The St. Louis Brown Stockings joined the newly formed National League as a charter member in 1876. Although both St. Louis and Hartford finished the season 6 games behind the pennant-winning Chicago White Stockings, the Brown Stockings were officially the third place team as, in 1877, the standings were determined by number of wins, not games behind. As Hartford had 47 wins and St. Louis only had 45, Hartford finished in second and St. Louis finished in third. Nonetheless, St. Louis had won its season series against Chicago 6 games to 4 – winning all of its season series against all National League opponents. Due to the politics between the teams at the time, an unofficial five-game post-season was created between those two teams to determine the "Championship of the West." St. Louis won the series 4 games to 1. According to Stathead, the 1876 Brown Stockings hold the lowest team ERA in MLB history (1.22).

The St. Louis Brown Stockings were a professional baseball club based in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1875 to 1877, which competed on the cusps of the existences of two all-professional leagues—the National Association (NA) and the National League (NL). The team is the forerunner of, but not directly connected with, the current St. Louis Cardinals Major League Baseball team. After the conclusion of the 1877 season, a game-fixing scandal involving two players the Brown Stockings had acquired led the team to resign its membership in the NL. The club then declared bankruptcy and folded.