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The Cincinnati Red Stockings of were baseball's first openly all-professional team, with ten salaried players.〔(1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings Vintage Base Ball Team ) homepage (2007). Cincinnati Vintage Base Ball Club. Retrieved 2010-10-15.〕 The Cincinnati Base Ball Club formed in 1866 and fielded competitive teams in the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) 1867–1870, a time of a transition that ambitious Cincinnati, Ohio businessmen and English-born ballplayer Harry Wright shaped as much as anyone. Major League Baseball recognized those events officially by sponsoring a centennial of professional baseball in 1969. Thanks partly to their on-field success and the continental scope of their tours, the Red Stockings established styles in team uniforms and team nicknames that have some currency even in the 21st century. They also established a particular color, red, as the color of Cincinnati, and they provide the ultimate origin for the use of "Red Sox" in Boston. == Baseball club == The Cincinnati Base Ball Club, or simply Cincinnati Club, was established June 23, 1866 at a downtown law office, drawing up a constitution and by-laws and electing officers including Alfred T. Goshorn, President. A few years later Goshorn earned international fame as Director-General of the (U.S.) Centennial Exposition held 1876 in Philadelphia. Founding member George B. Ellard also led the Union Cricket Club, and the relationship between them proved decisive for the baseball club's success.〔George Ellard's son Harry, writing forty years later, is the principal source on the cricket club and the relationship between the two clubs, as well as George's personal role. The Union Cricket Club was established 1856; George Ellard was president in 1867, span not reported, and he signed Harry Wright in 1865 (according to his son).〕 After playing four matches that summer, Cincinnati joined the NABBP for 1867 and concluded an agreement to play at the Union Cricket Club grounds. George Ellard's son says that "a great number of the cricket club members" joined and so "the team was greatly strengthened and interest in baseball gained a new impetus." Plans for a new clubhouse and "more substantical" enclosing fence were approved in April and the commercial basis was approved in June: members of both clubs admitted free to all matches; otherwise "ten cents for home matches and twenty five cents for foreign matches. Ladies free." (Ellard 23-27). The team was soon nicknamed "Red Stockings" in reference to the main feature of the uniforms designed by Ellard; long stockings were then a novelty in team uniforms.〔Ellard (1908) credits his father with designing the first version, including a white flannel shirt (plain?), and with responsibility for the annual order. "As the long red stockings were necessarily made to order, they were quite expensive, for they were up to that time unknown. Mrs. Berthra Bertram of Elm Street made the uniforms for Cincinnati and many other clubs through the early eighties."〕 Harry Wright had migrated from New York in 1866 for a job as "club pro" at the Union Cricket Club. Next year he picked up similar baseball duties, but the lingo is commonly stretched to call him a baseball "manager" from that time. His first team may have been local to a man, but he both developed and imported players to represent the club in competitive play for the 1868 season. The first team won 16 matches with regional opponents, losing only to the touring Nationals from Washington. As for most hosts on that tour, it was a "bad loss" on the scorecard but an instructive one for Cincinnati: the players, the club, the fans, and perhaps the local newspapers. Everyone learned advanced points of play and, from their different perspectives, witnessed the gulf in playing strength. About half of the 1868 Red Stockings were eastern imports, presumably compensated somehow. The two leading batsmen, John Hatfield and Fred Waterman arrived from the New York Mutuals, one of the strongest teams anywhere and another team pushing the bounds of the amateur code. Asa Brainard had been the Brooklyn Excelsiors' regular pitcher for four seasons, succeeded in 1867 by Candy Cummings. Catcher Doug Allison was from the Geary club of Philadelphia, one of the stronger clubs in that city. There was one local recruit, too, from the rival Buckeye club: Charlie Gould at first base. Harry Wright remained the first pitcher, sharing that position and second base with Brainard, and three other incumbents remained in the outfield and at shortstop. The 1868 team played a heavy schedule including a late eastern tour, once again dominating the western teams but losing seven of 43 matches in all. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cincinnati Red Stockings」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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