Boston Braves

The Cincinnati Red Stockings, established in 1869 as the first openly all-professional baseball team, voted to dissolve after the 1870 season. Player-manager Harry Wright then went to Boston, Massachusetts—at the invitation of Boston businessman Ivers Whitney Adams—with brother George Wright and two other Cincinnati players joined the Boston Red Stockings, a charter member of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players. This team and its successors are the oldest continuously playing team in American professional sports.[9] (The only other team that has been organized as long, the Chicago Cubs, did not play for the two years following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.) Two players hired from the Forest City club of Rockford, Illinois, were pitcher Al Spalding (founder of Spalding sporting goods) and second baseman Ross Barnes.

King Kelly cigarette card (Goodwin & Company, 1888)

Led by the Wright brothers, Barnes, and Spalding, the Red Stockings won four of the National Association's five championships. The team became one of the National League's charter franchises in 1876, sometimes called the "Red Caps" (as a new Cincinnati Red Stockings club was another charter member). Boston came to be called the Beaneaters by sportswriters in 1883, while retaining red as the team color.

Boston won the 1877 and 1878 pennants. The Red Caps/Beaneaters won eight pennants during the 19th century. Their manager was Frank Selee, the first manager not to double as a player as well. The 1898 team finished 102–47, a club record for wins that would stand for almost a century.

In 1894 the Braves became the first major league baseball team to wear letterforms on their uniform caps when they added a monogram-style device to their front.[10]

They only managed one winning season from 1900 to 1913, and lost 100 or more games six times. In 1907, the renamed Doves (temporarily) eliminated the red from their stockings because their manager thought the red dye could cause wounds to become infected (as noted in The Sporting News Baseball Guide during the 1940s when each team's entry had a history of its nickname(s). See details in History of baseball team nicknames). The American League club's owner, Charles Taylor, changed his team's name to the Red Sox in place of the "Americans".

When George and John Dovey acquired the club in 1907, the team was named the Doves; when purchased by William Hepburn Russell in 1911 reporters tried out Rustlers. The team adopted an official name, the Braves, for the first time in 1912. Their owner, James Gaffney, was a member of New York City's Tammany Hall, which used an Indian chief as their symbol.

A program from the 1914 World Series, featuring Braves manager George Stallings (left). Baseball Magazine cover, 1914 (right)

Two years later, the Braves put together one of the most memorable seasons in baseball history. After a dismal 4–18 start, the Braves seemed to be on pace for a last place finish. On July 4, 1914, the Braves lost both games of a doubleheader to the Brooklyn Dodgers. The consecutive losses put their record at 26–40 and the Braves were in last place, 15 games behind the league-leading New York Giants, who had won the previous three league pennants. After a day off, the Braves started to put together a hot streak, and from July 6 through September 5, the Braves won 41 games against only 12 losses.[11] On September 7 and 8, the Braves took 2 of 3 from the New York Giants and moved into first place. The Braves tore through September and early October, closing with 25 wins against 6 losses, while the Giants went 16–16.[12] They are the only team to win a pennant after being in last place on the Fourth of July. They were in last place as late as July 18, but were close to the pack, moving into fourth on July 21 and second place on August 12.

Despite their amazing comeback, the Braves entered the World Series as a heavy underdog to Connie Mack's Philadelphia A's. Nevertheless, the Braves swept the Athletics—the first unqualified sweep in the young history of the modern World Series (the 1907 Series had one tied game)—to win the world championship. Meanwhile, former Chicago Cubs infielder Johnny Evers, in his second season with the Braves, won the Chalmers Award.

The Braves played the World Series (as well as the last few weeks of the 1914 regular season) at Fenway Park, since their normal home, the South End Grounds, was too small. However, the Braves' success inspired owner Gaffney to build a modern park, Braves Field, which opened in August 1915. It was the largest park in the majors at the time, with 40,000 seats and also a very spacious outfield. The park was novel for its time; public transportation brought fans right into the park.

Fenway Park on October 12, 1914, for the third game of the 1914 World Series

After contending for most of 1915 and 1916, the Braves spent much of the next 19 years in mediocrity, during which they posted only three winning seasons (1921, 1933, and 1934). The lone highlight of those years came when Giants' attorney Emil Fuchs bought the team in 1923 to bring his longtime friend, pitching great Christy Mathewson, back into the game. Although original plans called for Mathewson to be the principal owner, he had never recovered from tuberculosis that he had contracted after being gassed during World War I. By the end of the 1923 season, it was obvious Mathewson could not continue even in a reduced role, and he would die two years later, with the result that Fuchs was permanently given the presidency. In 1928, the Braves traded for Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby who had a very productive year in his only season with Boston. He batted .387 to win his seventh and final batting championship.

Fuchs was committed to building a winner, but the damage from the years prior to his arrival took some time to overcome. The Braves finally managed to compete in 1933 and 1934 under manager Bill McKechnie, but Fuchs' revenue was severely depleted due to the Great Depression.

Insolvent like his team, Fuchs was forced to give up control of the Braves in August 1935,[13] and new owner Bob Quinn tried to change the team's image by renaming it the Boston Bees.[14] This did little to change the team's fortunes. After five uneven years, a new owner, construction magnate Lou Perini, changed the nickname back to the Braves.

Warren Spahn

In 1948, the team won the National League pennant by capturing 91 games to finish 61⁄2 paces ahead of the second–place St. Louis Cardinals. They also attracted 1,455,439 fans[15] to Braves Field, the third-largest gate in the National League and a high-water mark for the team's stay in Boston. The pitching staff was anchored by Hall of Famer Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain, who won 39 games between them. The remainder of the rotation was so thin that in September, Boston Post writer Gerald Hern wrote this poem about the pair:

First we'll use Spahn
then we'll use Sain
Then an off day
followed by rain
Back will come Spahn
followed by Sain
And followed
we hope
by two days of rain.

The poem received such a wide audience that the sentiment, usually now paraphrased as "Spahn, Sain, then pray for rain" or "Spahn, Sain and two days of rain", entered the baseball vocabulary. Ironically, in the 1948 season, the Braves actually had a better record in games that Spahn and Sain did not start than in games they did. (Other sources include pitcher Vern Bickford in the verse.)

The Braves lost the 1948 World Series in six games to the Cleveland Indians (who had beaten the Red Sox in a tie-breaker game to spoil an all-Boston World Series). This turned out to be the Braves' last hurrah in Boston.

Hall-of-Famer Eddie Mathews is the only player to have represented the Braves in the three American cities they have called home.

Source:[26]

• Dave Bancroft – Boston Braves (1924–1927), HOF (1971)
• Del Crandall – Boston Braves (1949–1952) 11× All-Star, last living Boston Braves player
• Alvin Dark – Boston Braves (1946–1949), ROY (1948)
• Bob Elliott – Boston Braves (1947–1951), NL MVP (1947)
• Johnny Evers – Boston Braves (1914–1917, 1929), HOF (1946)
• Hank Gowdy – Boston Braves (1911–1917, 1919–1923, and 1929–1930)
• Sam Jethroe – Boston Braves (1950–1952) ROY (1950)
• King Kelly – Boston Beaneaters (1887–1889, manager 1887), HOF (1945)[27]
• Bill McKechnie – Boston Braves (1913, manager 1930–1937), HOF (1962)
• Rabbit Maranville – Boston Braves (1912–1920, 1929–1935), HOF (1954)
• Eddie Mathews – Boston Braves (1952), HOF (1978)
• Johnny Sain – Boston Braves (1942–1951), 3× All-Star, ace of 1948 staff
• Kid Nichols – Boston Beaneaters (1890–1901) HOF (1949)
• Babe Ruth – Boston Braves (1935), HOF (1936)
• Billy Southworth – Boston Braves (1921–1923, manager 1946–1949, 1950–1951), HOF (2008)
• Warren Spahn – Boston Braves (1942, 1946–1952), HOF (1973)
• Casey Stengel – Boston Braves (1924–1925, manager 1938–1943), HOF (1966)