Philadelphia Baseball History

While searing the Internet and browsing through social media to find topics to highlight during African-American History Month, I came across a tweet claiming that the Philadelphia Dolly Vardens, a team of all African-American women, became the first professional baseball team in 1867, a full two years before the formation of the Cincinnati Red Stockings.   Intrigued, but also skeptical, I wanted to find out more about the Dolly Vardens. The first thing I noticed is that the statement that the Dolly Vardens were the first professional baseball team, or the first team to be paid to play baseball, is repeated on numerous websites, tweets, and Instagram posts without any citation or reference to an original source.   One Facebook page, entitled “The Dolly Varden Project,” even posts a photo of an all-female African-American team claiming it to be of the Dolly Vardens.   Further research, however, reveals the photo to be of a team organized by a YMCA in the 1920s. ...

            In the business of baseball, Colonel John Rogers and Benjamin Shibe were not allies.   To the contrary, Shibe was the largest owner of the Philadelphia Athletics who played in the upstart American League.   The A’s had signed away one of the stars of Rogers’ Philadelphia Phillies, Nap Lajoie, in the premier season of 1901.   Many of Lajoie’s teammates also jumped leagues, which prompted Rogers to seek an injunction preventing former Phillies from playing in American League games in the state of Pennsylvania.             But on the gridiron, Rogers and Shibe became unlikely compatriots.   In 1902, football was becoming more popular in the United States.   Rogers and Shibe saw an opportunity to benefit from the rising popularity of the sport, and formed the first professional football league: the National Football League.   The league...