One hundred and fifty years ago today -- on May 4, 1869 -- the Cincinatti Red Stockings played the first professional baseball game in which all the players on the team were paid. Not surprisingly, they wiped out a local semipro team by a score of 45-9. Organized baseball had been around for a quarter-century, but now a team had taken a step that would lead to the first major league in 1871. None of those Red Stockings players are included in my Strat-O-Matic league (brothers Harry and George Wright are Hall of Famers but the set doesn't include stat cards for them), but they're the trailblazers who led the way for Al Spalding, Deacon White, and the first wave of true major leaguers.
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