2011, 2013. Plus, in the AA in 1885, 1886, 1887 and 1888.
4. Braves, 18: 1877, 1878, 1883, 1891, 1892, 1893, 1897, 1898, 1914, 1948, 1957, 1958, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2021. Plus, in the National Association in 1872, 1873, 1874 and 1875.
5. Cubs, 17: 1876, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1885, 1886, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1910, 1918, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938, 1945, 2016.
6. Reds, 9: 1919, 1939, 1940, 1961, 1970, 1972, 1975, 1976, 1990. Plus, in the AA in 1882.
7. Pirates, 9: 1901, 1902, 1903, 1909, 1925, 1927, 1960, 1971, 1979.
8. Phillies, 8: 1915, 1950, 1980, 1983, 1993, 2008, 2009, 2022.
9. Mets, 5: 1969, 1973, 1986, 2000, 2015.
10. Diamondbacks, 2: 2001, 2023.
11. Marlins, 2: 1997, 2003.
12. Padres, 2: 1984, 1998.
13. Nationals, 1: 2019.
14. Rockies, 1: 2007.
15. Brewers, none: Won AL Pennant in 1982.
The Houston Astros started in 1962, and won 1 Pennant, in 2005, before moving to the AL in 2013.
The Grand Central Hotel was at 673 Broadway, at 3rd Street in Greenwich Village. It opened in 1870, and was advertised as the largest hotel in America. Crooked financier Jim Fisk was murdered there in 1872.
By August 3, 1973, it was a welfare hotel. On that date, part of the building collapsed, killing 4 people. New York University built a dormitory on the site. A plaque honoring the NL's founding is on the Broadway side.
*
February 2, 1876 was a Wednesday. There were no other professional sports in North America at the time. So there were no scores on this historic day.
