St. Louis Maroons
| St. Louis Maroons/Indianapolis Hoosiers | |
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| Years 1884–1889 | |
| Based in St. Louis, Missouri (1884–1886) Indianapolis (1887–1889) |
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Navy, yellow, white (1887–1889) |
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Navy, yellow, white (1887–1889)
Maroon, white (1884–1886)
The St. Louis Maroons were a professional baseball club based in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1884–1886. The club, established by Henry Lucas, were the one near-major league quality entry in the Union Association, a league that lasted only one season, due in large part to the dominance of the Maroons. When the UA folded after playing just one season, the Maroons joined the National League. In 1887 the Maroons relocated to Indianapolis and became the Indianapolis Hoosiers, playing three more seasons before folding.
The St. Louis Maroons debuted on April 20, 1884, at the Union Base Ball Park, defeating the UA Chicago club, 7-2. Henry Van Noye Lucas, the founder of the Union Association and owner of the Maroons, stocked his team with most of the league's best talent. They started the season 20-0, a mark that would not be topped in major American professional sports until the Golden State Warriors of the NBA surpassed it 131 years later in the 2015–16 season. The Maroons went 94-19 in that season; for comparison, the Maroons' record would project to 135-27 under the modern schedule of 162 games, while Pythagorean expectation based on the Maroons' results (887 runs scored, 452 runs allowed) and a 162-game schedule would translate to a record of 129-33, but these results are of questionable merit, and their closest rivals, the Cincinnati Outlaw Reds, finished 21 games behind. Those figures indicate something of the quality of the remainder of the organization, which many derided as the "Onion League".
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