James Leon Wood (December 1, 1842 – November 30, 1927) was an American second baseman and manager in early professional Major League Baseball (MLB) who hailed from Brooklyn, New York.

With their homes and possessions gone and having had few opportunities for practice, and despite Wood tallying a .378 batting average, the team finished in third place — but only two games behind the first-place A’s.

[4] The next season, 1873, he managed the Philadelphia White Stockings for a year until he was able to reorganize a new Chicago team[1][2] In 1874, he tried to lance an abscess on his left leg with a pocketknife.

This did not end his managerial career, though; he returned to the Chicago White Stockings, and managed them for two seasons before the National Association folded in 1875.

[2] He was traced all over the United States and Canada and eventually wound up in San Francisco,[5] where he died and is interred at Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans.