Al Spalding Marquee Hall of Fame 1939

Spalding pitched five seasons for the Boston Red Stockings of the National Association and went 204-53, more wins than any other pitcher managed in that league's short life; the next-best total is 149. In 1875 alone he appeared in 72 games and finished 52 of them. He batted .323 there as well, none of which the archive's major-league line counts.

He went to Chicago for 1876, the National League's first season, and won 47 games against 12 losses. Then he stopped: four games pitched in 1877, one appearance in 1878. The career total the archive holds for him covers those three National League years only, 47 wins and 158 hits, because the older league falls outside it.

What came next mattered more to the sport than the pitching had. He built the sporting-goods firm that supplied the league's official ball and published its annual guides, ran the Chicago club, and set up the commission whose report handed the invention of baseball to Abner Doubleday. The Old Timers Committee elected him in 1939 as a pioneer and executive rather than as a player.