George Wright (sportsman)

Infobox MLB retired
name=George Wright
position=Shortstop


bgcolor1=#af0039
bgcolor2=#af0039
textcolor1=white
textcolor2=white
birthdate=January 28 1847
city-state|Yonkers|New York
deathdate=death date and age|1937|8|21|1847|1|28
city-state|Boston|Massachusetts
bats=Right
throws=Right
debutdate=May 5
debutyear=by|1871
debutteam=Boston Red Stockings
finaldate=October 2
finalyear=by|1882
finalteam=Providence Grays
stat1label=Batting average
stat2label=Runs batted in
stat3label=Runs scored
stat1value=.302
stat2value=330
stat3value=665
teams=As Player
*Boston Red Stockings (1871-1875)
*Boston Red Caps (1876-1878, 1880-1881)
*Providence Grays (1879, 1882)As Manager
*Providence Grays (1879)
highlights=
hofdate=1937
hofmethod=Special Committee

George Wright (January 28 1847 – August 21 1937) was an American pioneer in the sport of baseball. He played shortstop for the original Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first fully professional team, when he was probably the game's best player. In 1868, Wright won the Clipper Medal for being the best shortstop in baseball.

He was one of five men to play regularly for both the Cincinnati and the Boston Red Stockings, the latter winning six championships during his eight seasons to 1878. On April 22, by|1876, he became the first batter in National League history, and grounded out to the shortstop. Elder brother Harry Wright managed both Red Stockings teams and made George his cornerstone; the brothers are now in the Hall of Fame together. George helped define the shortstop position and on-field teamwork, but his main work as a sporting developer came after retiring from baseball. After arriving in Boston he entered the sporting goods business, soon under the name Wright & Ditson's. There he continued in the industry, assisting in the development of golf, tennis, and hockey. [Find A Grave lists simply him as "Baseball player, Hall of Famer. Golf course builder."

The construction of George Wright Municipal Golf Course was a minor event in the history of public space, a conversion of part of Frederick Law Olmsted-designed park.] Fact|date=February 2007

Born in Yonkers, New York, twelve years younger than Harry, George Wright was raised as a cricket "club pro", assisting their father as Harry had done. Before George's birth, Samuel Wright's St. George Cricket Club moved from Manhattan across the Hudson River to Elysian Fields, Hoboken, New Jersey, where many New York and New Jersey base ball clubs played in the 1850s. Both boys learned base ball, too, but George grew up with the "national game" and was barely in his teens when the American Civil War curtailed its boom; Harry was already twenty-two when the baseball fraternity convened for the first time, and thirty when the war ended.

George is the father of tennis great Beals Wright, a U.S. Championship winner and Olympic gold medalist.

Amateur era

At some times during the war, both Wright brothers played for the venerable Gothams, the second eldest baseball team after the Knickerbockers. According to Ivor-Campbell (1996), George moved from the Gotham juniors to the senior team when he was fifteen. At seventeen in 1864 he was the regular catcher. Baseball's recovery from the War was far advanced in greater New York City (always untouched by the military conflict), as the leading clubs played more than twenty NABBP matches, the Gothams eleven. George played eight and led the team both in runs, scoring 2.4 times per game, and "hands lost", put out only 2.4 times per game, average being three per player in a 9-inning game. In seven matches infielder Harry was fourth in scoring at 2.0 and second behind George in hands lost at 2.6 (Wright 2000: 91).For the 1865 season George was hired by the Philadelphia Cricket Club; that summer he played in five matches for the Olympic Ball Club of that city. The Olympic club was the devoted to games in the base ball genus, established in 1833. At the December annual meeting, the first in peacetime, National Association of Base Ball Players membership tripled, including isolated clubs from as far as Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and Chattanooga, Tennessee. George returned to the Gothams for base ball; he was nineteen and nearing his athletic peak. At the same time, Harry moved to Cincinnati for a job at the Union Cricket Club.

Early in the summer of 1866, George moved from catcher for Gotham, which played eight NABBP matches that year, to shortstop for Union, which played 28, the leading number. The Unions of Morrisania, now in the New York borough of the Bronx, were another charter member of the first Association, but one that moved toward professionalism in the postwar years, as the Gothams did not. In 1867, he joined the Nationals of Washington, DC, eldest club in that city, whose approach to professionalism was arranging government jobs, mainly with the Treasury. He played second base, shortstop, and pitcher in 29 of the 30 matches fully on record and in those matches led the team both in scoring and hands lost. Next year he returned to the Unions for the association's last officially all-amateur season and moved permanently to the shortstop position.

Cincinnati

Meanwhile, brother Harry had acquired baseball duties and had organized for Cincinnati the strongest team in the West, led in 1868 by a handful of players from the East -- presumably compensated somehow by club members if not by the club. When the NABBP permitted professionalism for 1869, Harry augmented himself and four incumbents with five new men including brother George, who was highest paid at $1400 for nine months. George remained a cornerstone of Harry's teams for ten seasons.

Cincinnati toured the continent undefeated in 1869, as George batted .633 with 49 home runs in 57 games. It may have been the strongest team in 1870, but the club dropped professional base ball after the second season.

New England

Harry Wright was hired to organize a new team in Boston, where he signed three teammates including George for 1871. He brought along the nickname, too; if the nickname is the tenth man or the player-manager counts double, Harry thereby composed half the team that just missed winning the first National Association pennant. George suffered a broken leg and missed half the season; one more win at the right time would have been decisive in Boston's favor.

With some personnel changes, the Boston Red Stockings won the other four NA pennants, dominating so severely in 1875 that they helped provoke a new league. The team trailed badly in the first National League season, after the defection of its Big Four western players to Chicago, but rebounded to win again both 1877-78. George Wright had played an even decade for Harry's teams, beginning with the First Nine and closing with six league championships in seven. (Another 1869 hire, Andy Leonard, was present for all but the 1871 second-place finish.)

The Providence Grays, new in the NL for 1878, hired George to lead the team in 1879. He did as well as possible, wresting the championship for himself from older brother Harry; for Providence and Rhode Island from older and regionally dominant Boston and Massachusetts.

But Wright & Ditson Sporting Goods was growing, so George returned to Boston for business reasons. He remains the only man to win the pennant in his lone season as manager. Meanwhile the National League introduced the reserve list system, and Providence listed George, so he was not free to sign with Boston. (Until the 1879-80 off-season, every professional baseball player was a "free agent" for every season.) During the next two seasons he played only a few games. . When Boston changed managers for 1882, Harry signed to lead Providence and inherited the right to sign his brother. George agreed to play another season full-time, retiring after the 1882 season with a .302 batting average in the major leagues from 1871.

Wright holds the NA career record for the most Triples (41).

ee also

* List of Major League Baseball triples champions

Notes

References

*baseball-reference|id=managers/wrighge01 (major league manager)
*baseball-reference|id=w/wrighge01 (major league player)
*Find-A-Grave. [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=2470 "George Wright"] . Retrieved 2006-08-30. - photos
*Ivor-Campbell, Frederick (1996). "George Wright". "Baseball's First Stars". Edited by Frederick Ivor-Campbell, et al. Cleveland, OH: SABR. ISBN 0-910137-58-7
* [NBHOFMa] National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. [http://baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/Wright_George.htm "George Wright"] . Retrieved 2006-08-30. - deprecated
* [HBHOFMb] National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. [http://baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/plaques/Wright_George.htm "George Wright's Hall of Fame Plaque"] . Retrieved 2006-08-30.
*Retrosheet. [http://retrosheet.org/boxesetc/Pwrigg101.htm "George Wright"] . Retrieved 2006-08-29.
*Sentence, David (n.d.). [http://www.sccacricket.org/magazindetails.php?newsid=548&newscatid=44&prm=news "Cricket in America - Part 3: America's Oldest Cricket Club"] . Retrieved 2006-08-31.
*Wright, Marshall (2000). "The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870". Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-7864-0779-4