Baseball First Minor League

   On February 20, 1877 The International Association was formed. The seven club league has gone down in history as Baseball's first minor league. Although no evidence was found that any of the National League clubs farmed any players out to the International Association during the 1877 season or any of the seasons that followed. The clubs that took franchises in the league were the Columbus Ohio Buckeyes, Guelph Ontario Maple Leafs, London Ontario Tecumsehs, Lynn Massachusetts Live Oaks, Manchester New Hampshire, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Allegheny and Rochester New York. One of the more interesting things here was that two of the clubs pulled double duty as members of the New England League as well. The Lynn and Manchester Clubs were the two clubs doing this.
 
   The Tecuseh club played 18 league games winning 14 of them, they played 80 games in all. The Allegheny club played 92 games in all, winning 11 of 16 league games. The other 5 clubs played between 11 and 16 league games each. The league expanded to 16 clubs for the 1878 season, the league took in the other 3 members of the New England League. The Buckeyes and Maple Leafs did not reenter the league for the second season. The clubs played as many as 38 games between them.

 The league downgraded to 10 clubs and changed its name to the National Association for the 1879 season. The league only had 4 clubs returning from its third season. Two of the returning clubs were from the first season. The league clubs played as many as 41 games in the season. The league struggled to put 4 clubs on the field for its fourth and final season. Many of the leagues players went on to long careers in the Major Leagues. Many of the cities that had clubs in the league have had long histories in the game and many are in the game today; cities like Washington, DC, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Rochester, New York and Syracuse, New York.

  I am hoping that you found yesterdays trivia question an easy one. The Baltimore Ravens franchise originated as the Cleveland Browns in the All-American Football Conference before moving to the NFL for many years as the Browns before their 1996 move to Baltimore. Todays trivia question is the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League have been in the league since 1938 making them the oldest minor league hockey team. The question is which three active franchises are next in line for the title of oldest active team in the league? The answer will be posted in tomorrows daily blog looking at some basketball games.