Simply put, George Wright was the best baseball player of his time. The younger brother of famed Cincinnati Red Stockings captain Harry Wright, George became a star player with the Washington and New York clubs and was an immediate target for Harry when the Cincinnati club decided to hire all of its players in 1869.

With George in the fold, the Red Stockings had secured the services of baseball's best player on what was soon to be baseball's best team. The Red Stockings of 1869 were a sensation, conquering each opponent who challenged them en route to a 57-0 season. As their wins mounted, so too did the club's popularity -- and no player on the club was the focus of more adulation than George Wright.

Possessed of dashing good looks, the 22-year old George was particularly popular with female fans, who were known to scandalously lift their skirts to reveal their red-stockinged ankles in George's presence. The acclaim for George was, of course, well deserved. On a club filled with superlative talents, George was exceptional. He led the Red Stockings in every offensive category -- in most cases by a wide margin over the player behind him. He hit an astonishing .633 (129 points better than the second highest batting average, posted by Doug Allison), had 304 hits (Fred Waterman was second with 226), hit 49 home runs (Charles Sweasy's 30 were the second-most on the club) scored 339 runs (Waterman finished at 293) and his 614 total bases bested Sweasy's runner-up total by 192. In addition to his awesome offensive production, Wright's play at short established the standard for modern play at the position.

George enjoyed another outstanding season with the Red Stockings in 1870 before he moved on to Boston when financial pressures forced the Cincinnati club to cease operations as a professional club. With George maintaining his exemplary play, the Boston Red Stockings dominated the nascent National Association, winning pennants in four of the Association's first five years. The club's success continued in the new National League, which began play in 1876 and counted the Boston club as its champion in two of its first three years of operation. Appropriately, George was the first player to bat in the National League's first game.

George Wright was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937 as part of the Hall's second induction class. In a special election in 2005, George and his brother Harry were honored with induction into the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame. George is the only player for whom the Reds Hall of Fame's requirement that a player play three years in a Reds uniform has been waived.

George Wright

Bats: Right

Throws: Right

Height: 5' 9"

Weight: 150

Born: January 28, 1847, New York, New York

Death: August 21, 1937, Boston, Massachusetts

How Acquired: Signed by the Cincinnati Reds as a free agent from the Unions of Morrisania, NY, in 1869

Debut: May 5, 1867 vs. Unknown

Final Game: October 2, 1882 vs. Boston Red Caps

Inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Centennial Committee in 1937 ( ballots)

Inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame 2005