On this day in history, March 15, 1869, Cincinnati Red Stockings become first professional baseball team

‘The Curt Schilling Baseball Show’ from Outkick features expert analysis and opinions from the three-time World Series champion.

Professional baseball was born with the formation of the barnstorming Cincinnati Red Stockings on this day in history, March 15, 1869.

"The onset of professionalism was no small step for baseball: players received a small but growing degree of financial stability, and fans were treated to an ever higher standard of play," writes the Baseball Almanac. 

"The cradle for this groundbreaking practice was Cincinnati, where the first openly professional baseball team was founded." 

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Baseball had evolved from earlier sports such as cricket and rounders over the previous three decades. 

Its evolution is traced to its reported advent by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839; to the proliferation of recreational "base ball" clubs in New York City in the 1840s; and to the formalization of the rules of the game we know today, including nine men per side and nine innings per game, in 1857.

The Red Stockings turned recreation into a whole new ball game. 

The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional baseball team, are featured on the front of a Sporting Goods trade card from Peck & Snyder of New York City. In the photo are captain Harry Wright, front row, center, George Wright, back row second from left, and in the back row, second from right, is catcher Cal McVey.    (Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images)

They played their first official game on May 4, thumping the crosstown rival Great Western Base Ball Club, 45-9. 

They never relented the rest of the year. 

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