1871 Gold Glove Awards

For the Gold Glove Award, which historically wasn't given out until the 1957 season, I'm relying both on players' defensive reputations as I know of them, and their fielding statistics from the 1871 simulation. One of the interesting things about early base ball is how much more important the fielders were. Indeed, base ball until the late 1870s was basically viewed as a struggle between batter and fielders - much like today's slow-pitch softball. As a result, baseball fans were trying to come up with good measures to quantify fielding skill right from the start. The big controversy of the 1870s was whether a player's errors or his positive plays were more important to track. This struggle was won by the error, which led to about 130 years of confusion about fielding skill.

At any rate, here are the players who were considered the top fielders of 1871:

Pitcher - George Zettlein, Chicago White Stockings
Catcher - Deacon White, Forest City (Cleveland)
First Base - Bub McAtee, Chicago White Stockings
Second Base - Charlie Smith, Mutual-Haymaker
Third Base - Levi Meyerle, Athletic
Shortstop - Dickey Pearce, Mutual
Left Field - Charlie Pabor, Forest City (Cleveland)
Center Field - Dave Eggler, Mutual
Right Field - Joe Simmons, Chicago White Stockings