25th
Cincinnati begins a week of play in New Orleans with
a 51-1 rout of the local Pelicans team. The Chicago
White Stockings will soon arrive in town, marking
the first time teams have gone south for spring
training.
14th
After 84 straight wins, the Cincinnati Red Stockings
lose 8-7 to the Atlantics of Brooklyn in the
greatest game of the year. Twenty thousand spectators
watch at the Capitoline Grounds. The Reds had won
24 games this season and 60 last year without a loss.
Today's game is tied at the end of the 9th inning
5-5. Bob Ferguson scores the winning run in the
last of the 11th on a hit by George Zettlein.
3rd
As reported in today's New York Clipper,
the Knickerbocker Baseball Club of New York is formally
withdrawing from the National Association of Base
Ball Players to protest the evils that seem to be
inherent in professionalism. This will be a forerunner
of a strictly amateur association. Speculation is
that the professionals will form their own association.
23rd
Five thousand spectators jam Dexter Park in Chicago
to see the White Stockings play the visiting Mutuals
of New York. Mutuals P Rynie Wolters holds the White
Stockings to 3 singles and no runs, winning 9-0
for the first shutout game in big-time baseball
history. The New York Herald will use "Chicagoed"
from now on to signify a shutout; the term survives
until at least the late 1890s.
27th
After 104 victories and several road defeats, the
Cincinnati Red Stockings lose their first game
at home to the visiting Athletics of Philadelphia
11-7.
16th
Fred Goldsmith, an 18-year-old pitcher invited by
Henry Chadwick to demonstrate his curveball at the
Capitoline Grounds in Brooklyn, succeeds before a
large crowd. Chadwick observes: "That which had up
to this point been considered an optical illusion
and against all rules of philosophy was now an established
fact." But Chadwick will soon credit Candy Cummings
with the discovery of the "crooked pitch." Goldsmith
will win 20 or more games each year between 1880 and
1883.
22nd
The Mutuals of New York win the Championship for 1870
by defeating the Atlantics 10-4 at the Union
Grounds. The game has such national interest that
telegraph wires are strung and inning-by-inning results
are sent nationwide.
10th
At the New York State Base Ball Convention in Albany,
a motion prevails that no club in New York composed
of colored men should be admitted to the National
Association.
21st
The Executive Committee of the Red Stockings Baseball
Club issues a circular to the members announcing their
determination not to employ a professional 9 for 1871.
30th
The 14th annual convention of the National Association
of Base Ball Clubs is held in New York, the attendance
of delegates being smaller than any previous convention.
Wansley, Duffy, and Devyr are reinstated to professional
baseball, and William H. Craver is expelled for dishonorable
play. Rule changes include allowing the batter to
overrun 1B after touching it.