National Association

New York Mutuals History

The Mutual Base Ball Club of New York ("Mutual" or the "New York Mutuals") was one of the first organized baseball clubs and managed to survive all the way through to the birth of the National League.

At a glance... NEW YORK MUTUALS Franchise Facts Established 1858 Disbanded  1876 Located New York Executives Alexander Davidson (1871-1874) Robert Mathews (1873) William Cammeyer (1875-1876) Year by Year Results W L % 1871  16 17 .485 1872  34 20 .630 1873 29 24 .547 1874 42 23 .646 1875 30 38 .441 1876 21 35 .375 Affiliations NABBP (1858-1870) National Association (1871-1875) National League (1876) Postseason/Titles NABBP Titles (1) 1868 NA Titles (0) Nicknames Mutual of New York (1858-1875) Ballparks Elysian Fields (1858-1868) Union Grounds (1868-1876) Top Performances Single-Season Career

Established in 1858, Mutual debuted during the second year of the National Association of Base Ball Players. The team won the 1868 championship and held on to it until the Atlantic of Brooklyn beat them in 1869. They also declared themselves champions of 1870, though no one else agreed.

The team played its home games at the fabled Elysian Fields (see below) in Hoboken, New Jersey in the early years but moved to Brooklyn's Union Grounds in 1868.

The team had perhaps its best season in 1874, when the club went 42-23 and finished second to Boston. Bobby Mathews lead the league with a 2.30 ERA and had a 42-32 record. Mathews finished his career with 297 wins - the most among those not in the Hall but eligible; perhaps some historian will be nice enough find the man the necessary three victories.¹

The team had eight managers in five seasons, perhaps preparing the Big Apple for George Steinbrenner a century later.

The Mutual were a franchise in the first season of the National League in 1876. The team owners must not have realized how serious the league was about reform. In debt near the end of the season, the team refused to make return trips out west and was promptly expelled from the league never to be heard from again. By out west, we mean places like Louisville and Chicago (the real west had not yet been invented, if contemporary newspapers are to be taken literally). And by "return trip", we mean that if Louisville visited your park in New York, you had to return the favor; home teams received 67% of gate. The refusal of teams in the National Association to make such trips had plagued that league. The NL made an example of Mutual and the Athletic of Philadelphia. That it was willing to give up two of the three biggest baseball towns sent a message. It is unfortunate from an historical perspective: these were the last two remaining teams from the old amateur NAPPB days.

The Union Grounds had one last occupant in 1877 when the Hartford team changed its name to the Hartford of Brooklyn and played out their final season.

1865 Championship! The Mutuals played the Atlantics at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey for the world's champions of baseball in 1865 as seen in this Courier and Ives print from the following year. Elysian was the perfect setting as the former home of Alexander Cartwright and his 1845 New York Knickerbockers. If you could take a time machine back to the true birthplace of baseball as we know it, you'd probably end up here. Courier and Ives litho courtesy LOC

Notes:
1. Actually, if the right historian comes along and manages to convince MLB to erroneously give the old International Association or 1880 Pacific Coast League "major league" status, Matthews will easily jump past the 300 mark. He signed on to these leagues for more money, but it has obviously hurt his legacy as the 30 or so wins from those years do not count. Not that he cares.

National Association sources/bibliography:
Baseball: The Early Years by Harold Seymour.
Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search For The Roots Of The Game by David Block.
Baseball in Blue and Gray: The National Pastime during the Civil War by George B. Kirsch.
Blackguards and Red Stockings by William J. Ryczek
The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870 by Marshall D. Wright.
Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball by Warren Goldstein.
When Johnny Came Sliding Home: The Post-Civil War Baseball Boom, 1865-1870 by William J. Ryczek

David Nemec, the tireless 19th Century Baseball researcher, has also written a novel called Early Dreams, which takes place during this era and features real-life characters such as Cap Anson, George Wright, and Henry Lucas.

General Baseball History sources/bibliography:
Baseball: A History of America's Game by Benjamin G. Rader.
Baseball: A Film By Ken Burns (PBS DVD)
The Formation, Sometimes Absorption and Mostly Inevitable Demise of 18 Professional Baseball Organizations, 1871 to Present by David Pietrusza.
The Great 19th Century Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball, 2nd Edition by David Nemec.
Early Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825-1908 by Dean A. Sullivan.
Middle Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1900-1948 by Dean A. Sullivan.
Late Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball 1945-1972 by Dean A. Sullivan
Past Time: Baseball as History by Jules Tygiel
America's National Game: Historic Facts Concerning the Beginning, Evolution, Development and Popularity of Baseball by Albert Spalding
Total Baseball: The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia by John Thorn, et al.