1.
National League
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Both leagues currently have 15 teams. The two league champions of 1903 arranged to compete against each other in the inaugural World Series, after the 1904 champions failed to reach a similar agreement, the two leagues formalized the World Series as an arrangement between the leagues. National League teams have won 48 of the 112 World Series contested from 1903 to 2016, the 2016 National League champions are the Chicago Cubs. By 1875, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players was dangerously weak, additionally, Hulbert had a problem—five of his star players were threatened with expulsion from the NAPBBP because Hulbert had signed them to his club using what were considered questionable means. Hulbert had a vested interest in creating his own league. After recruiting St. Louis privately, four western clubs met in Louisville, Kentucky, Boston Red Stockings, the dominant team in the N. A. Hartford Dark Blues from the N. A. Mutual of New York from the N. A. St. Louis Brown Stockings from the N. A, the only strong club from 1875 excluded in 1876 was a second one in Philadelphia, often called the White Stockings or Phillies. The first game in National League history was played on April 22,1876, at Philadelphias Jefferson Street Grounds, 25th & Jefferson, the new leagues authority was tested after the first season. The National League operated with six clubs during 1877 and 1878, over the next several years, various teams joined and left the struggling league. By 1880, six of the eight members had folded. The two remaining original NL franchises, Boston and Chicago, remain in operation today as the Atlanta Braves, in 1883 the New York Gothams and Philadelphia Phillies began National League play. Both teams remain in the NL today, the Phillies in their original city, the NL encountered its first strong rival organization when the American Association began play in 1882. The A. A. played in cities where the NL did not have teams, offered Sunday games and alcoholic beverages in locales where permitted, the National League and the American Association participated in a version of the World Series seven times during their ten-year coexistence. These contests were less organized than the modern Series, lasting as few as three games and as many as fifteen, with two Series ending in disputed ties, the NL won four times and the A. A. only once, in 1886. Starting with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1887, the National League began to raid the American Association for franchises to replace NL teams that folded and this undercut the stability of the A. A. Other new leagues that rose to compete with the National League were the Union Association, the Union Association was established in 1884 and folded after playing only one season, its league champion St. Louis Maroons joining the NL. The NL suffered many defections of star players to the Players League, the Brooklyn, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and New York franchises of the NL absorbed their Players League counterparts. The labor strife of 1890 hastened the downfall of the American Association, after the 1891 season, the A. A. disbanded and merged with the NL, which became known legally for the next decade as the National League and American Association
2.
Baker Bowl
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Baker Bowl is the best-known popular name of a baseball park that formerly stood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Its formal name, painted on its wall, was National League Park. It was also known as Philadelphia Park or Philadelphia Base Ball Grounds / Park. It was on a city block bounded by N. Broad St. W. Huntingdon St. N. 15th St. and W. Lehigh Avenue, the ballpark was initially built in 1887. It was constructed by Phillies owners AJ Reach and John Rogers, the ballpark cost $80,000 and had a capacity of 12,500. At that time the media praised it as state-of-the-art, in that dead-ball era, the outfield was enclosed by a relatively low wall all around. Center field was close, with the railroad tracks running behind it. Later, the tracks were lowered and the field was extended over top of them, bleachers were built in left field, and over time various extensions were added to the originally low right field wall, resulting in the famous 60-foot fence. The ballparks second incarnation opened in 1895 and it was notable for having the first cantilevered upper deck in a sports stadium, and was the first ballpark to use steel and brick for the majority of its construction. By comparison, the Green Monster at Fenway Park is 37 feet high and 310 feet away, the Baker wall was a rather difficult task to surmount. The wall was an amalgam of different materials and it was originally a relatively normal-height masonry structure. When it became clear that it was too soft a home run touch, the barrier was extended upward using more masonry, wood, and a metal pipe-and-wire screen. The masonry in the part of the wall was extremely rough. The clubhouse was located above and behind the field wall. No batter ever hit a ball over the clubhouse, but Rogers Hornsby once hit a ball through a window, the ballpark, shoehorned as it was into the Philadelphia city grid, acquired a number of nicknames over the years. Baker Bowl is the name, and is nearly always referred to by that name in histories of the Phillies. The prosaic Philadelphia Baseball Grounds or Philadelphia Baseball Park was the often used by sportswriters prior to the Baker era
3.
Philadelphia
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In 1682, William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia was one of the capitals in the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became an industrial center. It became a destination for African-Americans in the Great Migration. The areas many universities and colleges make Philadelphia a top international study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational, with a gross domestic product of $388 billion, Philadelphia ranks ninth among world cities and fourth in the nation. Philadelphia is the center of activity in Pennsylvania and is home to seven Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is growing, with a market of almost 81,900 commercial properties in 2016 including several prominent skyscrapers. The city is known for its arts, culture, and rich history, Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States. The 67 National Historic Landmarks in the city helped account for the $10 billion generated by tourism, Philadelphia is the only World Heritage City in the United States. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon, the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians and their territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people occasionally fought the Lenape, surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. The American Revolutionary War and United States independence pushed them further west, in the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the US state of Oklahoma, with communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario. The Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony, in 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and quickly spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their defeat of the English colony of Maryland
4.
Al Reach
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Born in London, Al Reach was a regular for the champion Eckford club of Brooklyn in the early 1860s before moving to the Philadelphia Athletics in 1865. When the National Association began, he helped win the first professional baseball pennant in 1871. Upon his retirement from playing in 1875, he helped found the Philadelphia Phillies franchise, Reach served as team president from 1883 to 1899. Later, similar to Al Spalding, Reach formed a sporting goods company, in fact, he sold his company to Spalding in 1889. Reach kept his interest in the Phillies franchise, selling out in 1899 to his longtime partner, Reach died at age 87 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and is interred at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference Al Reach at Find a Grave
5.
Jack Clements
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John J. Jack Clements was an American professional baseball player. He played as a catcher in Major League Baseball for 17 seasons, despite being left-handed, Clements caught 1,073 games, almost four times as many as any other left-handed player in major league history and was the last left-hander to catch on a regular basis. He is credited with being the first catcher to wear a chest protector, born in Philadelphia, Clements began his major league career in 1884 in the Union Association. He played as a catcher/outfielder for the Philadelphia Keystones until the team folded in August, Clements then went to the National League, signing with the Philadelphia Quakers to finish the year. Clements spent the next 13 seasons with the Quakers, and became the regular catcher in 1888. He also served as a player-manager during part of the 1890 season when manager Harry Wright suffered temporary blindness, during the 1890s, he established himself as one of the National Leagues top hitters, finishing among the top 4 in batting average on 3 occasions. Clements also hit for power, finishing second in the NL with 17 home runs in 1893, also in 1895, he finished with a.394 batting average, the highest single-season average by a catcher in major league history. After the 1897 season, Clements was traded to the St. Louis Browns and he played one season for the Browns, during which he became the first player to catch 1,000 games in his career. Before the 1899 season, Clements was assigned to the Cleveland Spiders, the move took place after Spiders owners Frank and Stanley Robison purchased the Browns and re-distributed players among the two franchises. Clements appeared in only 4 games for the Spiders before being released and he played his final Major League season in 1900, playing in 16 games for the Boston Beaneaters. At the time of his retirement, he held the single-season, both of his records were broken by Gabby Hartnett in the 1920s, the single-season record fell in 1925, while the career record fell in 1928. Clements is also the only 19th-century baseball player of prominence to retire with more runs than triples. He died of an illness in Norristown, Pennsylvania, in 1941 and he is buried at Arlington Cemetery in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. In his Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked Clements as the 58th greatest catcher in baseball history, list of Major League Baseball player–managers Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or Baseball-Reference Jack Clements at Find a Grave
6.
Bob Allen (shortstop)
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Robert Gilman Allen was an American shortstop for the Philadelphia Phillies, the Boston Beaneaters and the Cincinnati Reds, as well as a manager for two brief stints with the Phillies and Reds. He was born in Marion, Ohio, and as a youth, Allen made his NL debut in 1890 with the Phillies, and in his day was considered a power hitter, hitting a career high eight home runs in 1893. When Allens contract was up, he took a hiatus from baseball. His playing time diminished and he walked away from baseball again after the 1897 season, in 1900, he was hired as manager of the Reds, occasionally inserting himself into the game as a shortstop. He finished 62–77 and in seventh place and he was fired after one season at the helm. He died in Little Rock, Arkansas at age 75, list of Major League Baseball player–managers Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Baseball-Reference
