The National Association (formally, the National Base Ball Association) was a professional baseball league that played during the 1879 and 1880 seasons.
It should not be confused with the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, the first fully-professional sports league in baseball, which operated several years prior.
The National Association was essentially a continuation of the International Association for Professional Base Ball Players,[2] which had lost its final Canadian team.
Teams from nine cities competed during the 1879 season:[3] Teams of this era were commonly referred to simply by their city, such as "the Holyokes" or "the Worcesters".
[7] By early August, Baltimore had dropped out, with records of contests played between the remaining three teams published as:[8] Games were played as late as the first week in September, with Washington defeating Rochester, 4–2, in a game played in Baltimore on September 2.