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1880 Major League Baseball season

The 1880 major league baseball season was contested from May 1 through October 1, 1880, and saw the Chicago White Stockings as the pennant winner of the fifth season of the National League. There was no postseason.

The 1880 season is known for the first two major league perfect games in history, as well as being the only perfect games in the 19th century. Thrown by Lee Richmond and John Ward, these two perfect games were thrown in the span of five days, the shortest amount of time between two perfect games (the next closest is currently 20 days between Dallas Braden's May 9 and Roy Halladay's and May 29, 2010 perfect games). A perfect game would not be seen again in the Major Leagues for 24 years when Cy Young threw his perfect game in .

Over the off-season, the Cincinnati Reds and Syracuse Stars disbanded, and were replaced by the Cincinnati Stars and Worcester Worcesters. This would be the Stars' only major league season.

Schedule

The 1880 schedule consisted of 84 games for all eight teams of the National League. Each team was scheduled to play 12 games against the other seven teams in the league. This continued the format put in place since the previous season and would be used until .

Opening Day took place on May 1 featuring all eight teams. The final day of the season was on October 1, featuring a doubleheader between the Providence Grays and Worcester Worcesters.

Rule changes

The 1880 season saw the following rule changes:

  • Teams that wanted to change future playing dates now needed all eight teams to approve said change. Previously, only the two mutual teams needed to agree.
  • An oversight that technically allowed more than nine players to play at a time was corrected.
  • Umpires are now the sole arbiters of whether a ball was unfit for play.
  • Umpires will now note the time of the beginning of any rain (now without request of a team captain) and will call the game if it continued for 30 minutes.
  • The concept of a walk-off hit was implemented, as now, a contest would end if the team scheduled to bat in the bottom of the ninth (or bottom of any extra inning) was winning.
  • Eight balls became a base on balls, down from nine.
  • A catcher must now catch a third strike before it touched the ground.

Teams

An asterisk (*) denotes the ballpark a team played the minority of their home games at

Standings

National League

Tie games

Eight tie games, which are not factored into winning percentage or games behind occurred throughout the season (though standings were determined by total wins, not winning percentage).

The Buffalo Bisons, Cincinnati Stars, and Providence Grays had three tie games each. The Boston Red Caps, Chicago White Stockings, and Worcester Worcesters had two tie games each. The Cleveland Blues had one tie game.

Managerial changes

Off-season

In-season

League leaders

National League

Milestones

Pitchers

Perfect games

  • Lee Richmond (WOR):
  • Pitched the first perfect game in Major League history and the only in franchise history on June 12 against the Cleveland Blues. Richmond struck out five in the 1–0 victory. There was little discussion about the perfect game as the concept did not exist in 1880.

No-hitters

  • Larry Corcoran (CHI):
  • Corcoran threw his first career no-hitter and the first no-hitter in franchise history, by defeating the Boston Red Caps 6–0 on August 19.
  • Pud Galvin (BUF):
  • Galvin threw his first career no-hitter and the first no-hitter in franchise history, by defeating the Worcester Worcesters 1–0 on August 20.

Miscellaneous

Venues

The National League saw two teams join for the 1880 season:

The Troy Trojans leave the Putnam Grounds (where they played their inaugural seasons) and move to the Haymakers' Grounds, where they would play for two seasons through .

The Troy Trojans begin to host a few games at Riverside Park in nearby Greenbush, New York, playing on September 11.

See also

References

External links