Shown: JUNE: Boston (dark blue) sets up Blowout.

A nineteen game winning streak featuring six games scoring twenty runs and three shutouts put Boston squarely on top of the national association. Boston finished the year 17-7 while captain (today: "playing manager") Harry Wright filled out the rest of the season's play with thirty-five money-making exhibition games. His eighty-three games scheduled for the season was considered a record at the time.

From his world-beating 1969 Cincinnati team Wright had only himself in center field, his brother George at shortstop, and Andy Leonard in left field together with a star Illinois contingent including the national association's best batter, Ross Barnes, and best pitcher, Al Spalding. On May 9th, in the third win of that streak, Wright removed Spalding from a no-hit game in the fifth inning and finished the game himself allowing two hits over the last five innings. It was said Boston won most games during pre-game infield practice in which their crisp pick-ups, throwing and catching, left their opponents and fans agog. Boston's 22-1 start has been bettered only twice in the century-plus of ball since.

Instead of the "best-of-five" series format used in 1871, a "best-of-seven" format was adopted. Of the eleven teams who paid the entrance fee, three dropped out by July 24 when the association threw out the games played by the Washington Olympic, the Washington National, and Troy. Boston's record fell from 22-2 to 18-1 and the second place Philadelphias fell from 14-5 to 10-5 - a loss of half a game to put them six games behind. (Games behind became a relevant statistic for the fan around 1908.)

A second wave of thrown out games came August 20th after small Middleton, CT, and Cleveland disbanded. Boston's record then fell from 26-2 to 19-2. Second place Philadelphia saw its record drop from 16-5 to 12-5 - now a gain of one and one-half games. This left six teams to finish the year. The Philadelphias beat Boston 6-4 on September 14th when pitcher Dick McBride won his own game with an rbi-single in the ninth inning. This put Philadelphia five games back with around eleven to play.

Boston had around eight to play, but teams stretched out the year knowing Boston would win it all. On September 20th, fans from South Weymouth, MA, paid Boston and New York $300.00 to play an exhibition game in their city, and beginning October 8th, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia played a ten-day round-robin tournament at William Cammemeyer's Union Grounds in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. That event netted $4,000.00. On the ninth day, a long-distance throwing contest was held after the game in which New York second baseman John Hatfield threw a ball four-hundred feet, an oft-referenced record that stood over forty years. Another shorter round-robin tournament took place in Philadelphia beginning October 19.

A significant rules change before this season allowed pitchers to snap their wrists upon the release of the ball. This allowed the world's only curve-ball pitcher, William "Candy" Cummings, to quit the "amateur" Stars of Brooklyn and join the New York Mutuals. Other pitchers, most notably speedy Bobby Mathews of Baltimore and slow ball artist Phoney Martin of Brooklyn, were known for "putting spin on the ball". But this was more an effort to create ground balls and pop-ups off bats than an effort to curve the ball. Pitchers were still required to pitch under-handed so the game maintained the similar look of present day softball.

No attempt was made by the association to "fill-in" the schedules of teams that dropped out, as had been done with Fort Wayne in 1871. Instead, all games played by teams that dropped out were thrown out. This made the final standings: Boston 28-7, New York 23-17, and Philadelphia 21-14. Today's encyclopedias show "all games" and Baltimore, which went 16-1 against the opponents that disbanded, seems to hold second place: Boston 39-8, Baltimore 34-19, New York 34-20. In fact, Baltimore's official record for the year closed at 18-18 thanks to a end-of-year Halloween victory over the Brooklyn Atlantics.