Introduction to the Forgotten Birds of Baltimore  

Long before Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimoreans flocked to watch baseball being played in ballparks all over the city. Baltimore ’s first amateur baseball teams were organized in the 1850’s.  During the next decade, teams like the Pastimes and Marylands played their games in the city at a field called the Madison Avenue Grounds. 

On February 20, 1867, the Maryland State Baseball Association held its first convention and thirty-three ball clubs were represented.  The event was held at Sanderson’s Opera House in Baltimore .    

When the Cincinnati Red Stockings organized the first all professional baseball team in 1869, our national game would never be the same. The Red Stockings toured the country for two years, taking on all challengers. During that time, they lost just one game. Because of the team’s success, the first professional baseball league was formed in 1871.  This league was called the National Association of Professional Baseball Players.  The following year, Baltimore entered the League and joined the ranks of professional baseball. 

The city’s first Major League baseball team was known as the Lord Baltimores. They played in the National Association from 1872 until the ball club folded near the end of the 1874 season.  That year, Baltimore actually had two teams in the same League when the Maryland ’s entered the circuit for six games and dropped out.  The National Association disbanded in 1875 and the National League was formed the following year. Baltimore would again be without a Major League franchise until the city entered a team in the American Association’s opening season of 1882.  This Baltimore team would eventually come to be known as the Orioles.  The Baltimore Orioles played in the American Association through the 1891 season.  

At one point in time, in 1884, Baltimore actually had three professional teams playing at one time.   

In 1892, the Baltimore Orioles joined the National League. This Oriole team is considered to be one of the best nineteenth century ball clubs of all time.  Led by baseball innovator and Hall of Fame manager, Ned Hanlon, this team revolutionized the game with their aggressive tactics and rowdy play. These Orioles were the National League champions of 1894, 1895, and 1896.  There were seven future Hall of Fame members on their roster at this time.  These players included manager Hanlon, Wilbert Robinson, John McGraw, Joe Kelley, Hughie Jennings, Dan Brouthers and Willie Keeler.  

In 1899, Oriole owner, Ned Hanlon, and the team’s financial backers bought shares in the Brooklyn ball club of the National League.  Hanlon also took over as manager of the Brooklyn ball club, taking most of his Oriole star players with him. 

At the end of the 1899 National league season, the Orioles and three other teams were dropped from the League.  Baltimore investors attempted to finance a professional team for the following year but were unsuccessful. The next year, the city’s efforts were rewarded when the Orioles joined the American League for its inaugural season of 1901.  From the very beginning, Oriole manager John McGraw’s constant feuding with American League president Ban Johnson caused constant problems for the team.   

In early July of the 1902 season McGraw negotiated his release from Oriole team executives and left the ball club.  McGraw then took the job as manager of the National League New York Giants and began signing his former Oriole players.  A short while later, the daily operations of the Baltimore ball club were taken over by American League president, Ban Johnson.   

The following year, Ban Johnson moved the Oriole franchise to New York City .  This transplanted Oriole ball club eventually evolved into the current day New York Yankees organization. Sadly, for Baltimore baseball fans, when the 1902 season ended, the city was once again left without a professional team.

The New Beginning

1903 was an unusually eventful year in a world that was still enjoying the beginning of the 20th Century.  

Ivan Pavlov trained his dog to salivate to the sound of a bell even when there was no food offered.   

New York City built its first skyscraper, The Flatiron Building, at a mind-blowing height of 225 feet.   

Ludwig Roselius figured out how to get 97 percent of the caffeine out of coffee by using sea water.  He said his new process created a beverage that was sans caffeine and put it on the market as a new product called Sanka. 

Surgeon Georg Clement Perthes discovered that x-rays inhibit the growth of cancerous tumors and Willis Carrier builds the first whole-building air conditioner for a Brooklyn manufacturing plant.   

A small group of people witnessed two brothers who owned a bicycle shop fly a heavier-than-air craft over the beach in Kitty Hawk , North Carolina for 59 seconds.  Many who saw the feat said it was a novel idea, but people actually using such a device for transportation was patently absurd.  

1903 saw the birth of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Lawrence Welk, Claudette Colbert, Edgar Bergen, Benjamin Spock, John Dillinger, George Orwell, Jeanette MacDonald, Earl “Fatha” Hines and Lou Gehrig.  

That same year witnessed the passing of Paul Gauguin, Judge Roy Bean, and Pope Leo XIII.  

The most talked about movie was Edwin Porter’s The Great Train Robbery. It was silent and not in color, but was the rage anyway.  

At that same time, another event stepped into the spotlight. The International League Baltimore Orioles began their legendary 50-year reign in baseball sports history.  This is their story.  A story whose records were almost entirely lost to the all-consuming Oriole Park fire on July 4th, 1944. A story pieced painstakingly together from living players and sportscasters, players' relatives, extant books, scorecards and records, photographs and news clippings, and, ruefully often, only from monuments, the last proof of their incredible existence and contribution to America's greatest pastime. 

We will remember them. If only for a few brief minutes on a silver screen, we will remember them and see them come to life and play yet again. The sounds of bats cracking, the roar of crowds cheering, the smell of leather and hot dogs and the voices of the past will once again come alive in our senses. We'll get a last look back at our champions.  And as long as we can recall warm summer days in a time that history has fixed in our hearts, they will no longer be forgotten.