Shown: JUNE - JULY: Chicago (light blue) goes on to a Fanned victory despite a Hartford (white) threat after the Fourth of July. After 1882, when winning percentage became the basis for determining first place, Hartford would have been considered to have held the top spot for one week, July 4 to July 11.

Chicago's veritable all-star team, set up by owner Willam Hulbert and ace pitcher Al Spalding, rolled to an easy victory in this first National League season. For many historians this season marks the beginning of major league baseball. Among Hulbert's basic innovations (such as a public posture dead-set against gambling and the idea that a league could select which teams comprised it's membership) was the idea that the league would make the season schedule and distribute it to the teams. It sounds simple but it was revolutionary. The schedule was distributed in four stages: one-fourth of the season at a time. The last stage was distributed late, and some teams had already set up exhibition games with minor or semi-pro clubs as August ended. The NL quickly set aside a full week of no games, August 28 to September 3, so that these exhibitions could be played out. The schedule then resumed with the Western teams visiting the Eastern clubs on Tuesday, September 5.

However the popular New York and Philadelphia franchises scheduled too many exhibition games and would have had to break too many commitments to travel out West after September 16. So they didn't. They ignored the NL schedule altogether after that date and were later dropped from the league for that insubordination. In that manner, ownership of Cap Anson, who had signed with Philadelphia for 1877, reverted back to Chicago; a potential bit of deviousness on Hulbert's part that has never been brought out into the open. Thereafter, powerful franchises existed in New York and Philadelphia chocked with ex-and-future-NL players until both cities re-appeared on the major league landscape again in 1883. The independent New York team in 1882 purportedly made a thirty thousand dollars profit, the most ever for a baseball team up until that time.

As for the pennant race, Chicago entered the Fourth of July, 25-5, with second place Hartford, 22-5. As can be seen from the even spacing of the dots, a quaint particular of the NL's first schedule was to fill each week with a three game series against each opponent: "Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays." The week of the Fourth of July Hartford was in Chicago.

One-and one-half games behind (a concept which would have been foreign to any 1876 fan) Hartford needed to win all three games just to tie. When the teams had previously met in Hartford late May, Chicago took two of the three. This time Hartford won the first two, giving themselves a games ahead advantage over Chicago, before dropping the final game of the set. The key to HartfordÕs success was pitcher Tommy Bond, one only two pitchers up until that time to have what could be called a sweeping curveball. The one umpire assigned to each game stood behind the pitcher and could be fooled quite a bit as to where exactly each pitch crossed the plate. Chicago, who had scored 66 runs in their previous four games, found themselves in a 0-0 tie entering the bottom of the seventh inning of the first game, an affair attended by a tremendous Fourth of July crowd of about 10,000. (Tickets were being scalped at $1.00 each!) That was when visiting Hartford scored three times on a lashing double past Hines in center field by Remsen, and a two-rbi single by Burdock which landed on the lime line in left. Although Chicago failed to score in the top of the ninth to complete Bond's shutout, rules up until 1880 required the bottom of the ninth inning to be played even though Hartford already effectually won. Yet while Hartford assayed to bat, fans began leaving the game by walking across the field. Hartford captain Bob Ferguson was offered a forfeit victory but declined. The final score was 3-0.

Note that Hartford, the visiting team, batted in the bottom of innings. Our habit of "visiting team bats first" began in 1900. Here and there after 1900 a few incidents pop up where a home team batted first: none after 1913. 1876 used the National Association method of determining who had the choice of where to bat: the toss of a coin. Most team captains upon winning the coin toss elected to bat in bottom of innings, however, beginning in about 1883, captains winning the coin flip elected to bat first so as to get a crack at hitting the ball before it lost it's hardness. Baseball historian Peter Morris noted that the American Association replaced the coin toss with simply "home team captain's choice" in 1885 and that the National league followed suit in 1887. From about 1895 most home managers and captains elected to bat in the bottom of innings while some old-timers still persisted in batting first. The "visiting team bats first" policy was not placed into the rule book until 1950. Strangely, in 1877, and only in 1877, did the NL insist on the opposite: a "home team bats first" policy.

Hartford won the second game of this key July series two days later, 6-2, behind the power hitting of ex-Brooklyn Atlantic Jack Remsen who led off the game with a homerun and drilled a double for another run in the fifth inning. On the graph Hartford is seen one-half game ahead of Chicago as a result of this despite having one less win. Chicago salvaged the final game 9-3 behind ninth place batter John Glenn's 4-for-5 and a neat trick used by Chicago pitcher-manager Al Spalding: Spalding switched positions and let leftfielder Cal McVey pitch.

McVey was not a pitcher. But he had a good arm and just threw as hard as he could per the underarm rules of the day. Best known for being a side-burned veteran of the 1869 Cincinnati Reds, McVey's hurling threw Hartford's sacrifice hitting game off. This was not the first time McVey replaced Spalding with success. On May 27th, after Hartford beat Spalding 4-1 in Brooklyn - Hartford played it's home games in Brooklyn that year - McVey threw a complete game effort for an 8-1 win. Twice more in September McVey beat Hartford going the route. In all, leftfielder Cal McVey's remarkable 4-0 record and 3.00 RA against second place Hartford may have turned the season.

In their next series Hartford was swept in St. Louis by the only other pitcher in baseball history besides Bond - up to that point - to have a sweeping curve: George Bradley. And Bradley was edging out Bond for that year's pitching honors. Bradley threw a nine-hit shutout: that's all three games combined! He threw a four-hitter, a five-hitter, and a no-hitter completing shutouts nine, ten, and eleven towards his eventual record of sixteen shutouts for the year, a record matched by Grover Cleveland Alexander in 1916. Bond might have shared domination of league pitching stats that year had he not made an appointment with the NL's figurehead president Morgan Bulkeley on August 22 and accused his manager Bob Ferguson quite specifically of "selling" four games: 8/5, 8/7, 8/12, and 8/19. No evidence was offered and later Bond refuted saying he was just upset. Ferguson suspended him without pay for the rest of the year. Bond's 31 wins up to that point were three shy of Bradley's 34. Bradley finished with 45.

The sweep and subsequent replacement of Bond with Candy Cummings kept Hartford five games behind the rest of the way and Chicago coasted.

I should point out that on June 14, 1876, the first player in National League history found himself expelled from the National League. This was action taken by the Louisville club against George W. Bechtel for his non-appearance in an exhibition game at Easton, Pennsylvania. Bechtel locked himself inside his hotel room and refused to come out when manager Chapman pounded on the door. Chapman claimed Bechtel was drunk and expelled him citing prior warnings which had been made to the player on the issue. Bechtel, in his defense, claimed he was not drunk saying instead that he was in bed with New York semi-pro player Pete Treacy and did not want to be disturbed. Bechtel was reinstated after a hearing July 8th but only appeared in two games the rest of the season. Louisville would perfect the expulsion of players in 1877.