By: HISTORY.com Editors

Cincinnati Red Stockings become first professional baseball team

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Published: October 06, 2021Last Updated: May 27, 2025

On March 15, 1869, Cincinnati attorney Aaron Champion hires former cricket player Harry Wright to organize, manage and play for the Cincinnati Red Stockings, who become the first professional baseball team. The organization of the club comes shortly after the National Association of Baseball Players, which had previously banned the payment of players, allows open professionalism after the close of the 1868 season.

In 1869, the Red Stockings finished the season with a 57-0 record—64-0 with exhibitions included. Baseball was still in the underhand-pitch iteration of the sport, so the team routinely scored dozens of runs in games. The Red Stockings defeated the Buckeyes of Cincinnati, 103-8.

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Wright, given roughly $10,000 to assemble the best team money could buy, signed his younger brother, George, to a team-high $1,400 salary. George, a shortstop who was considered to be the best baseball player, was well worth the investment as he reportedly hit .630 with 49 home runs and averaged six runs per game.

In addition to managing, Harry Wright played center field and pitched. He was the second-highest-paid player on the roster with a $1,200 salary. Known as the “Father of Professional Baseball,” Harry was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953. George was inducted in 1937.

"This did not just make the city famous, it made baseball famous," Major League Baseball’s official historian John Thorn said of the Red Stockings’ impact.

Timeline

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Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on March 15th

44 B.C.

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1767

Andrew Jackson is born

Future President Andrew Jackson is born in a backwoods region between North and South Carolina to Irish immigrant parents on March 15, 1767. Jackson was essentially an orphan—all but one member of his family were killed during the Revolutionary War—who rose from humble beginnings to become a celebrated soldier and one of the nation’s most […]

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1783

George Washington puts an end to the Newburgh Conspiracy

On the morning of March 15, 1783, General George Washington makes a surprise appearance at an assembly of army officers at Newburgh, New York, to calm the growing frustration and distrust they had been openly expressing towards Congress in the previous few weeks. Angry with Congress for failing to honor its promise to pay them […]

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1820

Maine enters the Union

As part of the Missouri Compromise between the North and the South, Maine is admitted into the Union as the 23rd state. Administered as a province of Massachusetts since 1647, the entrance of Maine as a free state was agreed to by Southern senators in exchange for the entrance of Missouri as a slave state. […]

1901

Van Gogh paintings shown in first retrospective exhibit

On March 15, 1901, paintings by the late Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh are shown at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris in what was the artist’s first retrospective exhibit. The 71 paintings, which captured their subjects in bold brushstrokes and expressive colors, caused a sensation across the art world. Eleven years before, while living in […]

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1917

Czar Nicholas II abdicates Russian throne

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1939

Nazis take Czechoslovakia

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1950

Nationalist Chinese forces invade mainland China

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1965

LBJ calls for equal voting rights

On March 15, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson addresses a joint session of Congress to urge the passage of legislation guaranteeing voting rights for all. Using the phrase “we shall overcome,” borrowed from African American leaders struggling for equal rights, Johnson declares that “every American citizen must have an equal right to vote.” Johnson reminds […]

1968

Construction begins on America’s highest vehicle tunnel

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2019

Christchurch, New Zealand mosque attacks

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2021

Deb Haaland sworn in as first Indigenous cabinet secretary

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