Baseball in New York 1

With both the Mets and Yankees playing league championship games yesterday, this seems like a good time to discuss some of the oddities of New York’s relationship to the game of baseball. And the best place to start is just how many professional teams there have been here. Most fans know that the Giants and Dodgers, now in San Francisco and Los Angeles, began in New York and Brooklyn, respectively, but may not realize how many lesser-known teams there were. So, in hopefully chronological order:

• New York Knickerbockers I, 1845-1870s, independent.
• Excelsior of Brooklyn, 1854-1870, in the National Association of Base Ball Players.
• Brooklyn Atlantics, 1855-1875, in the National Association of Base Ball Players, then later the National Association.
• Eckford of Brooklyn, 1855-1872, in the National Association of Base Ball Players, then later the National Assocoiation.
• Union of Morrisania, 1855-1873, in the National Association of Base Ball Players.
• Brooklyn Enterprise, 1856-1866, in the National Association of Base Ball Players.
• New York Mutuals, 1857-1876, in the National Association of Base Ball Players, the National Association, and the National League – an asterisk since they played in New Jersey and Brooklyn, despite the New York name.
• Brooklyn Hartfords, 1877, National League – a big asterisk, since they were based in Hartford, Connecticut and moved to Brooklyn for what turned out to be their last season.
• New York Metropolitans, 1880-1887, in the American Association.
• Brooklyn Dodgers (also known as the Grays, Robins, Trolley Dodgers, Superbas, Bridegrooms, Grooms, and Atlantics), 1883-1957, in the American Association and National League.
• New York Giants (also known as the Gothams), 1883-1957, in the National League.
• Brooklyn Gladiators, 1890, in the American Association.
• Brooklyn Ward’s Wonders, 1890, in the one-year-only Players’ League.
• New York Giants II, 1890, in the one-year-only Players’ League.
• New York Yankees (also known as the Highlanders), 1903 to present, in the American League.
• Brooklyn Royal Giants, 1905-1942, independent, in the National Association, and in the Eastern Colored League.
• New York Lincoln Giants, 1911-1930, independent, in the Eastern Colored League, and the American Negro League.
• New York Knickerbockers II, the worst team in the one-month-and-then-defunct United States Baseball League.
• New York Lincoln Stars, 1914-1917, independent.
• Cuban Stars (East), 1916-1933, independent, in the Eastern Colored League, and the American Negro League.
• Harlem Stars/Black Yankees, 1931-1948, in New York with some time in New Jersey, in the Negro National League.
• Brooklyn Eagles, 1935, in the Negro National League.
• New York Mets, 1962 to present, in the National League.
• Staten Island Yankees, 1999-2020, in the New York-Penn League – Class A minors.
• Queens Kings/Brooklyn Cyclones, 2000 to present, in the New York-Penn League, and South Atlantic League – Class A minors.
• Staten Island FerryHawks, 2021 to present, in the South Atlantic League – Class A minors.

To anyone who made it through that whole list, I have bad news: there is no prize for doing so. There is, however, an insight: the often-told story that baseball in New York was a three-way rivalry of the Dodgers, Giants, and Yankees until 1957, and a rivalry between the Yankees and Mets since 1962, is ignoring a lot of history. Most disturbingly, they’re ignoring a lot of the Negro Leagues’ history before the major leagues desegregated in 1947. The game has been played here professionally for almost 180 years, at the highest levels and laughably poorly, by stars and by unknowns, by people of every race, in every part of the landscape. Simplifying that down to a just-so story featuring a few teams from the 1930s to the 60s is over-simplifying to the extent of losing the plot entirely.