Seattle's first professional baseball game is played on May 24, 1890.

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On May 24, 1890, teams from Spokane Falls and Seattle play Seattle's first professional baseball game at a new diamond at the east end of Madison Street. Approximately 1,200 people "consisting of the very best element of the city" and "a large number of ladies" (Post-Intelligencer) watch the "Seattles" best the "Spokanes," 11-8, beginning at 4:00 p.m.

A Day For Baseball Cranks

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced, "Today is May 24, the day to which all the baseball cranks in the city have looked forward to for six months." The team did not have a mascot or a name and was simply called the Seattles or "our boys." The Seattle team colors were blue and white. Female fans attached streamers to their parasols.

To accommodate spectators, the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad ran special trains from Seattle to the end of Yesler Avenue at Lake Washington. There, two special steamers took passengers to the field at the end of Madison Street.

Another game followed the next day. Players were paid between $200 and $300 a month and they were recruited from all over the country. Contemporary news accounts detailed every game, but the players and the manager were identified only by their last names.

Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, and Spokane were organized under the Pacific Northwest Baseball League and they occasionally traveled to California to play against professional teams there. In 1892, Seattle won the league championship. In 1903 the Northwest teams joined the Pacific Coast League.

Sources:
Thomas W. Prosch, "A Chronological History of Seattle From 1850 to 1897," typescript dated 1900-1901, Northwest Collection, University of Washington Library, Seattle, 389; Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 24, 1890, p. 3; Ibid., May 25, 1890, p. 8.; Bill O'Neal, The Pacific Coast League: 1903-1988, (Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 1990), 2.

By David Wilma, January 01, 1900

1890 Seattle Base Ball Club season pass
Courtesy David Eskenazi Collection