Harry Wright

Born January 10, 1835
Sheffield, England

Died October 3, 1895
Atlantic City, New Jersey

Baseball player

"The spectators all arise between halves of the seventh inning, extend their legs and arms and sometimes walk about. In so doing they enjoy the relief afforded by relaxation from a long posture upon hard benches."

Harry Wright organized, managed, and played on the first all-professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869. Baseball had been played since the 1840s under many rules still in effect today, and some teams or bettors had occasionally paid players, but the Red Stockings paid all their players and influenced the development of organized, professional baseball. The Red Stockings traveled the country and won their first 130 games (89 against certified opponents). During the 1870s, Wright played and managed in the first two professional baseball leagues, the National Association of Baseball Clubs (1871–75) and the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs (still in existence today as Major League Baseball's National League). For his pioneering efforts as an organizer, player, baseball strategist, and umpire, Wright was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953.

From bowler to pitcher

Harry Wright was born in Sheffield, England, on January 10, 1835, the eldest of five children of Samuel and Ann Wright. His father, who played the sport of cricket professionally, moved the family to the United States in 1836 after being hired by the St. George Cricket Club in New York. Wright attended elementary schools in New York City before beginning work with a jewelry manufacturer. As a youngster, he learned the game of cricket from his father. Baseball had recently emerged as a sport in the United States and was being played in New York. Wright took up the sport, but concentrated primarily on cricket. Cricket has some similarities to baseball: action begins with a player throwing a ball (called a bowler in cricket, a pitcher in baseball) to a batter, but the similarities end there.

At age twenty-one in 1856, Wright became a bowler for his father's team, the St. George Cricket Club. Two years later, Wright played organized baseball as an outfielder with a team sponsored by the Knickerbocker Club of Hoboken, New Jersey. While cricket was popular and competitive enough to employ professionals, baseball was still developing. Wright made money as a jeweler and cricket player, and played baseball for fun. A decade earlier, the Knickerbocker Club team had created many of the rules and features baseball retains to this day.

The Origins of Baseball

Until 1938, Abner Doubleday was credited with inventing American baseball. Doubleday was born in Ballston Spa, New York, in 1819 and attended school in Cooperstown, which was the site chosen for the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Hall opened in 1936. Two years later, baseball history began being rewritten when evidence surfaced that Alexander Cartwright had created and written down many of the rules baseball still uses today.

A longtime myth claimed that Doubleday had invented baseball in Cooper-stown in 1838. But Doubleday himself never made that claim. He was a military man, serving in the Mexican-American War (1846–48) and the Civil War. Doubleday was credited with being the father of baseball when baseball promoters wanted "America's pastime" to have clear American origins. Baseball, in fact, was similar to an older English game called rounders, but games involving a ball hit with a stick date back to ancient times. Baseball is unique in its rules and features, and much of the credit for them can be attributed to Cartwright.

Cartwright, a New York bank teller, suggested to his buddies in the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club in 1845 that they change some of the rules they had been following. They introduced the concept of foul territory, established the distance between bases at 90 feet, decided on three outs per inning, and eliminated the practice of retiring base runners by hitting them with the baseball. The number of players was not specified in the first rules, but by 1846 clubs were playing with nine to a side. The first recorded baseball game under these rules occurred in 1846 when Cartwright's Knickerbockers lost to the New York Baseball Club. The game was held at the Elysian Fields, in Hoboken, New Jersey. In 1858, the National Association of Base Ball Players, the first organized baseball league, was formed.

Evidence of Cartwright's rules, found in his diaries and journals, was brought to the attention of baseball officials in 1938. By then, the Abner Doubleday baseball creation myth had become commonplace. The written evidence of Cartwright's contributions changed that. The National Baseball Hall of Fame recognizes September 1845 as the time when the rules of the game now known as baseball were first set down.

Cartwright left New York in 1849 with a group of friends to seek gold in California. He took along a baseball and the Knickerbocker rules and demonstrated the game with his friends along the way. After the long journey to California, Cartwright became ill, gave up his pursuit of gold, and traveled as far as Hawaii to recuperate. In 1851, he was joined there by his wife and three children. He introduced baseball to Hawaii in 1852.

Cartwright became a leading businessman and banker in Honolulu. He founded the city library and fire department, and served as fire chief for ten years. Cartwright died on July 12, 1892, but his legend was reborn in 1938.

Wright continued to work professionally as a jeweler and cricket player while playing baseball in his spare time. He was recognized, nevertheless, as a team leader and an excellent player. During the Civil War (1861–65), baseball gained in popularity. Soldiers on both sides of the war learned how to play the game during breaks in the fighting. After the war, they took it home with them. Meanwhile, some players had been receiving money from sponsors and bettors to play for certain teams prior to and during the war. Organized professional baseball came into existence during the Reconstruction era (1865–77).

Play ball!

In 1866, at the age of thirty-one, Wright moved to Cincinnati to serve as an instructor and bowler for the Union Cricket Club. In his spare time, he organized and captained the Cincinnati Baseball Club, which quickly became his main interest. Baseball was growing quickly in popularity, and Wright was a star. He was a pitcher during 1867 and 1868, and a formidable hitter: He was credited with hitting seven home runs in a game in Newport, Kentucky, in 1867. In September 1868, Wright married Mary Fraser of New York City. They would have four children.

In 1869, Wright organized the Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first full professional team in baseball history. Some players had been paid before that time, but baseball was still considered an amateur sport. Wright changed that. He was paid an annual salary of $1,200 to manage the team and play center field. His brother, George Wright (1847–1937), considered the finest shortstop of the time, was paid $1,400. Most of the regulars earned $800.

The Wright Brothers: Pioneers of Baseball

George Wright was born on January 28, 1847, in Yonkers, New York. A few months earlier, what is considered the first-ever baseball game was played, using many of the rules still in existence today. During his childhood, Wright began playing baseball with his older brothers, Harry and David. He would later join his brother Harry as a player on the Cincinnati Red Stockings, baseball's first all-professional team. Harry Wright was the manager as well as a star pitcher and outfielder. George Wright was the star shortstop, a feared slugger and excellent fielder. Just as his brother Harry was a pioneer of baseball strategy, George revolutionized the position of shortstop.

After the 1870 season, George Wright followed his brother to Boston, where Harry organized the Boston Red Stockings in 1871. George was captain of the team as it finished in first place four seasons in a row (1872–75) in the National Association of Baseball Clubs. Success continued in the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, which began in 1876 and continues today as Major League Baseball's National League. George Wright led Boston to National League championships in 1877 and 1878. He continued playing until 1882. He was elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame in 1937, and his brother Harry followed in 1953. After retiring from baseball, George Wright founded a sporting goods company and is credited with having built in 1890 the first nine-hole golf course in New England.

In 1869 and 1870, the Red Stockings toured the country, traveling more than twelve thousand miles and drawing more than two hundred thousand spectators who paid up to fifty cents per game. In the first game ever played by professional baseball teams (all paid players, no amateurs), the Cincinnati Red Stockings beat the Mansfield Independents, 48-14. The Red Stockings won all sixty-nine of their games in 1869, and the streak reached 130 games the next season before they would lose a game. (Since Harry Wright would only acknowledge victories that came against sanctioned teams—those that paid and registered their players—he counted the Red Stockings' winning streak as 87.) Their first loss came against the Brooklyn Atlantics by an 8-7 score.

The success of the Cincinnati Red Stockings inspired more teams to become entirely professional. But hometown fans in Cincinnati were not as supportive as those in other cities and towns, and the team folded in 1870. Wright moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where he helped form the Boston Red Stockings as part of the National Association of Baseball Clubs, the first professional baseball league. The league was unstable—each year some teams folded and new teams joined. The Boston Red Stockings, however, were consistent. Managed by Wright, Boston finished first in the National Association every year from 1872 to 1875. At the end of the 1874 season, the team demonstrated baseball in a tour of England.

A new league, with a constitution that regulated club activities, required players to honor their contracts, and banned gambling completely, was formed in 1876. The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, still in existence today as Major League Baseball's National League, began with eight baseball clubs representing the cities of Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; Cincinnati, Ohio; Hartford, Connecticut; Louisville, Kentucky; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; New York City; and St. Louis, Missouri. At age forty-one, Wright no longer played, but he was manager of the Boston team until the end of the 1881 season. The team won two championships in that span. Wright managed two other teams, including Philadelphia from the 1884 to 1893 season. Before he died in 1895, Wright was chief of umpires of the National League in 1894 and 1895. He was survived by his third wife and seven of his eight children.

Wright's contributions to the game were enormous. In addition to helping popularize baseball, Wright is credited with some of baseball's unique strategies as well. He was the first manager to shift his fielders based on the hitting tendencies of individual batters; he also put his fielders in motion as soon as the ball was in play—by backing each other up and shortening throwing distances between fielders during relays, more base runners advancing on a play were thrown out. Wright attained baseball's highest honor in 1953 when he was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Winners at the White House

One of the traditional rewards in contemporary times for winning baseball's World Series or a championship in other sports is a visit to the White House and a meeting with the president for the championship team. That modern tradition actually dates back to the Reconstruction era. After completing a cross-country, undefeated season in 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings were rewarded with a private audience in Washington, D.C., with President Ulysses S. Grant. The president complimented what he called "the western Cinderella club" for its skills and winning ways.

For More Information

Books

Devine, Christopher. Harry Wright: The Father of Professional Baseball. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2003.

Rhodes, Greg, and John Erardi. The First Boys of Summer: The 1869–1870 Cincinnati Red Stockings, Baseball's First Professional Team. Cincinnati: Road West Publishing, 1994.

Rosenburg, John M. They Gave Us Baseball: The 12 Extraordinary Men Who Shaped the Major Leagues. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1989.

Ryczek, William J. Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of Baseball's National Association, 1871–1875. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1992.

Web Sites

"Harry Wright." Baseball Library.http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/W/Wright_Harry.stm (accessed on July 30, 2004).

"Harry Wright." National Baseball Hall of Fame.http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/wright_harry.htm (accessed on July 30, 2004).

"Red Stockings of Cincinnati." Cincy Sports.http://cincysports.net/1866to1875.htm (accessed on July 30, 2004).