In news from the NY Times, the Sporting News is being reincarnated, in part as a digital newsletter. But that is not why I post. My interest is in the first sentence of the article:
When Sporting News first hit the presses in 1886, there was no World Series, no National Football League, and no Cracker Jack, much less the Internet, mobile score updates or jeering sports bloggers.
Chalk one up for ignorance on that score. There was indeed an 1886 World Series, in which the St. Louis Browns of the American Association defeated the Chicago White Stockings of the National League, 4 games to 2. You probably know the White Stockings, the second oldest* baseball club still in existence, as the modern day Chicago Cubs.
That series was full of great players, too - Charlie Comiskey, Cap Anson, Parisian Bob Caruthers, and King Kelly, to name a few. To relegate a wonderful piece of baseball history to nonexistence merely because MLB cares to ignore it is ridiculous.
* The oldest club is, of course, the Atlanta Braves, which started life as the Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1866.
6 comments:
and of course...there was national football league in England, as there had been for a few years by 1886.....
Actually, while the Football Association dates to 1863, the Football League was not founded until 1888.
It always seemed a little ironic that the White Stockings didn't become the White Sox, and the Red Stockings the Red Sox. How do you go from stockings to braves?
The White Sox were originally named in tribute to the older Chicago club. I suspect the same is true of the Red Sox in Boston. As to the Braves - that emerged from a long series of names given by fans, papers, or the club itself. Doves and Beaneaters are my favorites.
Sorry, just a dim limey here; you are right of course.... :)
I hope you let the NYT know of their error!!
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