On the day of the first professional baseball game, the columns of the Cincinnati Enquirer contained an item about Queen Victoria. The date was May 4, 1869 -- 150 years ago on Saturday -- when Her Majesty was three weeks shy of her 50th birthday. According to the paper, all of the queen's bridesmaids had married since her own nuptials with the late Prince Albert. Some of them had even died.
There was also a small notice under the "Amusements" section, saying simply, "BASE BALL. This afternoon, at 3 o'clock. CINCINNATI vs. GREAT WESTERN. First regular game of the season. 1 cent." On another page, a small item said, "The Cincinnati and Great Western Base-ball Clubs play the first regular match game of the season this afternoon at three o'clock, on the Union Grounds. Both clubs will send forth the whole of their first nines, and a very interesting game may be expected."
The next day's paper didn't mention how that contest unfolded. If it had, it would have been pointed out that the Red Stockings, as the Cincinnati nine were known, had trounced the Great Western amateurs -- the game was only half professional -- by the unholy score of 45-9. It was a typical result for the Red Stockings, who won games by scores such as 103-8 and 53-0 en route to a 64-0 record, including exhibitions.
What really marked that first game as different from any that came before it was that the team's owner, Harry Wright, was openly paying salaries to his players, the best of whom was Wright's brother, George, who hit .633 with 49 homers during the team's 57-game road trip. George made $1,400 that season, a nice haul on a 10-man team with a $9,300 payroll. Players had been paid before, of course, but it was under-the-table stuff during an era when amateurism was held up as an ideal of athletic competition. However, a change to the guidelines set out by the National Association of Base Ball Players made it possible to lay on the table that which had been taking place underneath it. Wright quickly built the country's strongest team.
Those Cincinnati Red Stockings are not an extension of the Reds we know today -- it was a prototype franchise, just as the NABBP was not a major league, but an only-kind-of-similar forerunner. The real big leagues didn't come about until either 1871 or 1876, depending on whether you think the National Association (1871 to 1875) was the first major league, or the National League (began 1876) deserves to be anointed with that honor. But Harry Wright's Red Stockings were perhaps the primordial germ of the professional game we know today, and it all started 150 years ago.