1.
Cap Anson
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Adrian Constantine Anson, nicknamed Cap and Pop, was a Major League Baseball first baseman. Including his time in the National Association, he played a record 27 consecutive seasons, Anson was regarded as one of the greatest players of his era and one of the first superstars of the game. Anson spent most of his career with the Chicago Cubs franchise, serving as the manager, first baseman and, later in his tenure. He led the team to five National League pennants in the 1880s, Anson was one of baseballs first great hitters, and probably the first to tally over 3,000 career hits. His contemporary influence and prestige are regarded by historians as playing a role in establishing the racial segregation in professional baseball that persisted until the late 1940s. On several occasions, Anson refused to take the field when the roster included black players. The biography states, But at the time, his argumentative nature could be readily discounted by those around him. So, the notion that he had coattails in persuading players, after retiring as a player and leaving the Colts, Anson briefly managed the New York Giants. He ran several enterprises in Chicago, including opening a billiards and bowling hall, Anson also toured extensively on the vaudeville circuit, performing monologues and songs. Many of his business ventures failed, as a result, Anson lost his ownership stake in the Colts and filed for bankruptcy. Anson was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939, Anson was born in Marshalltown, Iowa. Beginning in 1866, he spent two years at the high-school age boarding school of the University of Notre Dame after being sent there by his father in hopes of curtailing his mischievousness and his time away did little to discipline him. Soon after he returned home, his father sent him to the University of Iowa and he was a large and powerful man, standing 62 tall and weighing about 220 pounds. After being traded to Philadelphia Athletics, in 1872 and 1873, Anson finished in the NAs top five in batting, on-base percentage and he led the NA in OBP in 1872. Anson, who had engaged to a Philadelphia native in the meantime, had second thoughts about going west. The White Stockings won the first league title, but fell off the pace the following two seasons, during this time, Anson was a solid hitter, but not quite a superstar. Both his fortunes and those of his team would change after Anson was named captain-manager of the club in 1879 and his new role led to the nickname Cap, though newspapers typically called him by the more formal Captain Anson or Capt. Anson. With Anson pacing the way, the White Stockings won five pennants between 1880 and 1886
2.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
3.
Chicago Cubs
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The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago, Illinois. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball as a club of the National League Central division. The team plays its games at Wrigley Field, located on the citys North Side. The Cubs are one of two league teams in Chicago, the other, the Chicago White Sox, is a member of the American League Central division. The Cubs, first known as the White Stockings, was a member of the NL in 1876. The Cubs have appeared in a total of eleven World Series, the 1906 Cubs won 116 games, finishing 116–36 and posting a modern-era record winning percentage of.763, before losing the World Series to the Chicago White Sox by four games to two. The Cubs won back-to-back World Series championships in 1907 and 1908, the 108-year drought was also the longest such occurrence in all major North American sports. Since the start of play in 1969, the Cubs have appeared in the postseason eight times through the 2016 season. The Cubs are known as the North Siders, a reference to the location of Wrigley Field within the city of Chicago, there is a divisional rivalry with the St. Louis Cardinals and also a newer rivalry with the Milwaukee Brewers. There is also a rivalry with the White Sox. The Cubs began play in 1876 as the Chicago White Stockings, joining the National League as a charter member. Owner William Hulbert signed multiple star players, such as pitcher Albert Spalding and infielders Ross Barnes, Deacon White, the White Stockings played their home games at West Side Grounds and quickly established themselves as one of the new leagues top teams. Spalding won forty-seven games and Barnes led the league in hitting at.429 as Chicago won the first ever National League pennant, which at the time was the games top prize. After back-to-back pennants in 1880 and 1881, Hulbert died, and Spalding, the White Stockings, with Anson acting as player-manager, captured their third consecutive pennant in 1882, and Anson established himself as the games first true superstar. In 1885 and 86, after winning N. L. pennants, both seasons resulted in match ups with the St. Louis Brown Stockings, with the clubs tying in 1885 and with St. Louis winning in 1886. This was the genesis of what would become one of the greatest rivalries in sports. In all, the Anson-led Chicago Base Ball Club won six National League pennants between 1876 and 1886. As a result, Chicagos club nickname transitioned, and by 1890 they had known as the Chicago Colts, or sometimes Ansons Colts
4.
Major League Baseball
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Major League Baseball is a professional baseball organization, the oldest of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. A total of 30 teams now play in the National League and American League, the NL and AL operated as separate legal entities from 1876 and 1901 respectively. After cooperating but remaining legally separate entities since 1903, the merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball in 2000. The organization also oversees Minor League Baseball, which comprises about 240 teams affiliated with the Major League clubs, with the World Baseball Softball Confederation, MLB manages the international World Baseball Classic tournament. Baseballs first professional team was founded in Cincinnati in 1869,30 years after Abner Doubleday supposedly invented the game of baseball, the first few decades of professional baseball were characterized by rivalries between leagues and by players who often jumped from one team or league to another. The period before 1920 in baseball was known as the dead-ball era, Baseball survived a conspiracy to fix the 1919 World Series, which came to be known as the Black Sox Scandal. The sport rose in popularity in the 1920s, and survived potential downturns during the Great Depression, shortly after the war, baseballs color barrier was broken by Jackie Robinson. The 1950s and 1960s were a time of expansion for the AL and NL, then new stadiums, Home runs dominated the game during the 1990s, and media reports began to discuss the use of anabolic steroids among Major League players in the mid-2000s. In 2006, an investigation produced the Mitchell Report, which implicated many players in the use of performance-enhancing substances, today, MLB is composed of thirty teams, twenty-nine in the United States and one in Canada. Baseball broadcasts are aired on television, radio, and the Internet throughout North America, MLB has the highest season attendance of any sports league in the world with more than 73 million spectators in 2015. MLB is governed by the Major League Baseball Constitution and this document has undergone several incarnations since 1875, with the most recent revisions being made in 2012. Under the direction of the Commissioner of Baseball, MLB hires and maintains the sports umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, MLB maintains a unique, controlling relationship over the sport, including most aspects of Minor League Baseball. This ruling has been weakened only slightly in subsequent years, the weakened ruling granted more stability to the owners of teams and has resulted in values increasing at double-digit rates. There were several challenges to MLBs primacy in the sport between the 1870s and the Federal League in 1916, the last attempt at a new league was the aborted Continental League in 1960. The chief executive of MLB is the commissioner, Rob Manfred, the chief operating officer is Tony Petitti. There are five other executives, president, chief officer, chief legal officer, chief financial officer. The multimedia branch of MLB, which is based in Manhattan, is MLB Advanced Media and this branch oversees MLB. com and each of the 30 teams websites. Its charter states that MLB Advanced Media holds editorial independence from the league, MLB Productions is a similarly structured wing of the league, focusing on video and traditional broadcast media
5.
Baseball
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Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each, who take turns batting and fielding. A run is scored when a player advances around the bases, Players on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to prevent runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the team who reaches a base safely can later attempt to advance to subsequent bases during teammates turns batting. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the team records three outs. One turn batting for both teams, beginning with the team, constitutes an inning. A game is composed of nine innings, and the team with the number of runs at the end of the game wins. Baseball has no clock, although almost all games end in the ninth inning. Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century and this game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. By the late 19th century, baseball was widely recognized as the sport of the United States. Baseball is now popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, in the United States and Canada, professional Major League Baseball teams are divided into the National League and American League, each with three divisions, East, West, and Central. The major league champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series, the top level of play is similarly split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the West League and East League. The evolution of baseball from older bat-and-ball games is difficult to trace with precision, a French manuscript from 1344 contains an illustration of clerics playing a game, possibly la soule, with similarities to baseball. Other old French games such as thèque, la balle au bâton, consensus once held that todays baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, popular in Great Britain and Ireland. Baseball Before We Knew It, A Search for the Roots of the Game, by David Block, suggests that the game originated in England, recently uncovered historical evidence supports this position. Block argues that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of other. It has long believed that cricket also descended from such games. The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, David Block discovered that the first recorded game of Bass-Ball took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featured the Prince of Wales as a player. William Bray, an English lawyer, recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford and this early form of the game was apparently brought to Canada by English immigrants
6.
Illinois
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Illinois is a state in the midwestern region of the United States, achieving statehood in 1818. It is the 6th most populous state and 25th largest state in terms of land area, the word Illinois comes from a French rendering of a native Algonquin word. For decades, OHare International Airport has been ranked as one of the worlds busiest airports, Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics. With the War of 1812 Illinois growth slowed as both Native Americans and Canadian forces often raided the American Frontier, mineral finds and timber stands also had spurred immigration—by the 1810s, the Eastern U. S. Railroads arose and matured in the 1840s, and soon carried immigrants to new homes in Illinois, as well as being a resource to ship their commodity crops out to markets. Railroads freed most of the land of Illinois and other states from the tyranny of water transport. By 1900, the growth of jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted a new group of immigrants. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars, the Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans in Chicago, who created the citys famous jazz and blues cultures. Three U. S. presidents have been elected while living in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, additionally, Ronald Reagan, whose political career was based in California, was the only U. S. president born and raised in Illinois. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official slogan, Land of Lincoln. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is located in the capital of Springfield. Illinois is the spelling for the early French Catholic missionaries and explorers name for the Illinois Native Americans. American scholars previously thought the name Illinois meant man or men in the Miami-Illinois language and this etymology is not supported by the Illinois language, as the word for man is ireniwa and plural men is ireniwaki. The name Illiniwek has also said to mean tribe of superior men. The name Illinois derives from the Miami-Illinois verb irenwe·wa he speaks the regular way and this was taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the Ottawa dialect, and modified into ilinwe·. The French borrowed these forms, changing the ending to spell it as -ois. The current spelling form, Illinois, began to appear in the early 1670s, the Illinois name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was Inoka, of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms. American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, the Koster Site has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation
7.
Baseball park
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A baseball park, also known as a ballpark or diamond, is a venue where baseball is played. A baseball park consists of the field and the surrounding spectator seating. While the diamond and the areas denoted by white painted lines adhere to rules, guidelines for the rest of the field are flexible. The term ballpark sometimes refers either to the structure, or sometimes to just the playing field. A home run where the player makes it around the bases, sometimes a home run over the fence is called out of the ballpark, but that phrase more often means a home run that clears the stands and lands outside the building. The playing field is most often called the ballfield, though the term is used interchangeably with ballpark when referring to a small local or youth league facility. A baseball field can be referred to as a diamond, the infield is a rigidly structured diamond of dirt containing the three bases, home plate, and the pitchers mound. The space between the bases and home is normally a grass surface, save for the mound in the center. Some ballparks, like Torontos Rogers Centre, have grass or artificial turf between the bases, and dirt only around the bases and pitchers mound, others, such as Koshien Stadium in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, have an entirely dirt infield. Two white lines run out from the plate area, aligned with first. These are the lines or base lines, usually differentiated by referring to them as the first base line. If a ball hit by the lands outside of the space between these two lines, or rolls out of this space before reaching first or third base, the ball is foul. If it lands between or on the lines, it is fair, at the end of the lines are two foul poles, which help the umpires judge whether a ball is fair or foul. These foul poles are actually in fair territory, so a ball hits them on the fly is a home run. On either side of plate are the two batters boxes This is where the batter stands when at bat. Behind home is the box, where the catcher and the home plate umpire stand. Next to first and third base are two boxes, where the first and third base coaches guide the baserunners, generally with gestures or shouts. As the baserunner faces away from the outfield when running from second base to third, they see where the ball is
8.
1906 World Series
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The White Sox, known as the Hitless Wonders after finishing with the worst team batting average in the American League, beat the Cubs in six games for one of the greatest upsets in Series history. The teams split the first four games, then the Hitless Wonders exploded for 26 hits in the last two games. True to their nickname, the White Sox hit only.198 as a team in winning the series, in Game 3, Ed Walsh struck out 12 Cubs, breaking the previous record of 11 set by Bill Dinneen in 1903. The 1906 Series was the first to be contested between two teams from the same city and it remains the only World Series contested between the two Chicago teams, and one of only two Series played outside New York City that featured two teams from the same city. Both were perfect through three innings, the Cubs put a runner on second in the bottom of the fourth, but couldnt score. In the top of the fifth, George Rohe tripled to lead off, the Sox scored a second run in the top of the sixth. Altrock walked, and was sacrificed to second base by Ed Noodles Hahn, fielder Jones then singled to center but Altrock was thrown out at the plate, Jones taking second on the throw home. He took third on Cub catcher Johnny Klings passed ball, the Cubs struck back in their half of the sixth. Kling walked and Brown singled with nobody out and he pitched beautifully for the rest of the game, allowing only one more Cub to reach second, retaining the 2–1 lead for a Game 1 Sox win. Wednesday, October 10,1906, at South Side Park in Chicago, after matching 1–2–3 first innings, things started to fall apart for White. After cleanup-hitting first baseman Frank Chance led off the top of the second with a strikeout, third baseman Harry Steinfeldt singled to left and shortstop Joe Tinker beat out a bunt. Cub second baseman Johnny Evers would then reach on an error by Sox second sacker Frank Isbell, scoring Steinfeldt for an unearned run and moving Tinker and Evers to second. Catcher Johnny Kling was then walked to load the bases and bring up the pitcher. Reulbach squeeze-bunted Tinker home for a run, moving Evers to third. The Cubs added an unearned run in the third, ending Doc Whites day on the mound. The Sox got on the board in the bottom of the fifth with a run, thanks to a wild pitch. The Cubs would score three runs, all earned, in the sixth and eighth to take Game 2 7–1. Reulbach wound up tossing a one-hitter, third baseman George Rohe cracked a two-out, bases-loaded triple to left in the top of the sixth off Jack Pfiester for the only runs of the game
9.
Baseball's Sad Lexicon
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Baseballs Sad Lexicon, also known as Tinker to Evers to Chance after its refrain, is a 1910 baseball poem by Franklin Pierce Adams. Tinker, Evers, and Chance began playing together with the Cubs in 1902, the Cubs won the National League pennant four times from 1906 and 1910, often defeating the Giants en route to the World Series. The poem was first published in the New York Evening Mail on July 12,1910, popular among sportswriters, numerous additional verses were written. The poem gave Tinker, Evers, and Chance increased popularity and it has been credited with their elections to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. Frank Chance joined the Chicago Cubs in 1898 as a catcher, backing up Tim Donahue. Frank Selee, the Cubs manager, decided that Chance would be suited as a first baseman. Chance at first opposed the move and even threatened to quit, joe Tinker was a third baseman in minor league baseball, but in 1902 made the Cubs as a shortstop, replacing Barry McCormick. Johnny Evers made his league debut with the Cubs on September 1 at shortstop. Three days later, Selee returned Tinker to shortstop and assigned Evers to second base to back up Bobby Lowe, Lowe suffered a knee injury late in the 1902 season, providing Evers with more playing time. Tinker, Evers, and Chance first appeared in a game together on September 13,1902 and they turned their first double play on September 15,1902. Lowes injury did not properly heal during the offseason, making Evers the new permanent second baseman for the Cubs in 1903, Chance succeeded Selee as manager during the 1905 season when Selee became ill. The Cubs, led by Tinker, Evers, and Chance, won the National League pennant in 1906,1907,1908, in 1908, the Cubs clinched the pennant after defeating the Giants in part due to Merkles Boner. In the Merkle game, Tinker hit a run off Christy Mathewson. In the replay of the Merkle game, Tinker hit a triple off Mathewson that started the rally that gave the Cubs the victory, from 1906 to 1910, the Cubs turned 491 double plays, the third-most in the NL during that time. According to Bill James formula, expected double plays, the Cubs led the NL with 50 more double plays than expected during those five seasons. From 1906 through 1910, the Tinker, to Evers, to Chance double play happened 54 times in 770 games played, in 1906, the trio committed 194 errors, though this was in part due to poor field conditions and scorers. Franklin Pierce Adams wrote a column for the New York Evening Mail. Adams hoped to work to attend a Giants game
10.
Bicycle
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A bicycle, often called a bike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A bicycle rider is called a cyclist, or bicyclist, Bicycles were introduced in the 19th century in Europe and as of 2003, more than 1 billion have been produced worldwide, twice as many as the number of automobiles that have been produced. They are the means of transportation in many regions. They also provide a form of recreation, and have been adapted for use as childrens toys, general fitness, military and police applications, courier services. The basic shape and configuration of an upright or safety bicycle, has changed little since the first chain-driven model was developed around 1885. But many details have been improved, especially since the advent of modern materials and these have allowed for a proliferation of specialized designs for many types of cycling. The bicycles invention has had an effect on society, both in terms of culture and of advancing modern industrial methods. The word bicycle first appeared in English print in The Daily News in 1868, to describe Bysicles and trysicles on the Champs Elysées, the word was first used in 1847 in a French publication to describe an unidentified two-wheeled vehicle, possibly a carriage. The design of the bicycle was an advance on the velocipede, Other words for bicycle include bike, pushbike, pedal cycle, or cycle. In Unicode, the point for bicycle is 0x1F6B2. The entity 🚲, in HTML produces
11.
Bike boom
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The term bike boom or bicycle craze refers to any of several specific historic periods marked by increased bicycle enthusiasm, popularity, and sales. Prominent examples include 1819 and 1868, as well as the decades of the 1890s and 1970s — the latter especially in North America and 2010s in the United Kingdom. The first period which may be called a bicycle craze refers to a precursor of the bicycle which was pushed along by the feet on the ground as in walking. But none of these achieved much popularity, in the early 1860s the first true bicycle was created in Paris, France, by attaching rotary cranks and pedals to the front wheel hub of a dandy-horse. They began the first mass-production of bicycles in 1868, as the first real bicycle craze had begun the year before, reaching full force all over Europe, but exactly as with the dandy-horse, pedestrians complained about them, and the craze again faded quickly. Again, England was the place where the concept remained popular during the early 1870s. But the design changed drastically, with the front wheel becoming larger and larger, front-wheel sizes quickly grew to as much as 5 feet, and the bicycles were considered by the general public to be quite dangerous. In addition, they were expensive, and thus riders were mostly young men who formed an elite brotherhood. However, bicycle races were staged and well-attended by the public, albert Pope purchased Lallements original patent and created his Columbia bicycle in the U. S. in 1878, and went on to manufacture thousands of bicycles. Experiments with chain-drive had been attempted in 1869 and 1879, very quickly, the penny-farthing passed out of fashion, and multitudes of people all over the world began riding the safety. Coney Island wanted one, and the Worlds Columbian Exposition in Chicago featured one, several others were built for amusement in Atlantic City, Ocean City and Gloucester City, NJ. In the year 1896, there was simultaneously an increase in bicycle popularity, bicycles were one of the few areas of the economy where sales were growing, people were buying bicycles whether they could afford them or not. This attracted hundreds of manufacturers into the bicycle business and this increase in production resulted in a downward spiral of market saturation, over-supply and intense price competition. Many bicycle manufacturers, faced with excess inventory and prices too low to make a profit, several dozen bicycle companies consolidated into the American Bicycle Company in 1899. Seven million bicycles were sold in the U. S. in 1970, of those, 5½ million were childrens bikes,1.2 million were coaster brake, balloon-tired adult bicycles, and only 200,000 were lightweight 3-speed or derailleur-equipped bikes. Time magazine reported in 1971 that for the first time since the 1890s, the boom received a kick start in the mid 60s with the advent of the Schwinn Sting-Ray and other wheelie bikes. Sales reached 4 million units per year for the first time, at the height of the boom, in 1972,1973, and 1974, more bicycles than automobiles were sold in the U. S. Additional factors contributing to the U. S, the United Kingdom experienced a mountain bike boom during the 1990s
12.
St. Louis Cardinals
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The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis, Missouri. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball as a club of the National League Central division. Busch Stadium has been their home ballpark since 2006, with origins as one of the early professional baseball clubs in St. Upon the discontinuation of the AA, St. Louis joined the NL in 1892, at time, they were called the Browns. One of the most successful franchises in history, the Cardinals have won 11 World Series championships. Their 19 National League pennants rank third in NL history, in addition, St. Louis has won 13 division titles in the East and Central divisions. While still in the AA, St. Louis won four league championships, the Cardinals have won 105 or more games in four different seasons and won 100 or more a total of nine times. Cardinals players have won 20 league MVPs, four batting Triple Crowns, and three Cy Young Awards. Baseball Hall of Fame inductees include Lou Brock, Dizzy Dean, Bob Gibson, Whitey Herzog, Rogers Hornsby, Joe Medwick, Stan Musial, Branch Rickey, Red Schoendienst, Ozzie Smith, and Bruce Sutter. In 2016, Forbes valued the Cardinals at $1.6 billion, making them the 7th-most valuable franchise in MLB, their revenue the year was $300 million. Since their purchase in 1995, owner William DeWitt, Jr. s investment group has seen enormous growth from the $147 million purchase price, John Mozeliak is the general manager and Mike Matheny is the manager. Professional baseball began in St. Louis with the inception of the Brown Stockings in the National Association in 1875, the NA folded following that season, and the next season, St. Louis joined the National League as a charter member, finishing in third place at 45-19. George Bradley hurled the first no-hitter in Major League history, the NL expelled St. Louis from the league after 1877 due to a game-fixing scandal and the team went bankrupt. Without a league, they continued play as a barnstorming team through 1881. For the 1882 season, Chris von der Ahe purchased the team, reorganized it, and made it a member of the American Association. 1882 is generally considered to be the first year existence of the St. Louis Cardinals, the next season, St. Louis shortened their name to the Browns. Soon thereafter they became the dominant team in the AA, as manager Charlie Comiskey guided St. Louis to four pennants in a row from 1885 to 1888. Pitcher and outfielder Bob Caruthers led the league in ERA and wins in 1885 and he also led the AA in OBP and OPS in 1886 and finished fourth in batting average in 1886 and fifth in 1887
