Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869 Mug

The Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869 were baseball's first fully professional team, with ten salaried players. The Cincinnati Base Ball Club formed in 1866 and fielded competitive teams in the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) 1867–1870, a time of a transition that ambitious Cincinnati, Ohio businessmen and English-born ballplayer Harry Wright shaped as much as anyone. Major League Baseball recognised those events officially by sponsoring a centennial of professional baseball in 1969. Thanks partly to their on-field success and the continental scope of their tours, the Red Stockings established styles in team uniforms and team nicknames that have some currency even in the 21st century. They also established a particular colour, red, as the colour of Cincinnati, and they provide the ultimate origin for the use of "Red Sox" in Boston.