[z28jd]

Originally Posted by cozmokramer

I’m curious about the team labeling for Philly on Old Judge cards.

Why is it that Philadelphia Quakers are listed as “Philadelphia” but the Philadelphia Athletics actually say “Athletics”.

Why... or should I ask How... was it decided to use the city name for one and the team name for the other?


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Back when cities had two teams, one usually went by the city name and one by a nickname. Nicknames were never official names back then and often changed year-to-year.

I'm currently doing some reading on the 1890 season and one thing I noticed is that the local newspapers in Pittsburgh made it clear early in print that they would be calling the Player's League team the "Pittsburghs" and the National League team would be the Alleghenys. The PL team has the nickname Burghers, but that was never used by some papers. Even saying the Pirates name was adopted in 1891 is wrong because the local scribes rarely used that. You would see Pirates from some opposing cities. The team itself never fully embraced Pirates as a nickname until 1895.

Back then in print, most teams just went by cities, and at least for the current Pirates franchise, their first 26 years were spent in Allegheny City, which eventually became part of Pittsburgh.