Rockford Forest Citys (officially the Forest City Club), from Rockford, Illinois, was one of the first professional baseball clubs. Rockford played for one season during the National Association inaugural year of 1871. They are not to be confused with the Cleveland Forest Citys, who played in the same league. "Forest City" is a nickname used by the cities of Rockford and Cleveland.
From 1868 to 1870, future Hall of Famer Albert Spalding and infielder Ross Barnes starred for Rockford while the club was still considered an 'amateur' team. In reality, the Forest Citys were one of the first ball clubs to pay players. Rockford played their home games at the Agricultural Society Fair Grounds, most of which still exists as Fairgrounds Park.
Rockford finished in last place with 4 wins and 21 losses, 15½ games behind the champion Philadelphia Athletics. Their poor record was partially because player-manager Scott Hastings was found to have violated the "60 day rule" implemented by the league—if a player switched teams during the season, the team had to bench him for 60 days before he could play. Hastings had jumped from an independent team (the Lone Star club of New Orleans) to the Forest Citys in the spring and immediately begun playing for Rockford. This complaint was brought before the league, and the Forest Citys were forced to forfeit four games they had won, including a game played on June 15, just a day before Hastings would have been eligible to appear. Since two of the forfeits came against the first-place Athletics, who finished two games in front of both the Boston Red Stockings and the Chicago White Stockings, Rockford's decision to play Hastings had an outsize impact on the 1871 pennant race. [1]
The star of the Forest Citys was Cap Anson, who hit .325 in 1871 and would go on to become the player-manager of the Chicago White Stockings for over 20 seasons. Anson was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1939. [2]
Rockford had faced significant financial hardship during 1871, including travel costs, and did not make a profit. Additionally, star Anson decided to accept a $1,250 contract offer from Philadelphia for the 1872 season. So, the club folded after its first and only season.
Albert Goodwill Spalding was an American pitcher, manager, and executive in the early years of professional baseball, and the co-founder of A.G. Spalding sporting goods company. He was born and raised in Byron, Illinois, yet graduated from Rockford Central High School in Rockford, Illinois. He played major league baseball between 1871 and 1878. Spalding set a trend when he started wearing a baseball glove.
Adrian Constantine Anson, nicknamed "Cap" and "Pop", was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) first baseman. Including his time in the National Association (NA), 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. He spent most of his career with the Chicago Cubs franchise, serving as the club's manager, first baseman and, later in his tenure, minority owner. He led the team to six National League pennants in the 1880s. Anson was one of baseball's first great hitters, and probably the first to tally over 3,000 career hits. In addition to being a star player, he innovated managerial tactics such as signals between players and the rotation of pitchers.
The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP), often known simply as the National Association (NA), was the first fully-professional sports league in baseball. The NA was founded in 1871 and continued through the 1875 season. It succeeded and incorporated several professional clubs from the previous National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) of 1857–1870, sometimes called "the amateur Association". In turn, several NA clubs created the succeeding National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, which joined with the American League of Professional Base Ball Clubs to form Major League Baseball (MLB) in 1903.
William Henry "Harry" Wright was an English-born professional baseball player, manager, and developer. He assembled, managed, and played center field for baseball's first fully professional team, the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings. He is credited with introducing innovations such as backing up infield plays from the outfield and shifting defensive alignments based on hitters' tendencies. For his contributions as a manager and developer of the game, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953 by the Veterans Committee. Wright was also the first to make baseball into a business by paying his players up to seven times the pay of the average working man.
Agricultural Society Fair Grounds was a fairground on the west side of Rockford, Illinois. It served as the grounds for the Winnebago County Agricultural Society. It was used as a baseball grounds by the Rockford Forest Citys baseball club of the National Association during the 1871 season, so it is considered a major league ballpark by those who consider the NA to have been a major league. The Forest Citys had played their home games at the Fair Grounds beginning in 1866, and continued to call it home for the 1871 season.
Calvin Alexander McVey was an American professional baseball player during the 1860s and 1870s. McVey's importance to the game stems from his play on two of the earliest professional baseball teams, the original Cincinnati Red Stockings and the National Association Boston Red Stockings. He also played on the inaugural National League pennant-winning team, the 1876 Chicago White Stockings.
The Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia was a prominent National Association, and later National League, professional baseball team that played in the second half of the 19th century.
The following are the baseball events of the year 1869 throughout the world.
Ezra Ballou Sutton was an American third baseman in the National Association and Major League Baseball from 1871 to 1888. Sutton collected 1,574 hits during this time period; he had a lifetime batting average of .294. Like many players in an era when walks were more rare, Sutton did not walk a lot, only drawing 169 walks in more than 5,500 plate appearances. By almost all measures, Sutton had his two best seasons in 1883 and 1884 – he collected 203 runs and 296 hits during those seasons. On May 8, 1871, Sutton hit the first home run in professional baseball history for the Cleveland Forest Citys against the Chicago White Stockings. He would go on to hit another home run later in the game but Cleveland still lost the game 14–12.
The Forest Citys were a short lived professional baseball team based in Cleveland in the early 1870s. The actual name of the team, as shown in standings, was Forest City, not "Cleveland". The name "Forest Citys" was used in the same generic style of the day in which the team from Chicago was called the "Chicagos". Modern writers often refer to the club as the "Cleveland Forest Citys", which does not reflect 1870s usage, but does distinguish the team from the Rockford, Illinois, professional team that was also called "Forest City", that being a long-standing nickname of both of those cities.
The Washington Nationals of the 1870s were the first important baseball club in the capital city of the United States. They competed briefly in the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, the first fully-professional sports league in baseball. The Nationals are considered a major-league team by those who count the National Association as a major league. Several other baseball clubs based in Washington, D.C., have also used the historic name Nationals.
Dennis Joseph Mack was a professional baseball player who was a first baseman and shortstop in Major League Baseball for eight seasons from 1871 to 1883. He played for seven different teams, including as a player-manager for the Louisville Eclipse in 1882.
Robert Edward Addy, nicknamed "The Magnet", was a Canadian right fielder and second baseman in Major League Baseball, whose professional career spanned from 1871 in the National Association to 1877 in the National League. He is credited as the first player to introduce the slide in an organized game, and later attempted to create a game of baseball that would have been played on ice. He is also credited as the first person born in Canada to appear in a major league game.
Michael Henry McGeary was an American professional baseball player whose career spanned from 1871 to 1882. He played 11 seasons in Major League Baseball, playing principally as an infielder and catcher, for seven different major league clubs: the Troy Haymakers (1870–1871), the Philadelphia Athletics (NA) (1872–1874), the Philadelphia White Stockings (1875), the St. Louis Brown Stockings (1876–1877), the Providence Grays (1879)–(1880), the Cleveland Blues (1880–1881) and the Detroit Wolverines (1882). Three of those clubs, the Philadelphia White Stockings, Providence Grays and Cleveland Blues, also employed him as player-manager.
Winfield Scott Hastings was a Major League Baseball player and manager in the late 19th century. Primarily a catcher and outfielder, Hastings also appeared as a first baseman, second baseman, and shortstop over the course of his career.
William Charles "Cherokee" Fisher was an American Major League Baseball pitcher who played in the National Association from 1871 to 1875 and the National League in 1876 and 1878.
John F. McMullin was an American professional baseball player. During the first professional league season in 1871, he was the only regular left-handed pitcher, while in later seasons he mainly played the outfield. After playing almost every game throughout the five National Association seasons (1871–1875), he did not play a single game in the National League that succeeded it. He died in his native Philadelphia five years later, only 32 years old.
The Rockford Forest Citys played their first and only season in 1871 as a charter member of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players. They finished ninth in the league with a record of 4–21. They folded after the season.
The Rockford Rox was the primary moniker of the minor league baseball teams based in Rockford, Illinois, between 1871 and 1949. In an era of early baseball, Rockford hosted teams in numerous leagues beginning in 1871. From 1916 to 1923, the Rox played in the Class B level Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League, and from 1947 to 1949, they played in the Class C level Central Association. The Rockford Rox were preceded by the Rockford Red Sox (1901–1904) and Rockford Wakes (1914–1916) in the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League. Several other Rockford teams played in various leagues leading up to the Rox. The Rockford Rox were an affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds from 1947 to 1949.
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