In 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the world’s first professional baseball team — forever changing the sport. In this premiere episode of Hall of Teams, host Kirk Jensen takes you back to baseball’s earliest days: the Red Stockings’ perfect season, their daring Southern tour, and the cultural impact that made them more than just a ballclub.

From the iconic red stockings to the legendary players who set the standard for all who followed, discover how a team from Cincinnati left a legacy still felt in baseball today.

Along the way, you’ll hear Trivia from the Hall, bite-sized facts and hidden gems that bring history to life in surprising ways. Each season, episodes compete for the Team of the Year crown, awarded to the story that resonates most with listeners through likes, comments, and subscriptions. And every inducted team finds its place on the Hall of Teams Wall of Honor, a growing collection that celebrates the greatest clubs across sport, across time, and across the world.

Hall of Teams isn’t just about scores and trophies — it’s about the traditions, identities, and legacies that make these teams immortal.

Welcome to the Hall of Teams, the

podcast where sports legends live again.

Where founding stories are dusted

off like vintage jerseys... Where

crests nicknames and colors aren't

just designs, but identities.

Where the teams we love are more

than scores on a scoreboard,

they are time capsules of

culture, community, and change.

I'm your host, Kirk Jensen, and today

we begin, at the very beginning.

The first time playing the game

became a job, the first team

to take baseball to the nation.

Today we induct an amazing team,

the Cincinnati Red Stockings

into the Hall of Teams.

Before 1869, sport in

America was strictly amateur.

Baseball was growing in popularity,

but the players had day jobs.

Teams were local, loose, and

playing for pride, not pay.

The very idea of a paid

athlete was scandalous.

Gentlemen played for honor, not money.

But in Cincinnati, Ohio, a growing

river town filled with energy and

ambition the future was stirring.

In 1866, Cincinnati formed

an amateur baseball team.

And after a few strong seasons

and a desire to compete with the

big teams of the East Coast, the

club leaders made a bold decision.

In 1869, they would pay every

single player on the roster.

No more under the table incentives.

No more pretending.

The Red Stockings would be professional.

Credit must go to Harry Wright,

the visionary manager, player, and

architect of the Red Stockings.

Wright believed that training

strategy and athleticism could

elevate baseball, and that paying

players would attract the best

talent and ensure serious commitment.

In 1869, driven by their vision, the Red

Stockings directors took major steps to

elevate the club to national prominence.

Entrusting Harry Wright with the war

chest to recruit talent on a scale

the sport had never seen before.

He assembled a roster of elite

players from across the country.

These weren't just local boys anymore.

This was America's first national team.

So who were these game

changers in crimson?

Let's meet the starting

nine of the Red Stockings.

Fred Waterman, New York, third base.

Cal McVay, Indianapolis, right field.

George Wright, Cincinnati, shortstop.

Doug Allison, Philadelphia, catcher.

Harry Wright, Cincinnati

center field / manager.

Charlie Gould, Washington first base.

Andy Leonard, New Jersey, left field.

Charlie Swayze, New Jersey, second base.

Asa Brainard Washington, DC, pitcher,

and Dick Hurley from

Maine, the utility player.

The Red Stockings were the first

to back a team with a bank roll,

spending $9,300 in salaries,

which is over $200,000 today.

At the top of the scale,

stood their brightest star.

Shortstop George Wright,

earning $1,400 per season, the

highest salary on the team.

And he was worth every penny.

Wright batted lead off, and what

followed was a season for the ages:

49 home runs, an average of nearly 6

hits per game, 339 runs scored, and

an astonishing 629 batting average.

To make that number relative

Babe Ruth's best batting

average for a season, was 393.

George Brett, 390.

Mickey Mantle, 365.

George was not just a shortstop,

but a storm that batted,

at the top of the lineup.

Welcome to Trivia from the Hall,

where we spotlight the strange,

surprising, and significant stories

that shaped the world of sport.

The early teams did not

wear baseball gloves.

Players caught the ball with

their bare hands, and for a

short time, a few players even

caught the ball with their cap.

Doug Allison, a catcher, is often

credited as one of the first players

to wear a glove, as early as 1870.

In the early 1900s, manufacturers like

Spalding began mass producing gloves

closer to the models we recognize today.

Albert Spalding, yes, the company

founder, he had a pitching

record of 54 - 5 in 1875.

Credited as one of the first coaches

in American sport to fully adopt

the concept of teamwork, Harry

Wright drilled his players during

the spring of 1869 to prepare for a

tour against the East Coast powers.

On May 4th, 1869, the Red Stockings took

the field for their first official game,

a local clash against the Great Westerns.

But the real story was the setting.

The Cincinnati Union Grounds home

to the towering Grand Duchess

grandstand, whose location you saw

earlier in the episode on the fly-in.

Built to hold 4,000, yet crowds

sometimes tripled that number

spilling into every corner for

a glimpse of these rising stars.

This was no ordinary ballpark.

It was enclosed, it had a fence,

and it had entrance gates, and

for the first time in baseball

history, it had a ticket price.

That day the Red Stockings won 45 to 9,

starting on the road to a historic run.

No one in baseball could have fully

predicted just how dominant the Red

Stockings would become that season.

They opened with 18 straight

wins against local competition.

A perfect start, but the real

test, was waiting back East.

On May 31st, 1869,

they boarded the train.

Their destination

baseball's biggest stage.

The National Baseball Hall

of Fame would call it,

"The greatest road trip

in baseball history."

The Red Stockings embarked on

their 32 day East coast tour facing

the game's most formidable clubs.

Cleveland,

Buffalo, Rochester, Troy, Albany,

Boston, New York City, Philadelphia,

Baltimore, and finally Washington, DC.

Where they even had an audience

with President Ulysses S. Grant.

After beating the New York

Mutuals 4 to 2 on the tour, the

Cincinnati Gazette proclaimed,

"We are tossing our hats tonight and

shaking each other by the hand. We

are the lions, because we have beaten

the Mutuals, and because the game was

the toughest, closest, most brilliant,

most exciting, in baseball annals."

No quarter asked, no quarter given.

Twenty one games.

Twenty one wins.

Over 1800 miles of iron rails.

And with each stop, they

shattered expectations and

redrew the map of baseball power.

The message was unmistakable.

The Midwest wasn't chasing

the game, it was leading it.

If you're listening on your favorite

podcast app, just know the full

video version is on YouTube featuring

vintage footage, archival visuals,

and exclusive behind the scenes

content you won't want to miss.

Let's rewind to baseball's beginning.

Back then, pitchers didn't hurl

the ball overhand, they tossed

it underhand and with spin.

And Asa Brainard, he didn't just

pitch, he made that ball dance.

He curved it.

He confused hitters and he earned

a nickname that still echoes for

pitchers through ballparks today.

"Ace".

And here's another thing, the catcher,

he wasn't crouched behind the plate.

He stood 15 feet behind the batter.

No glove, just bare hands, a

leather ball, and nerves of steel.

And that ball, it wasn't the

stitched rocket we know now.

It was handcrafted, lemon peel

seams, rubber core, wrapped

in yarn, softer, slower.

In the hands of the Red

Stockings, it still flew.

In the late summer of 1869, the

Cincinnati Red Stockings embarked on

another groundbreaking leg of their

season, this time toward the Pacific.

Their journey westward would span

4,700 miles aboard the newly completed

Transcontinental Railway, whose final

connection had been marked just a year

earlier with the ceremonial "Golden

Spike" at Promontory Summit, Utah.

It was a bold and unprecedented move,

taking professional baseball to the

farthest reaches of the young nation.

The players themselves were young,

with most in their early twenties.

Imagine the excitement as they

boarded their Pullman car.

Eyes wide, spirits high, bound

for the distant Pacific Coast.

They didn't know what kind of ball

clubs they would face, how crowds out

West would receive them, or whether

the mystique of their undefeated

record would survive the trip.

The Red Stockings' West Coast

tour carried them through Omaha,

Cheyenne and Salt Lake City.

Key stops along the

newly completed railroad.

No official games were played

in those cities, but they

demonstrated a bold and a symbolic

push into unchartered territory.

The action began in

Sacramento, California.

From there, they dazzled

crowds in Stockton, Oakland,

San Francisco, and San Jose.

Each stop adding to their growing legend.

Across the West, fans pack the

grounds, to see a team that seemed

to have achieved mythical status.

This was more than a ball club.

It was a movement carrying the

game across mountains, deserts, and

frontiers, bringing it to the people.

In

the late 1800s, "crank" was a term

used by newspapers of the era to

describe an overzealous baseball fan.

The term likely came from the idea

of someone being cranked up, or

overly enthusiastic about their team.

Over time, as the sports popularity

grew and its fan base expanded,

the term "fan", short for the word

"fanatic", became more prevalent,

and crank fell out of common usage.

Over the course of one relentless year,

the Red Stockings played before an

amazing total of over "200,000 fans".

And they didn't lose.

Not once.

57 games, 57 wins.

The New York Clipper newspaper declared:

"The result of the season's play,

places the Cincinnati Club ahead of

all competition and we hail them as the

Champion Club of the United States."

The Cincinnati Red Stockings proved

that sport could be a profession

and a point of civic pride.

That year, the Red Stockings

were honored at home, not just

as players, but as pioneers.

On the Union Grounds in Cincinnati,

the city gathered to celebrate.

Before the team was a gift.

A 27 foot bat made of ash,

painted, polished and inscribed

"Champion Bat - 1869".

It was proof baseball had become

national, professional - and unstoppable.

The history books had barely

closed on their perfect season

when the Red Stockings opened

the next chapter in 1870.

They didn't return that spring

with caution, they returned with

thunder, no warmup, no easing in.

They came out charging, on rails,

with grit, and with purpose.

This time they were heading South.

Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, New

Orleans, Mobile, Montgomery, Atlanta,

Savannah, Charleston, Richmond, and

then the capital, Washington, DC.

The cities rolled by

like drumbeats of a march.

Across the deep south they

surged bringing baseball to

new corners of the nation.

The South had witnessed them.

Now the entire nation knew them.

But all things must end so that history

can be written, and legacies forged.

On the afternoon of

June 14th, 1870 at the Capitol Grounds

in Brooklyn, the Red Stockings were

up against the powerful Atlantics

playing before a crowd of 9,000.

And the game so anticipated

that the usual admission

price of 25 cents was doubled.

Where each Atlantic player, under

the gate sharing system, would

take home an incredible $364.

And at that time, a year's

salary for a common laborer.

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That afternoon saw an epic back

and forth battle, and after

nine innings, the game was tied.

Five, five.

The Atlantics wanted to call the

game a draw, but Harry Wright's boys

insisted on playing extra innings.

When the Red Stockings scored twice

in the top of the 11th, it appeared

that victory would be theirs.

But the Atlantics rallied for

three runs in the bottom of the

11th and won the game 8 to 7.

The news was announced in a telegram to

Cincinnati, New York, June 14th, 1870.

Atlantics 8.

Cincinnati 7.

The finest game ever played.

Our boys did nobly, but

fortune was against them.

Eleven innings played.

Though beaten, not disgraced.

- Aaron B. Champion, President,

Cincinnati Baseball Club.

Even greatness doesn't

guarantee sustainability.

Other teams began to catch up to

Wright's once indomitable club.

Cincinnati lost a total of six games

during the 1870 season, causing many

fickle fans to abandon the team.

Citing financial pressures,

the Red Stocking's board of

directors, disbanded the team,

and returned it to amateur status.

Just like that, the team that redefined

the sport, faced its final inning.

But their numbers, their

legacy, unshakeable.

Counting their final 8 wins in 1868,

the flawless 57 wins in 1869, and

another 24 to start 1870, plus a few

undocumented games lost to time, some

historians believe the Cincinnati Red

Stockings may have strung together

as many as 130 consecutive victories.

One hundred and thirty, in a row.

To try to put some

perspective on that number.

The longest current winning streak

in Major League Baseball is 26,

set by the 1916 New York Giants.

Over 100 games less

than the Red Stockings.

The Red Stockings didn't just

set the bar - they built it.

The 1870s marked a time when

professional baseball was bursting

into a new era of excitement.

Teams started popping up across

the country, the sound of the

bat, the roar of the crowd.

It was the dawn of something bigger.

In 1871, baseball took a bold leap

forward with the creation of the

first fully professional sports

"The National Association

of Professional Baseball Players".

Known simply to fans and historians

as, "The National Association".

This pioneering league blazed

the trail from 1871 to 1875.

Then came the moment

that reshaped the game.

In 1876, a handful of clubs from

the National Association and the

amateur league, came together to

form something lasting, something

"The National League

of Professional Baseball Clubs".

Today we call it the "National League".

So while the original Red Stockings

only lasted two seasons, the

echo of their impact endures.

Across two franchises, an entire

league, and a nation's pastime.

The Red Stockings didn't just win.

They didn't just travel.

They redefined what a team could be.

From Boston's cobblestone streets,

to the hills of San Francisco.

From the bayous of New Orleans, to the

Capitol steps in Washington: 12,000

miles, dozens of cities, zero defeats.

They didn't wait for baseball to grow.

They brought it with them, town by town,

track by track, until the game became

more than local, it became American.

Because of them, teams would tour,

fans would follow, and baseball

would belong to the nation.

Imagine no Red Stockings.

No contracts.

No agents.

No road trips.

No merchandise.

No $300 million deals.

No Dodgers.

No Cubs.

No Yankees.

They were the first to turn

fans into paying ticket holders.

Players into full-time professionals.

Sport into a lasting institution.

So today, we honor their vision,

their courage, and their legacy.

And enshrine the Cincinnati Red

Stockings into the Hall of Teams.

Not just for what they won,

but for what they began.

In the Hall of Teams, legends

just don't live in the past.

They rise again through you.

This year, you decide who earns

the title, Team of the Year.

An honor that just isn't a title.

It's a legacy that knows no borders.

Across all sports.

Across time.

And across the world.

Want your team to win?

Watch their episode.

Like it.

Comment with “#TeamoftheYear” — and your

team’s #HallOfTeams + [YourTeamName].

And make sure you subscribe.

Because every voice counts,

and every vote, is a chance

to make history... again.

On December 15th, the team with the most

likes, comments, and new subscribers for

the year, will be voted in, by you, the

fans, and honored as Team of the Year.

Their logo will be immortalized

on the Wall of Honor.

And remember — you can watch

this full episode on the Hall

of Teams YouTube channel.

See you there.

Thanks for joining us on this

journey into global sports history.

If there's a team you would like

to nominate into the Hall of Teams,

drop it in the comments using

#Nominate + [YourTeamName]

and help shape future inductions.

Next time, we cross the ocean to uncover

the story of the Sheffield Football Club,

the oldest football club in the world.

A team that helped define

the rules, rituals, and

rhythm of the beautiful game.

It may have even changed a

nation's identity in the process.

Until then, remember:

Behind every logo, is a legacy.

And behind every team,

a tale worth telling.

I'm Kirk Jensen, and this

is the Hall of Teams.