Atlanta Braves seasons

The Atlanta Braves Seasons

The franchise that is now the Atlanta Braves have been playing baseball since 1867, when they were the Cincinnati Red Stockings. To date, they have participated in over 150 seasons worth of baseball. Over the years, they produced many win-loss records, some good, but most of them bad.

Cincinnati Red Stockings

The Red Stockings played four seasons of baseball in Cincinnati. During that time, the team never had a losing season. Their best year was in 1869 when they went 57-0. Even though the team posted a 2-2 record in its first year, its worst season came in 1870, which was also its last season. That year saw the team lose its first game in 84 games to the Brooklyn Atlantics. As the season went on, the team lost 5 more times as well as a 16-16 tie with the Rockford Forest Citys. As a result, many of the team's advertisers began to pull out. In mid-August the club officers resigned. Eventually the team was forced to close up shop at the end of the season, and it would be five seasons before Cincinnati would have another professional team.

See also: Cincinnati Red Stockings seasons

Boston Braves et. al.

The Boston Red Stockings were formed in January of 1871, when manager Harry Wright took the core players from Cincinnati, as well as the team's name, and moved to Boston, MA to form a new team. The new Red Stockings team was one of the founding teams in the National Association. During their first five seasons in Boston, they would finish in third place only once, in the inaugural season. The remaining seasons saw them finish in first place as well as increase their win total, by an average of 12 per year. The Red Stockings' best season came in 1875. That year, the team posted a 71-8-3 record including a streak of 26 consecutive wins at the start of the season. The 71 wins was even more than the team had in any season in Cincinnati.

When the National League was formed in 1876, the Red Stockings joined that league as well, but with the addition of a new Cincinnati Red Stockings team (also known as the "Cincinnati Reds"), the team has often been called the "Boston Red Caps" in retrospect, to avoid confusion with the Cincinnati entry, but both squads were known at the time as the "Red Stockings" when not simply called by the name of their host city. It wasn't until the 1880s that the Red Stockings posted their first losing season. Despite back-to-back losing records in 1880 and 1881, the front office gave Wright its support for the next season. Wright decided to leave the team, however, and went on to manage the Providence Grays. The Boston team posted three losing seasons during the 1880s. The team's best season was a second-place finish in 1879 and its worst came in Wright's last year as manager.

The team spent the rest of the 19th century and into the early 20th century playing under the unofficial nickname the Beaneaters. They were one of the strongest teams in baseball in the 1890s, under manager Frank Selee, a decade which saw the team win 5 pennants. The last part of the 19th century was marked by 12 straight winning seasons, including their best pennant-winning season in 1898. They would lose many of their players to their American League rival, the Boston Americans, starting in 1901 but would not feel the effects of the defections until 1903. Their worst year came in 1906 which turned out to be the last year for the "Beaneaters" nickname.

The early 20th century saw the team enter a period of futility. Between 1903 and 1913, they posted 11 losing seasons, including 6 seasons in which they lost 100 or more games, including four in a row. During that time, the team was known by a variety of names, but did not win much under any of these. The team officially changed its name to the Braves for the 1912 season. Braves ended up being the longest used of all the team names during the team's stay in Boston, even if it was dropped for a spell in the 1930s. The Braves' best season came in 1914 the year the team won its first World Series. The Braves' worst season came in 1935. That year saw the team set a franchise record with 115 losses and tie a franchise low of 38 wins. The following year, club President Bob Quinn changed the name to the Bees in the hopes of improving the team's fortunes. The name change didn't work, and the team was back to the "Braves" nickname during the 1941 season, a name that the team continues to use to this day. Overall, the club produced 39 winning seasons and 43 losing seasons during its run in Boston.

Milwaukee Braves

The Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee, WI just prior to the start of the 1953 season. During the team's 12 years in Milwaukee, it never posted a losing record. Their best season came in 1957 the year they won their second World Series. That year, they went 95-59-1. In terms of wins and losses, the Braves' worst year came in 1961, when they went 83-71. Percentagewise, the team's worst season was in 1963 when the team posted a .518 record.

Atlanta Braves

The Braves moved to Atlanta, GA for the 1966 season. During the team's first 50 seasons in Atlanta, the Braves posted 29 winning seasons, including a 11-season stretch in which they finished in first place in the NL East, from 1995 to 2005. During that time, they posted a franchise record of 106 wins in 1998, when they went 106-56. In addition to the 29 winning seasons, the team also posted 21 losing seasons. The team's worst season in Atlanta came in 1988 when they went 54-106.

Related Sites

• The Cincinnati Red Stockings
• Greg Rhodes and John Snyder: Redleg Journal: Year by Year and Day by Day With the Cincinnati Reds Since 1866, Road West Publishing Company, 2000.