May 1st daily post

Today we begin with a look an event that took place on May 1, 1884. On that date the Eastern League played their first league games. The league had 8 teams on the eastern seaboard of the United States. The teams represented the Cities of Allentown, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Newark, New Jersey; Reading, Pennsylvania; Richmond, Virginia; Trenton, New Jersey and Wilmington, Delaware. All of these cities now have very long histories in baseball and in other sports as well. For most of these cities this was the beginning of their professional sports histories.

The league went through many struggles in this its first season play. The struggles started on May 19th when the Baltimore Club folded as it was competing with two other teams for the cities fans. Although it was a tough fight the league it did finish its season at the end of the September.

The league did manage to make it to the 1885 season as the New York State League and after many changes and many years the league made its final name change in 1912 when it became the International League. Today the league is a very healthy 14 team league with a very long history as the second oldest sports league in the world. It may have seemed like a very modest beginning on May 1st of 1884 but every long journey begins with a single step. The International League began as a single step some 126 years ago, this blog begins with a single step today. Tomorrow we will look at a single baseball game played only 8 years ago.