After 1875, the National Association was in big trouble. The teams refused to take long road trips, players were fixing games, and Boston club was kicking everybody’s ass. So in 1876 a new league was formed. It was called the National League, and it is the same National League that the Phillies play in today. The first game in National League history took place in front of 3,000 people at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. The Athletics, who had come to the NL from the NA, took on the Boston Red Stockings (the forerunner not to the Red Sox, but to the modern day Atlanta Braves.) The Red Stockings edged the Athletics, 6-5, helped in part by 11 Philadelphia errors. Late in the season, out of the pennant race, the Athletics decided to not take a western road trip. The decision would cost them, as they were kicked out of the league. This would mark the end of pro baseball in Philly in the 1870s, but baseball would return with a vengeance in the early 1880s.
