New York Mutuals

Mutual Base Ball Club of New York
(New York Mutuals)
Years 18571876
Based in Hoboken, New Jersey (1857–1867)
Brooklyn, New York (1868–1876)
Major league affiliations
Ballpark
Colors

Navy, white
         

Owners
Managers
Major league titles
  • National League pennants: 0
  • National Association pennants: 0
  • National Amateur Association pennants: 1 (1868, 1870*)

In 1870, Mutual of New York was leading 13-12 in the deciding game of its series with the Chicago White Stockings when Mutual left the field in protest. Officials decided to revert the score to the end of the last completed inning and awarded the game, and thus the championship, to Chicago. The Mutual club declared itself champion.

The Mutual Base Ball Club of New York was a leading American baseball club almost throughout its 20-year history. It was established during 1857, the year of the first baseball convention, just too late to be a founding member of the National Association of Base Ball Players.

Picture of an unidentified New York Mutual player

It was a charter member of both the first professional league in 1871 and the National League in 1876. Failing on the field and in the coffer, it declined to make its last western trip of the inaugural season. For the transgression it was expelled in December, and soon found itself defunct.

The Mutual club initially played its home games at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, with the New York Knickerbockers and many other Manhattan clubs, but moved to the enclosed Union Grounds in Brooklyn in 1868.

The Mutuals chose open professionalism in 1869–70 after NABBP liberalization. They joined the first professional league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, for its 1871 to 1875 duration. In 1876, the Chicago White Stockings initiated the National League and recruited its members from West to East, partly to wrest control of professional baseball from Eastern interests. The Mutuals were one of eight charter members, six of whom were from the National Association. Weak (sixth place at 21–35) and cash-poor, the club refused to complete its playing obligations in the West; and was expelled.[1]

On May 13, 1876, the Mutuals executed the first triple play in major-league history in a game against the Hartford Dark Blues.

Union Grounds proprietor William Cammeyer, often listed today as the Mutual club owner, signed the Hartford Dark Blues to play at his Union Grounds in 1877. The team was effectively a one-year replacement for the defunct Mutuals, and was sometimes called "Hartford of Brooklyn".

Record

1870 New York Mutuals team photograph
Year Won Lost Tied Games Rank in games (or in wins)
1858 11 1 12 2 (1st in wins)
1859 3 5 8 6
1860 1 8 2 11 5
1861 8 2 10 2 (tie 1st in wins)
1862 8 5 13 2 (2nd in wins)
1863 10 4 14 1 (tie 1st in wins)
1864 21 3 24 1 (1st in wins)
1865 12 4 16 5 (tie 4th in wins)
1866 10 2 12 15 (tie 5th in wins)
1867 23 6 1 30 4 (4th in wins)
1868 31 10 41 5 (5th in wins)
1869 37 16 53 3 (5th in wins)
1870 68 17 3 88 1 (1st in wins)
Championship matches with professional teams, 1869–1870
1869 11 15 26 1 (5th in wins)
1870 29 15 3 47 1 (1st in wins)
League record
1871 16 17 33 1 (4th place)
1872 34 20 2 56 2 (3rd place)
1873 29 24 53 4 (4th place)
1874 42 23 65 2 (2nd place)
1875 30 38 3 71 4 (7th place)
1876 21 35 1 57 8 (6th place)

Source for season records: Rio (2008).

Franchise leaders

Batting

Pitching

Notable alumni

See also

References

  1. Baseball history- Retrieved 2012-01-08

External links

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