The ball field of the 1870s may have been a place for sporting men, but it was not yet wholly a place for gentlemen. It was still possible, for instance, to find someone willing to take a wager on the outcome of a game. And that meant it was still possible to find someone willing to fix the outcome of a game.

The Louisville Grays, fifth place finishers the season before, had bolstered their lineup through the addition of players like first baseman George Latham, shortstop Bill Craver, and outfielders George Hall and Bill Crowley. This revitalized team won 27 of its first 40 games to take a comfortable hold on first place. Louisville appeared certain to win the pennant. Late in the season, though, Louisville began to lose games consistently, and under mysterious circumstances. The team lost 12 of its final 20 games, surrendered the league lead to Boston, and finished a distant second.

A probe by team management implicated Hall and pitcher Jim Devlin of crookedness in those final 20 games. Hall confessed --as later did Devlin -- and implicated substitute Al Nichols as the go-between with gamblers. All three were permanently expelled from the league, as was Craver, the one player who refused to cooperate with the investigation. But the ramifications went beyond that: the entire Louisville franchise was so damaged by the scandal that by December the Grays had ceased to exist.

The first minor league, the International Association, is formed in Pittsburgh. Mike Dorgan, a St. Louis catcher, introduces the mask

Rutherford B. Hayes is elected president through an Electoral College deal that also involves the ending of federal occupation of the South.