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Picture of an unidentified New York Mutual player

The Mutual Base Ball Club of New York was a leading American baseball club almost throughout its 20-year history. It was established during 1857, the year of the first base ball convention, just too late to be a founding member of the National Association of Base Ball Players. It was a charter member of both the first professional league in 1871 and the National League in 1876. Failing on the field and in the coffer, it declined to make its last western trip of the inaugural season. For the transgression it was expelled in December. And soon defunct.

The Mutual club initially played its home games at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, with the New York Knickerbockers and many other Manhattan clubs, but moved to the enclosed Union Grounds in Brooklyn in 1868. Ballpark proprietor William Cammeyer, today often listed as the Mutual club owner, signed the Hartford club to play at his Union Grounds in 1877, a final season in the major leagues for "Mutual interests" in a sense.

The Mutuals chose open professionalism in 1869-70 after NABBP liberalization. They joined the first professional league, the National Association, for its 1871 to 1875 duration. In 1876, Chicago initiated the National League and recruited its members from West to East, partly in order to wrest control of professional baseball from Eastern interests. The Mutuals were one of eight charter members, six from the NA. Weak (sixth place at 21-35) and cash-poor, the club refused to complete its playing obligations in the West; it was expelled and never heard from again.

Year       Won     Lost    Tied    Games   Rank in games (or in wins)                      
1858    11      1               12      2 (1st in wins)
1859    3       5               8       6
1860    1       8       2       11      5
1861    8       2               10      2 (tie 1st in wins)
1862    8       5               13      2 (2nd in wins)
1863    10      4               14      1 (tie 1st in wins)
1864    21      3               24      1 (1st in wins)
1865    12      4               16      5 (tie 4th in wins)
1866    10      2               12      15 (tie 5th in wins)
1867    23      6       1       30      4 (4th in wins)
1868    31      10              41      5 (5th in wins)
1869    37      16              53      3 (5th in wins)
1870    68      17      3       88      1 (1st in wins)

championship matches with professional teams 1869-1870
1869    11      15              26      1 (5th in wins) 
1870    29      15      3       47      1 (1st in wins)
league record
1871    16      17              33      1 (4th place)
1872    34      20      2       56      2 (3rd place)
1873    29      24              53      4 (4th place)
1874    42      23              65      2 (2nd place)
1875    30      38      3       71      4 (7th place)
1876    21      35      1       57      8 (6th place)

Source for season records: Wright (2000) has published records for dozens of NABBP teams each season, relying on a mix of game and season records in contemporary newspapers and guides. Dozens of leading clubs by number of matches are included, as are many others. The records do not consistently cover either all games played or all championship matches between NABBP members.

• New York Mutuals reenactors
• 19c Base Ball

• Baseball-Reference. "New York Mutuals Team Index" (1871-1875). Retrieved 2006-09-17.
• Baseball-Reference. "New York Mutuals Team Index" (1876). Retrieved 2006-09-12.
• Retrosheet. "New York Mutuals (1871-1876)". Retrieved 2006-09-17.
• Wright, Marshall (2000). The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-7864-0779-4

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