Harry Wright Marquee Hall of Fame 1953

The archive credits him with two games, seven at-bats and no hits, in 1876 and 1877, when he was in his forties and running the club. The playing career was earlier: five seasons with the Boston Red Stockings from 1871 gave him 224 hits in 178 games at .278, and he pitched 36 games besides. Those were in the National Association, which Major League Baseball has never counted, so they are not in the totals on this page.

He was English, born in Sheffield, and had been a professional cricketer before he was a professional ballplayer. He assembled the Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869, the first openly all-salaried club, and took them across the country undefeated.

He then managed for twenty-three seasons. His Boston club went 225-60 across five National Association years, first in four of them from 1872; after the National League formed he won exactly 1,000 games there against 825 losses and finished first twice more, in 1877 and 1878. The archive also holds four games in which he umpired, between 1875 and 1885. The Veterans Committee elected him in 1953 as a pioneer, fifty-eight years after he died.