1901 – 1902
After an undistinguished run in the American Association that was actually interrupted in 1890, when the team chose to be a minor league club, the original Baltimore Orioles were absorbed by the National League after the AA fell apart following the 1891 season. Part-owner and manager Ned Hanlon built a dynasty around the Hall of Fame talents of John McGraw, Hughie Jennings, Willie Keeler, Joe Kelley, and Wilbert Robinson, and the team pioneered a cutthroat style of play that was simultaneously heady and dirty. The owners bought the Brooklyn club later in the decade and transferred most of the Orioles’ best players to their new team, and when the NL dropped four teams after the 1899 season, the fabled Orioles were no more.
