Background
Harry Wright was born on January 10, 1835, in Sheffield, England, the eldest of five children of Samuel Wright, Sr. and Ann Tone.
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Harry Wright was born on January 10, 1835, in Sheffield, England, the eldest of five children of Samuel Wright, Sr. and Ann Tone.
He was taken to the United States about 1836 and was educated in the grade schools of New York City.
Leaving school, he was employed for a time by a jewelry manufacturing firm and, as a youngster, became prominent in athletics, particularly cricket and the growing game of baseball. In 1856 he became the professional bowler for the St. George Cricket Club on Staten Island, New York, where his father was cricket instructor; at about the same time he also began to play baseball with the team of the Knickerbocker Club, a celebrated amateur organization. Though a professional at cricket, he was still an amateur at baseball, there being no professionals in those days. In 1866 he went to Cincinnati as instructor and bowler for the Union Cricket Club of that city. In July of the same year he organized and captained the Cincinnati Baseball Club. For two seasons he was the pitcher of the baseball team, and thereafter, through his active playing career, he always played center field. At that time some skilled players were paid for their services, but the Cincinnati Red Stockings, organized, managed, and captained by Harry Wright, became in 1869 the first full professional team in baseball history. On that same team was George Wright, Harry's younger brother, who also rose to fame as a ball player. In 1869 and 1870 the Cincinnati Red Stockings toured the country, winning eighty-seven games before losing one. When the Cincinnati team was disbanded in 1871, Wright went to Boston to play for and manage a team newly organized there. At the end of the season of 1874 he toured England with a baseball team. The baseball party also played cricket games with some of the best of the English teams and fared very well in such contests, although the Wright brothers were the only real cricketers in the group. In 1876 the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs was organized, and Wright became the manager of the Boston team. His active playing days were over, but as a manager and leader of players he was prominent in helping to put professional baseball on a respectable, sober, and sportsmanlike basis. He managed the Boston team until the end of 1881, the club winning two championships under his leadership. He managed Providence in 1882 and 1883, another club in the National League, and in 1884 went to Philadelphia to manage the National League club there until the close of the 1893 season. He was then appointed chief of umpires of the National League and held that office until the time of his death on October 3, 1895, in a sanatarium in Atlantic City, New Jersey, of pneumonia. He is buried in West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.
The baseball player, William Henry Wright assembled, managed and played center field for baseball's first fully professional team, the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, where he is credited with introducing innovations such as backing up infield plays from the outfield and shifting defensive alignments based on hitters' tendencies. William Henry Wright was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953. He was inducted into the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame in 2005.
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William Henry Wright was fairly tall, well built and a very graceful athlete in his playing days. He was a striking figure on the field with his "sideburns, " his long moustache, and his tuft of beard.
William Henry Wright was married three times: first, on September 10, 1868, to Mary Fraser of New York City, by whom he had four children; then to a Miss Mulford, by whom he also had four children; and then to his first wife's sister, by whom he had no children.
Samuel Wright, Sr. was an English-American cricketer.
George Wright was an American baseball player.
Samuel Wright, Jr. was an American professional baseball player.
