1871 Preview - Boston Red Stockings

In reality, the Red Stockings were pretty much the same team as the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, famous as the first professional baseball team of all time. Of course, since the Cincinnati Red Stockings didn't have any other professional teams to play against, they wiped out all their competition. The team didn't lose a game for all of 1869, and they started out 1870 the same way. However, the Brooklyn Atlantics, widely considered the best team in the east, played them in Brooklyn on June 14, 1870, and beat them 8-7 in 11 innings. Once the Cincinnati club had been beaten, no one cared much about them anymore, and they started losing money. The city decided they were through paying for such expensive professionals, so team manager Harry Wright took the nucleus of the team to Boston for 1871.

Although historically Boston was the dominant team of the National Association, they would at least have some competition from the other clubs, all of which were now professional.

For my simulation, I have all of the players from the 1871 Boston Red Stockings on the team:

P - Al Spalding - Future sporting goods magnate and star pitcher for the 1870 Rockford club.
C - Cal McVey - A 21-year-old who played the outfield for the Cincinnati Red Stockings.
1B - Charlie Gould - He was a local boy in Cincinnati who followed Wright to Boston.
2B - Ross Barnes - Starred for the Rockford team from 1868-70, then was lured to Boston by Wright.
3B - Harry Schafer - A Philadelphian who was not part of the Cincinnati Red Stockings.
SS - George Wright - Harry's little brother, he was a star in the late 1860s and should continue to be one.
LF - Fred Cone - He is from Rockford, so presumably he was lured to Boston with Barnes and Spalding.
CF - Harry Wright - The mastermind, and one of the great players of the 1860s. A little past his prime by 1871.
RF - Frank Barrows - A little-known player who was not from the Cincinnati club or lured over from Rockford.

This looks like a strong team, but only half of the Cincinnati club is here, together with the best players from the 1870 team from Rockford, Illinois, which was evidently a hotbed of baseball in the late 1860s. From their real-life histories, I expect McVey, Barnes and George Wright to be stars, and possibly Harry Wright if he can hold off the ravages of age.