Cincinnati Red Stockings

The Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869 were baseball's first all-professional team, with ten salaried players.^[1] 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 businessmen and ballplayer Harry Wright shaped as much as anyone. Major League Baseball recognized 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 the color red as the color of Cincinnati (continuing with the modern Cincinnati Reds), and they were the origin of the "Red Sox" in Boston Red Sox.