Bill James, a Kansas City A’s fan as a child, has written about this. Kansas CIty had a Yankee farm team before the A’s came to town, so the lopsided trades really rubbed locals the wrong way.
Coming back to Cleveland…Cleveland Spiders owners Frank and Stanley Robinson bought the bankrupt St. Louis Perfectos team in 1899 and shipped all of the good players to St. Louis. The Spiders finished a ghastly 20-134.
You think people could just look at the players on the field and figure out what position they were playing. Perhaps I’m not understanding the idea.
People figured that out, which is why the idea only lasted two years.
All right, I was looking at the Federal League to see what teams they had:
Baltimore Terrapins
Brooklyn Tip-Tops
Buffalo Blues/Buffeds
Chicago Whales/Federals
Cleveland Green Sox
Covington Blue Sox/Colonels --Transferred to Kansas City
Indianapolis Hoosiers–Moved to Newark
Kansas City Packers
Newark Peppers
Pittsbugh Rebels/Stogies
St. Louis Terriers
I have to say, I like these names, Too bad the league folded.
These days that’s Seattle.
Ichiro, A Rod (by way of Texas), Paxton, Tino Martinez, Cano all come to mind. Though trades don’t always favor the Yankees, this article is interesting.
Oh my god maybe they’ll call the new team Perfectos! I dig it!
At the time the Brooklyn team was formed (1884 American Association at that time a major league) as well as the time they entered the National League in 1890, Brooklyn was a separate city. It wasn’t merged into New York City (Manhattan) until Jan 1 1898.
Keep in mind that well into the 1900s, any team could be referred to by its league name, especially when a city had multiple teams, so the St. Louis Terriers were also called the St. Louis Federals, or the Sloufeds, and the Cardinals and the Browns could also be called the St. Louis Nationals and St. Louis Americans, and around 1900, that was one of the most common ways for newspapers to refer to teams.
In fact, the city name and the league became so much more important than the nickname that when I was a kid in the 1970s and 1980s, tabular and encyclopedic material would use the league designation as a primary identifier, so you would see:
NYA
NYN
CHIA
CHIN
for the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Chicago White Sox, and Chicago Cubs
Whereas these days you’re far more likely to see something like:
NYY
NYM
CHW
CHC
So the trends went full circle from the “nickname” being the primary name to the “city” and “city+league” being the primary name and back around these days to the “nickname” being (at least slightly) more important.
I suppose there are reasons: (1) Interleague play, (2) some league switching has happened, and (3) nicknames are better for branding and marketing, but I still get grumpy when I see tabular material listed as:
Braves
Marlins
Mets
Nationals
Phillies
Brewers
Cardinals
Cubs
Pirates
Reds
I’d prefer how they did it when I was a kid:
Atlanta
Miami
New York (N)
Philadelphia
Washington
Chicago (N)
Cincinnati
Milwaukee
Pittsburgh
St. Louis
I have a vague memory that teams didn’t have more than the exact nine players and they weren’t allowed to change positions during a game. So, having a distinctive uniform would prevent players from sneakily switching positions. Maybe that was the reason?
If that were ever true, it wasn’t in 1882 when they used multicolored uniforms. The 1882 Baltimore Orioles had a total of 23 players during the season, including 9 infielders and 8 outfielders (but only 5 pitchers and one catcher). Now maybe some players were replaced during the season, but they surely had more than 9 players on the roster at one time.
I suspect it was just a gimmick, maybe to help fans who weren’t familiar with the game in those early days, but its stupidity became apparent quickly.
Fair enough
IIRC the “every position has a different color” idea was the brainchild of a uniform maker. He wanted to sell uniforms with more expensive dyes and patterns.
Just remember the old Viking maxim: pillage first, then burn.
What’s the origin of the “Sloufeds” name? Google and Wiki have failed me.
Sloufeds. St. Louis. Federals.
Saint LOUis FEDeralS
Similarly, the Chicago Whales were often called the “Chi-Feds.”
Simulpost!!
Ah, got it. Thanks.
In the early days of baseball it wasn’t at all uncommon to refer to a team as the Cityname Pluralofleaguename, e.g. “Boston Americans” for the Boston team in the American League. Hence today’s throwback team, the Washington Nationals.
Ahem …
Actually, the Washington Nationals name is not part of this phenomenon. The name derives from “National Club,” which was the name of an early club, like the ones I referred to above, and the first National Club started playing baseball long long before there was a National League and long before teams were named in this fasion.
There was a National Club in Washington that played in the National Association in 1872, alongside the Olympic Club.
In 1884, a Washington Nationals club played in the Union Association, and another one played in the American Association. These were all in the era in which the nickname was informal and variable, so “Washington” was the only official portion of the team’s name.
It wasn’t until 1886-1889 that a Washington Nationals club joined the National League, and that was long after the tradition of Washington-based teams being named “Nationals” was established.
And then the American League had a Washington Nationals team (also known as the Washington Senators) from 1905-1955.
And the Buffalo team were the Buffeds.