1886 – The Cincinnati Red Stockings of the American Association are sold by Aaron Stern to Louis Huack, a wealthy brewer and banker.
1886 – The Kansas City Cowboys are admitted to the National League on a one-year trial basis.
1886 – Albert Spalding begins a sporting goods company with $800. He will become the manufacturer of the first official baseball as well as tennis balls, and equipment for basketball, golf and football.
The Washington Nationals, also to be known as the Statesmen, are admitted to the National League. The new franchise, which will play its home games at the Swampoodle Grounds, will win only 28 games of the 120 games played, finishing 60 games behind the first-place Chicago White Stockings in their first season of the team’s four-year existence in the nation’s capital.
1885 – The American Association champions St. Louis Browns agree to sell the reserve rights of infielder Sam Barkley to the Pittsburgh Alleghenys for $1,000.
1885 – The St. Louis Maroons announce that Jerry Denny, Dude Esterbrook, Paul Hines, and George Myers are to play for them in 1886. Denny and Myers do so, but Esterbrook stays with the Giants and Hines goes to the newly-formed Washington Nationals.
1885 – The Washington Nationals are admitted to the National League, in place of Providence. The Washington club was displaced in the American Association by the court’s decision that the Mets’ franchise could not be revoked.
1885 – At an American Association meeting in Philadelphia, the Metropolitan club is removed from the Association, and the National club of Washington is admitted. By court order, the Metropolitans will be readmitted.
1885 – The National League Metropolitans franchise is sold to millionaire Erastus Wiman. The Metropolitan Exhibition Company receives $25,000 for the transaction.
1885 – Former National League President Arthur Soden buys the Providence franchise and players for $6,000.
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