The current Cincinnati Reds baseball team plays its first game (1881)

The current Cincinnati Reds franchise traces its origins to a team founded in 1881, which became a charter member of the American Association in 1882. While the legacy row specifies a first game on June 20, 1881, the supplied passages do not confirm this specific date or event. The team was established as an independent club in the spring of 1881 before joining the new league.

Episodes

Background and detail

Background. The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. The current franchise was founded in 1881 as a third team of the same name, becoming a founding member of the American Association, a rival league that began play in 1882. This team is the same franchise as today's Reds, which joined the National League in 1890.

Formation. After earlier attempts failed, a new independent ball club was formed in the spring of 1881. An earlier amateur team formed by lawyers, originally called the Resolute Base Ball Club of Cincinnati, had its name soon changed to the Cincinnati Base Ball Club; the passages do not tie that naming history to the 1881 independent club. Following a successful 1881 series, Caylor and former Reds president Justus Thorner received an invitation from Philadelphia businessman Horace Phillips to a meeting of several clubs in Pittsburgh planning a new league to compete with the National League.

League Entry. The team founded in 1881 became a charter member of the American Association in 1882. The American Association was a rival league to the National League, established through meetings involving clubs from various cities. The Reds won the inaugural American Association pennant in 1882, marking their first significant competitive success in the new league.

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Sources

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.