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After a tumultuous five-year existence, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NA) folded following the 1875 season. The National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs (NL) was formed in Chicago, Illinois, by businessman and owner of the Chicago Base Ball Club (now known as the Chicago Cubs), William Hulbert, for the purpose of replacing the NA, which he believed to have been corrupt, mismanaged, full of rowdy, drunken ballplayers, and under the influence of the gambling community.^[1][2] One of the new rules put into place by the new league was that all teams had to be located in cities that had a population of 75,000 or more. The initial NL season began with eight teams, and they were asked to play seventy games between April 22 and October 21.^[3] The NL is often considered to be the first "major league", although it has been argued that the NA can make that claim.^[4]

• National League: Chicago Base Ball Club
• Champions of the West: St. Louis Base Ball Association^[5] (Unofficial postseason)

• v
• t
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National League

Team	W	L	Pct.	GB	Home	Road
Chicago	52	14	.788	—	25‍–‍6	27‍–‍8
Hartford	47	21	.691	6	23‍–‍9	24‍–‍12
St. Louis	45	19	.703	6	24‍–‍6	21‍–‍13
Boston	39	31	.557	15	19‍–‍17	20‍–‍14
Louisville	30	36	.455	22	15‍–‍16	15‍–‍20
Mutual	21	35	.375	26	13‍–‍20	8‍–‍15
Athletic	14	45	.237	34½	10‍–‍24	4‍–‍21
Cincinnati	9	56	.138	42½	6‍–‍24	3‍–‍32

National League[6]
Type	Name	Stat
AVG	Ross Barnes CHI	.429
HR	George Hall PHI	5
RBI	Deacon White CHI	60
Wins	Albert Spalding CHI	47
ERA	George Bradley STL	1.23
Strikeouts	Jim Devlin LOU	122

Date	Place	Ballpark	Event	Ref
February 2	Chicago		William Hulbert organized the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, replacing the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, which had folded at the conclusion of the 1875 season. Morgan Bulkeley, the owner of the Hartford franchise, is selected as the league's first President.	[1]
February 12	Chicago		After he joined the Chicago Club as a player, Albert Spalding announced his plan to open a sporting goods retail store in Chicago; known today as Spalding.	[7][8]
April 22	Philadelphia	Athletic Park	The Bostons defeat the Athletics by the score of 6–5, in the first NL game. Joe Borden, pitching under the pseudonym Joe Josephs, is the winning pitcher, and Jim O'Rourke collected the league's first base hit.	[7][9]
April 25	Louisville	Louisville Baseball Park	In Chicago's first National League game, Albert Spalding threw the NL's first shutout as Chicago defeated Louisville by the score of 4–0. Spalding threw another shutout in the Chicagos' second game, on April 25, also against Louisville.	[7][10]
May 2	Cincinnati	Avenue Grounds	Ross Barnes of the Chicagos hit the first NL home run, an inside-the-park home run off pitcher Cherokee Fisher of Cincinnati.	[7][11]
May 13	Hartford	Hartford Ball Club Grounds	The New York Mutuals achieved a triple play in a loss to Hartford.	[7][12][13]
May 25	Philadelphia	Jefferson Street Grounds	The game between Athletic and Louisville ended in a 2–2 tie, the first game to end in a tie in the NL and in major league history.	[7][14][15]
May 30	New York	Union Grounds	In a game between Louisville and Mutual, Louisville right fielder George Bechtel committed three of the nine errors that led to his team's defeat. Louisville's ownership suspected that he intentionally "fixed" the game by intentionally committing errors to ensure a winning bet for himself and other gamblers. Management intercepted a wire dated June 10, in which Bechtel conspired to lose the game that day. Bechtel refused to resign when confronted with the evidence, so Louisville banished him from the team.	[16]
June 14	Philadelphia	Jefferson Street Grounds	George Hall and Ezra Sutton of Athletic each hit three triples in a 20–5 victory against Cincinnati, the only time teammates have accomplished this feat.	[7][17]
June 17	Philadelphia	Jefferson Street Grounds	In a 23–15 victory over Cincinnati, George Hall of Athletic becomes the first major league player to hit two home runs in a single game.	[17][18]
June 27	Chicago	23rd Street Grounds	Davy Force of Athletic collects six hits in six at bats in a 14–13 victory against Chicago and Albert Spalding. He is the first major leaguer to collect six hits in a nine-inning game.	[7][10][19]
July 15	St. Louis	Grand Avenue Park	George Bradley of St. Louis pitches the first no-hitter in MLB history, a 2–0 victory against Hartford. It is the second no-hitter recorded in professional play, after Joe Borden's on July 28, 1875.	[20][21]
July 25	Chicago	23rd Street Grounds	Cal McVey of the Chicagos collects six hits for the second consecutive nine-inning game. He has totaled 15 hits in the last three games, and 18 hits in the last four, both records. After collecting two more hits on July 27, and four more on July 29, McVey will have tied his own record with 18 hits in a four-game stretch.	[7][10]
August 4	Louisville	Louisville Baseball Park	Trailing Chicago with rain looming, the Louisvilles stall the game by committing error after error until the umpire rules the game a forfeit. The game result would later be removed from the official league standings.	[7]
August 21	St. Louis	Grand Avenue Park	In the ninth inning, and the score tied 6–6, of a game between Chicago and St. Louis, a St. Louis batter hit the base-runner coming from third base with batted ball. The umpire ruled that the runner was allowed to score, so Chicago left the field in protest. The umpire then awarded the game to St. Louis.	[22]
September 5	New York	Union Grounds	George Bradley of St. Louis records his 16th shutout of the season in a 9–0 win over Mutual. This season total of 16 shutouts has since been tied, by Grover Cleveland Alexander, of the Philadelphia Phillies in 1916.	[20][23]
September 11	Philadelphia		The Philadelphia Athletic Club informs the league office that it will be unable to make its last western road trip due to financial trouble. The owner of the Athletics suggested that the Chicago and St. Louis Clubs play additional games in Philadelphia, take a larger than normal portion of the gate receipts, so they raise enough money to finish their schedule, which was denied.	[7]
September 16	New York		The Mutual Club of New York announces to the league office that it will not make its final western road trip of the season due to lack of funds.	[7]
September 26	Chicago	23rd Street Grounds	The Chicago Club clinches the first National League pennant with a 7–6 win over Hartford.	[7][10]
October 23	Chicago		The Chicago Tribune published the year-end player statistics, one of which would be the newly created, batting average; the first known instance of this statistic being published.	[7]
December 10	Cleveland		During the NL's Winter Meetings, it was announced that William Hulbert was elected President of the league, and that the Philadelphia Athletics and the New York Mutuals were expelled for failure to complete their required schedule in the 1876 season.	[24]

• Chicago White Stockings signed Cap Anson as a free agent.^[25]
• Hartford Dark Blues signed Candy Cummings as a free agent.^[25]
• Boston Red Caps signed George Wright as a free agent.^[25]

• August 10, 1876 – The New York Mutuals loaned Nealy Phelps to the Philadelphia Athletics. Phelps returned to the Mutuals on the same day.^[25]

Date	Name	Ref
January 1	Joe Kostal	[26]
	Joe Martin	[27]
January 11	Elmer Flick†	[28]
January 12	George Browne	[29]
January 14	Bill Wolff	[30]
January 22	Warren McLaughlin	[31]
January 25	Fred Glade	[32]
January 27	Otis Clymer	[33]
February	Ike Van Zandt	[34]
February 4	Germany Schaefer	[35]
February 6	Andy Sommerville	[36]
February 7	Pat Moran	[37]
February 10	Doc Sechrist	[38]
February 13	Fred Buckingham	[39]
	Fritz Buelow	[40]
February 15	Carlton Molesworth	[41]
February 19	Joe Marshall	[42]
February 21	John Titus	[43]
February 27	Art Goodwin	[44]
March 15	Bill Hallman	[45]
March 17	J. A. Gammons	[46]
March 29	Harry Lochhead	[47]
	Frank Oberlin	[48]
April	Art Ball	[49]
April 1	Bill Friel	[50]
April 5	Bill Dinneen	[51]
April 6	Charlie Luskey	[52]
	Frank Murphy	[53]

Date	Name	Ref
April 11	Win Kellum	[54]
April 12	Vic Willis†	[55]
April 20	Charlie Hemphill	[56]
April 29	Pat Deisel	[57]
May 1	Larry Battam	[58]
May 2	Jack Morrissey	[59]
May 4	Charlie Hickman	[60]
	Dave Murphy	[61]
May 5	Frank Morrissey	[62]
May 7	Casey Patten	[63]
May 16	George Barclay	[64]
May 24	Fred Jacklitsch	[65]
June 2	Charlie Jones	[66]
June 5	Offa Neal	[67]
June 7	Barney Wolfe	[68]
June 10	George Prentiss	[69]
June 13	Gene McCann	[70]
June 15	Charlie Dexter	[71]
June 19	John Hinton	[72]
June 21	Billy Gilbert	[73]
June 24	Bill Hanlon	[74]
June 29	Patsy Flaherty	[75]
July 1	Jim Buchanan	[76]
July 3	Ralph Frary	[77]
July 7	Happy Iott	[78]
July 10	John Puhl	[79]
July 23	Ginger Beaumont	[80]
	Harry Mathews	[81]

Date	Name	Ref
July 26	Sam Breadon	[82]
July 27	Moose Baxter	[83]
July 29	Emmet Heidrick	[84]
August 2	Kid Nance	[85]
August 7	Pat Carney	[86]
	Lou Nordyke	[87]
August 11	Danny Murphy	[88]
August 18	Gus Dorner	[89]
August 24	John Brown	[90]
	Frank Quinn	[91]
August 28	Doc Hazleton	[92]
August 29	Elmer Stricklett	[93]
September 1	Jimmy Wiggs	[94]
September 3	Jerry Donovan	[95]
	Dusty Miller	[96]
	George Stone	[97]
September 5	Pete LePine	[98]
September 9	Frank Chance†	[99]
September 15	Nick Altrock	[100]
September 17	Otto Krueger	[101]
September 27	Steve Cusack	[102]
September 28	Frank Bates	[103]
	Red Long	[104]
October 13	Wild Bill Donovan	[105]
	Rube Waddell†	[106]
October 15	Percy Coleman	[107]
October 19	Mordecai Brown†	[108]
October 27	Patsy Dougherty	[109]

Date	Name	Ref
October 31	Ed Fisher	[110]
November 3	Phil Geier	[111]
November 3	Ike Rockenfield	[112]
November 6	Dave Altizer	[113]
	Danny Green	[114]
November 8	Danny Shay	[115]
November 9	Walter McCredie	[116]
November 12	Ed Killian	[117]
	Solly Salisbury	[118]
November 14	Harry Howell	[119]
November 17	Claude Elliott	[120]
November 24	Harvey Bailey	[121]
November 25	Lou Castro	[122]
November 28	Lee Fohl	[123]
December 2	Roscoe Miller	[124]
December 4	John Farrell	[125]
	Henry Krug	[126]
December 12	Joe Rickert	[127]
December 13	Rube Kisinger	[128]
December 16	Fred Crolius	[129]
	Sammy Strang	[130]
December 17	Roy Patterson	[131]
December 20	Jimmy Williams	[132]
December 25	Jim Jones	[133]
December 27	Charlie Carr	[134]
	Sam Woodruff	[135]

Abbreviations

Date	Individual's death date
Name	Individual's name
Age	Age at death
Cause	Cause of death
Cemetery	Place individual is interred
City/State	City and state of burial
Seasons	Seasons in which individual appeared
Teams	Teams the individual played for or managed

Date	Name	Age	Cause	Cemetery	City/State	Seasons	Teams	Ref
May 29	Tom Miller	26?	Malaria	Evergreen Memorial Park	Bensalem, Pennsylvania	1874–1875	Philadelphia Athletics, St. Louis Brown Stockings	[136][137]
October 18	Bub McAtee	31	Consumption	St. John Cemetery	Troy, New York	1871–1872	Chicago White Stockings, Troy Haymakers	[138][139]

• Bryce's Base Ball Guide

General

• Ginsburg, Daniel E. (2004). The Fix Is in: A History of Baseball Gambling and Game Fixing Scandals. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-1920-2.
• Reiss, Steven A. (2006) Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball Clubs, Volume 1. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-32991-5.

Specific

• 1876 season at Baseball-Reference.com
• Charlton's Baseball Chronology at BaseballLibrary.com
• Year by Year History at Baseball-Almanac.com
• Retrosheet.org