1880 Major League Baseball season

This article is about the 1880 Major League Baseball season only. For information on all of baseball, see 1880 in baseball.

1880 MLB season
League	National League (NL)
Sport	Baseball
Duration	May 1 – October 1, 1880
Number of games	84
Number of teams	8
Pennant winner
NL champions	Chicago White Stockings
NL runners-up	Providence Grays
MLB seasons
← 1879 1881 →

Red
Caps

  Bisons

White Stockings

Stars

Blues

    Grays

Trojans

Worcesters

Locations of teams for the 1880 National League season
National League

The 1880 major league baseball season was contested from May 1 through October 1, 1880, and saw the Chicago White Stockings as the pennant winner of the fifth season of the National League. There was no postseason.

The 1880 season is known for the first two major league perfect games in history, as well as being the only perfect games in the 19th century. Thrown by Lee Richmond and John Ward, these two perfect games were thrown in the span of five days, the shortest amount of time between two perfect games (the next closest is currently 20 days between Dallas Braden's May 9 and Roy Halladay's and May 29, 2010 perfect games). A perfect game would not be seen again in the Major Leagues for 24 years when Cy Young threw his perfect game in 1904.

Over the off-season, the Cincinnati Reds and Syracuse Stars disbanded, and were replaced by the Cincinnati Stars and Worcester Worcesters. This would be the Stars' only major league season.

Schedule

See also: Major League Baseball schedule

The 1880 schedule consisted of 84 games for all eight teams of the National League. Each team was scheduled to play 12 games against the other seven teams in the league. This continued the format put in place since the previous season and would be used until 1883.

Opening Day took place on May 1 featuring all eight teams. The final day of the season was on October 1, featuring a doubleheader between the Providence Grays and Worcester Worcesters. ^[1]

Rule changes

The 1880 season saw the following rule changes:

• Teams that wanted to change future playing dates now needed all eight teams to approve said change. Previously, only the two mutual teams needed to agree. ^[2]
• An oversight that technically allowed more than nine players to play at a time was corrected. ^[2]
• Umpires are now the sole arbiters of whether a ball was unfit for play. ^[2]
• Umpires will now note the time of the beginning of any rain (now without request of a team captain) and will call the game if it continued for 30 minutes. ^[2]
• The concept of a walk-off hit was implemented, as now, a contest would end if the team scheduled to bat in the bottom of the ninth (or bottom of any extra inning) was winning. ^[2]
• Eight balls became a base on balls, down from nine. ^[2]
• A catcher must now catch a third strike before it touched the ground. ^{[2] [3]}

Teams

An asterisk (*) denotes the ballpark a team played the minority of their home games at

League	Team	City	Stadium	Capacity	Manager [4]
National League	Boston Red Caps	Boston, Massachusetts	South End Grounds	3,000	Harry Wright
	Buffalo Bisons	Buffalo, New York	Riverside Park (Buffalo)	Unknown	Sam Crane
	Chicago White Stockings	Chicago, Illinois	Lakefront Park	5,000	Cap Anson
	Cincinnati Stars	Cincinnati, Ohio	Bank Street Grounds	3,000	John Clapp
	Cleveland Blues	Cleveland, Ohio	National League Park	Unknown	Jim McCormick
	Providence Grays	Providence, Rhode Island	Messer Street Grounds	6,000	Mike McGeary
					John Ward
					Mike Dorgan
	Troy Trojans	Lansingburgh, New York	Haymakers' Grounds	Unknown	Bob Ferguson
		Greenbush, New York [A]	Riverside Park (Greenbush)*	Unknown*
	Worcester Worcesters	Worcester, Massachusetts	Agricultural County Fair Grounds	Unknown	Frank Bancroft

1. ^
   In today's Rensselaer.

Standings

National League

• v
• t
• e

National League

Team	W	L	Pct.	GB	Home	Road
Chicago White Stockings	67	17	.798	—	37‍–‍5	30‍–‍12
Providence Grays	52	32	.619	15	31‍–‍12	21‍–‍20
Cleveland Blues	47	37	.560	20	24‍–‍19	23‍–‍18
Troy Trojans	41	42	.494	25½	20‍–‍21	21‍–‍21
Worcester Worcesters	40	43	.482	26½	24‍–‍17	16‍–‍26
Boston Red Caps	40	44	.476	27	25‍–‍17	15‍–‍27
Buffalo Bisons	24	58	.293	42	13‍–‍28	11‍–‍30
Cincinnati Stars	21	59	.263	44	14‍–‍25	7‍–‍34

Managerial changes

Off-season

Team	Former Manager	New Manager
Buffalo Bisons	John Clapp	Sam Crane
Chicago White Stockings	Silver Flint	Cap Anson
Cincinnati Reds	Cal McVey	Team folded
Providence Grays	George Wright	Mike McGeary
Syracuse Stars	Jimmy Macullar	Team folded

In-season

Team	Former Manager	New Manager
Providence Grays	Mike McGeary	John Ward
	John Ward	Mike Dorgan

League leaders

National League

Hitting leaders ^[5]

Stat	Player	Total
AVG	George Gore (CHI)	.360
OPS	George Gore (CHI)	.862
HR	Jim O'Rourke (BOS) Harry Stovey (WOR)	6
RBI	Cap Anson (CHI)	74
R	Abner Dalrymple (CHI)	91
H	Abner Dalrymple (CHI)	126

Pitching leaders ^[6]

Stat	Player	Total
W	Jim McCormick (CLE)	45
L	Will White (CIN)	42
ERA	Tim Keefe (TRO)	0.86
K	Larry Corcoran (CHI)	268
IP	Jim McCormick (CLE)	657.2
SV	Lee Richmond (WOR)	3
WHIP	Tim Keefe (TRO)	0.800

Milestones

Perfect games

See also: List of Major League Baseball perfect games

• Lee Richmond (WOR):
  • Pitched the first perfect game in Major League history and the only in franchise history on Jun12 against the Cleveland Blues. Richmond struck out five in the 1–0 victory. There was little discussion about the perfect game as the concept did not exist in 1880.

• John Ward (PRO):
  • Pitched the second perfect game in Major League history and the only in franchise history on June 17 against the Buffalo Bisons. Ward struck out two in the 5–0 victory. He is currently then only player-manager to have thrown a perfect game.

References

1. "1880 Major Leagues Schedule". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved February 13, 2025.
2. Pajot, Dennis. "1879 Winter Meetings: 50-Cent Admission Price Main Issue of Sessions – Society for American Baseball Research" . Retrieved February 13, 2025.
3. "MLB Rule Changes | Baseball Almanac". www.baseball-almanac.com. Retrieved January 28, 2025.
4. "1880 Major League Managers". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
5. "1880 National League Batting Leaders". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
6. "1880 National League Pitching Leaders". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved February 5, 2025.

External links

• 1880 Major League Baseball season schedule at Baseball Reference