Philadelphia Athletics (1860–1876)
| Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia (Philadelphia Athletics) |
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| Years 1860 – 1876 | |
| Based in Philadelphia | |
| Major league affiliations | |
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| Ballpark | |
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| Colors | |
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Navy, white |
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| Managers | |
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| Major league titles | |
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Navy, white
The Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia (also known as the Philadelphia Athletics) was a prominent National Association, and later National League, professional baseball team that played in the second half of the 19th century.
The city of Philadelphia "had been a baseball town from the earliest days of the game", fielding amateur teams since at least the early 1830s. In 1860, James N. Kerns formed a club, simply named "Athletic Base Ball Club", that soon dominated amateur play in the area (Jordan 1999). Harper's Weekly chronicled a match between Athletic and Atlantic of Brooklyn for the baseball championship in 1866. A famous Harper's illustration shows the Athletic players in uniforms with the familiar blackletter "A" on front.
When newspapers developed stand-alone game scores and league standings, the club was termed Athletic (Base Ball Club being dropped in any case). In prose the team was commonly called the Athletics, plural, and later generations have usually called both club and team the "Philadelphia Athletics".
Athletic turned professional in the late 1860s and helped establish the first league, National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NA), which began play in 1871. It played home games at Jefferson Street Grounds until expulsion from the major leagues in 1876.
The Athletics were one of the most successful National Association teams, winning the first pennant with a record of 21 wins and 7 losses (.750), two games ahead of the Boston Red Stockings and Chicago White Stockings. Actually, the race was much closer: the primary official criterion then was neither games nor winning percentage, but wins, and the three clubs finished in the order given with 21, 20, and 19 victories. The final game of the season, played on October 30 in Brooklyn, saw Athletic defeat Chicago, 4–1, clinching the title. (, a 40-year-old amateur who played right field for Philadelphia that day due to injuries, made his only big-league appearance in that game.)
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