Shown: END OF SEASON: Philadelphia "Athletics" (olive green) win Rumble.

Like the bones of Lucy, Game Dots for baseball history's first pennant race trace out the faint pattern of a white-knuckle Rumble. You would not expect the first pennant race in baseball history to be this close, especially after undefeated seasons by Brooklyn and Cincinnati in 1868 and 1869, respectively. But it is in fact the closest pennant race ever: the only pennant race without a three game lead. This is mostly due to the few games played. A paltry "best-of-five" against every other opponent was required, which led to about a thirty-two game schedule for each team.

This is not to say there was a schedule. There wasn't. Individual managers, and even team captains, announced most games about twenty days before they were played - some announced only a few days prior to play. When Philadelphia's star catcher Fergy Malone became ill at the season's start, Philadelphia simply did not schedule games until he felt better. By June 2nd, the Washington Olympics had a 5-5 record while Philadelphia had played only one game, and lost. Standings for this, and all pennant races until 1883, were by "most wins".

Note the Chicago (light blue) victory, Friday, 9/29. This win over Boston created a titillating 18-7 tie for first place with Philadelphia (olive green) who attained that level with an 11-6 victory over Chicago, Monday, 9/18 (not shown on graph). Chicago had about four games remaining and Philadelphia had about three.

The historian is required to say "about" three games remaining because with each team playing a best-of-five against every other opponent you couldn't predict if one team would sweep three wins or if both teams would stretch it out to five games. In an outrageous twist, Chicago had yet to even begin its season series against Troy. After the 1870 season Troy had "stolen" second-baseman Bill Craver from Chicago, so in 1871 Chicago refused to take the field against Troy if Craver was suited up to play. Then there was the matter of $195.00 which a Troy player lost to a Chicago player in a card game in September of 1870. In their final October meeting of 1870 at Chicago, Chicago withheld the receipts of the game to cover that pedestrian debt.

As 1871 wound down, these issues were resolved and a Chicago-Troy series seemed imminent, when a Chicago cow supposedly kicked over a lantern on October 8th, burning down about 500 city blocks east of what is now the Kennedy Expressway. The Chicago team lost everything: uniforms, receipts, and their quaint all-grass ballpark in Lake Front Park off Michigan Avenue. Philadelphia and New York donated the receipts of their 10/18 game to Chicago and Chicago was able to appear in Troy for games Saturday, 10/21 and Monday, 10/23. They split leaving at least two games unplayed. Chicago then staggered into Brooklyn where William Cammemeyer, the owner of the New York Mutuals ballpark (the Union Grounds in Williamsburg, Brooklyn) donated them for the final Chicago-Philadelphia game, 10/30. Philadelphia slugger Levi Meyerle drove in a second inning run with a ringing single, and two more runs scored in the third on Chicago errors, before a 4-1 score became final. The haggard Chicago team, in borrowed uniforms, was described as "want of practice". The final standings: Philadelphia 21-7, Boston 20-10, Chicago 19-9.

Chicago tried finishing their games with Troy in November, but these games were not counted because player contracts expired November 1st. A championship committee headed by Harry Wright, reviewed the season in early December to determine which games counted. On December 23, 1871, Philadelphia team president Hicks Hayhurst opened a letter dated December 12 notifying him that Philadelphia had won the pennant.

A sixty-day-rule was responsible for nearly destroying this pennant race and professional baseball altogether. It said teams could only sign a player that had not played for any other team in sixty days. Teams that lost players to injuries could not find replacement players and ended up forfeiting games. The famous example is catcher Scott Hastings of the Rockford, IL club. Hastings had warmed up for the season's start by appearing with a team in New Orleans as late as April 23. As a result of that, he was ineligible to play for Rockford until June 23. But Rockford had no other catcher, so the team challenged the rule and opened the season with Hastings, showing a 4-8 record. As predicted, all four wins were ruled losses per Hastings and their record turned to 0-12. Remarkably, two of Rockford's four wins were over Philadelphia: a breathtaking 11-10 win June 5th in which Rockford scored four runs in the top of the ninth inning and a 10-7 win June 15th. On July 1st, the championship committee turned Philadelphia's nice 7-4 record into an imposing 9-2 which may have turned the entire season in their favor.

As the season wore on, other ridiculous applications of the sixty-day rule made dozens of games technically defined forfeits. Note the New York Mutuals (brown) loss 10/16 to bring them to .500. That day New York pitcher Roxy Wolters claimed to be "sick" just before the start of a Monday game at Boston. Fans accused Wolters of trying to throw the game to Boston to hurt Chicago's chances. George Zettlein, a pitcher for the non-association Brooklyn Eckfords, filled in but the game was thrown out: Boston getting a 9-0 forfeit. Two days later, at Philadelphia, in another critical game, Wolters was sick again and Frank Fleet, the second baseman of the semi-pro Brooklyn Flyaways, pitched for New York. This game was also a forfeit win for Philadelphia, yet the game stats seem to count in today's encyclopedias: Fleet appears as a pitcher for New York.

On May 8th, George Hall, of the Brooklyn Atlantics, jumped the team and joined the Washington Olympics after hearing that Washington's catcher, Charlie Mills, injured his left knee and would miss about a month. Hall had played with Brooklyn all Spring and on April 25th had been elected team captain, but he successfully argued that he had left the team before "the minutes of the April 25th meeting" had been approved at the next club meeting. And "club" the Atlantics were. A real club that anyone could join if they paid the monthly dues. 1871 proved to be a banner year for membership as the rise of baseball's popularity spread across the country. Hundreds of ball fans became Brooklyn Atlantic club members with the sole intention of playing ball for the team. Dozens of members are still listed in today's encyclopedias as players, especially in 1875. Hall jumped the team just as things began to disintegrate: after an 0-25 loss hosting Boston.

Just as fans could pay to join clubs, teams could pay to join the national association. The fee was ten dollars, and the nine clubs that joined up made this first season: five clubs were what we'd call today "eastern" clubs and four were "western." Two other clubs, the Brooklyn Eckfords and the Washington Nationals, both teams of quality players, decided not to join the association but changed their minds mid-June. Both teams scheduled a number of games against association opponents and promised to both pay their fee and "win the whole thing" but never did. Many newspapers published association standings which included the Eckfords and the Nationals. This fee-based orientation of the association is the biggest reason many historians today do not consider this to be a major league.

I should mention that the Fort Wayne Kekiongas disbanded September 13th while in seventh place. Players from that remote team started going AWOL mid-July when player salaries started coming late and many Fort Wayne players debuting after that time were from the semi-pro Chicago Aetnas. Finally, star pitcher Bobby Mathews and second baseman Tom Carey jumped the team around September 1st prompting the owners to shut down for the year at their next scheduled meeting - after first spitefully blacklisting Mathews and Carey. Harry Wright's championship committee in December added eight losses to Fort Wayne's 7-13 record to complete their schedule against each team, giving the teams a final standing not reflected in today's encyclopedias: Philadelphia 22-7, Boston 21-10, Chicago 20-9.