History of the Cincinnati Reds

Lore & Background

The original Cincinnati Red Stockings, formed as the amateur Cincinnati Base Ball Club, became baseball's first openly all-professional team in 1869. They went 130 games without a loss (including ties) in 1869 and 1870, including a remarkable 81 consecutive wins in 1869, before finally losing to the Atlantic Club of Brooklyn. Star players included Harry and George Wright, Fred Waterman, and pitcher Asa Brainard. The team dissolved in 1870, and the name went to Boston, where a new team featuring former Cincinnati stars began play in 1871, eventually becoming the Atlanta Braves. A second Cincinnati Red Stockings team joined the National League in 1876 but was expelled after the 1880 season for serving beer and allowing Sunday games. The current franchise was founded in 1882 as a founding member of the American Association, winning its first pennant that same year with a .688 winning percentage, still a club record. In November 1889, the club left the American Association for the National League, and sportswriters began shortening the name to 'Reds' to avoid confusion with Boston's Red Stockings.

Reader's Guide

The Cincinnati Reds hold a unique place in baseball history as the sport's first openly all-professional team, a milestone achieved in 1869. Their 130-game winning streak in 1869–1870 remains a legendary feat. The current franchise, dating to 1881, is one of only five 19th-century teams still playing in its original city. The Reds won the first American Association pennant in 1882 and later captured World Series titles in 1919 and 1940. The team introduced the first night game in major league history in 1935 at Crosley Field. Johnny Vander Meer threw back-to-back no-hitters in 1938, a record that still stands. The Reds also briefly changed their name to the Redlegs from 1954 to 1958 due to the Second Red Scare. The team's 'wishbone' logo, featuring 'Reds' inside an elongated C, has been in use since 1911.

Did You Know?

• The 1869 Red Stockings were baseball's first openly all-professional team.
• The team went 130 games without a loss in 1869 and 1870, including 81 consecutive wins in 1869.
• Johnny Vander Meer is the only pitcher in major league history to throw back-to-back no-hitters (1938).
• The Reds hosted the first night game in major league history in 1935.

The Reds in Baseball's First Televised Game

The Cincinnati Reds found themselves part of a historic moment on August 26, 1939, when they faced the Brooklyn Dodgers in a doubleheader at Ebbets Field that would be captured on television for the very first time. The broadcast aired on W2XBS, an experimental New York City station that would eventually evolve into WNBC, the flagship of the NBC network. The Reds took the first game of the doubleheader by a score of 5–2, while the Dodgers answered in the second with a 6–1 victory. The entire event was called by Red Barber, who worked without the aid of any monitor. Only two cameras covered the proceedings—one positioned on Barber himself and the other stationed behind home plate. To determine what was being shown, Barber simply watched which light was illuminated and in which direction it pointed, essentially guessing what viewers were seeing. For the Reds, this modest doubleheader at a rival's ballpark became the backdrop for one of the earliest chapters in the marriage between baseball and the emerging medium of television.

The Reds' Era and the Postwar Television Boom

During the late 1940s, the Cincinnati Reds existed within a rapidly transforming media landscape. By 1947, television sets—most featuring small five- or seven-inch screens—were being purchased by the public almost as quickly as manufacturers could produce them. This surge in household television ownership prompted Major League teams, including the Reds, to begin televising their games, drawing an entirely new audience into ballparks. Fans who had previously followed baseball only in a casual manner found themselves motivated to attend games in person after seeing them on screen. The impact was measurable: in 1948, total Major League attendance climbed to a record 21 million. The 1947 World Series, broadcast locally in New York by NBC's WNBT alongside CBS and DuMont stations, drew an estimated 3.9 million viewers and is credited as television's first true mass audience. For the Reds and their Cincinnati fanbase, this era marked the beginning of a relationship between the game and the living room that would reshape how baseball was consumed for generations.

Cincinnati Joins the Live Broadcast Map

For years, live World Series coverage was a privilege reserved for a handful of cities. In 1947, the broadcast reached only the New York City area and a limited number of stations in Schenectady, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. By 1948 and 1949, the network's reach expanded to include Boston, New Haven, and Richmond, Virginia. Then, in 1949, a significant leap occurred: Cincinnati joined a broad list of Northeastern and Midwestern cities—including Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Detroit, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, Indianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Louis—that could finally watch the World Series live. These cities had been connected to network transmission lines over the preceding year, making real-time broadcasts possible. For Reds fans in Cincinnati, this meant the season's most important games were no longer a delayed or local affair but a shared, immediate experience with audiences across the country, cementing the Reds' place in a national television conversation.

The Reds Within NBC's Evolving Baseball Story

The Cincinnati Reds' history in the mid-20th century unfolded alongside a dramatic evolution in how Major League Baseball reached television audiences. In 1950, the Mutual Broadcasting System briefly held both television and radio rights to the World Series and All-Star Game, only to sell those rights to NBC at a substantial profit for the following season. That same year marked the first time an exclusive network television broadcaster—NBC—carried the Series, and by 1951, transcontinental transmission lines allowed the first live coast-to-coast baseball broadcasts, including the dramatic Dodgers-Giants tiebreaker. The 1952 All-Star Game in Philadelphia became the first nationally televised All-Star Game, though rain shortened it. By 1955, NBC delivered the first color telecast of a World Series. Throughout these milestones, the Reds remained part of the broader league whose games powered this broadcasting revolution, their on-field performances contributing to the growing and loyal audience that made national television baseball a commercial success despite warnings from figures like Senator Edwin Johnson about threats to minor league survival.

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