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Guest Column
“Why I Was Wrong to Create the Boston Club”
Boston, a team created at the start of this decade by transplanting the Cincinnati Red Stockings, should never have been allowed to exist and dominate baseball. They put the professional game at risk because cranks from other cities will never stand for perpetually trailing the top clubs, and if something is not done they will be the death of the National League. I ought to know – I was the one who created them.
My Boston club was strong, and the most financially stable of the clubs, but they were not invincible. I ran the club – and at first, played for them in center field – during the Association days, and while we won the first three pennants, Chicago and Philadelphia defeated us in the last two years of the circuit. Though we were the strongest club, we could not just dominate as a matter of course.
Things have changed. In the league days, every prominent player whose team folds from the league finds his way to Boston. It happened to stars such as Adrian Anson and Lip Pike, and to top pitchers like George Knight. In the first two years of the National League Boston barely managed to win, but in the last two years they have simply had no competition. I tried managing against them for the old Athletic club in 1876, but we had no more luck than anyone else has had.
It is my firm belief that something must be done to level the field. I have seen several proposals and know not which is the best, but clubs that can dominate this thoroughly are bad for the game. If men are to continue making baseball into a new American business, there must be real competition. I will never again be a part of such a ruination of a league’s balance, and hope that soon wiser men will undo what I helped to do in Boston.
Yours in sorrow,
Harry Wright
Editor’s note: Mr. Wright was hired to manage the Cincinnati Reds club one week after this column was published.
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