| Date | Place | Ballpark | Event | Ref |
|---|
| February 2 | Chicago | | William Hulbert organized theNational League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, replacing theNational Association of Professional Base Ball Players, which had folded at the conclusion of the 1875 season.Morgan Bulkeley, the owner of theHartford franchise, is selected as the league's first President. | [1] |
| February 12 | Chicago | | After he joined theChicago Club as a player,Albert Spalding announced his plan to open asporting goods retail store in Chicago; known today asSpalding. | [6][7] |
| April 22 | Philadelphia | Athletic Park | TheBostons defeat theAthletics by the score of 6–5, in the first NL game.Joe Borden, pitching under the pseudonymJoe Josephs, is the winningpitcher, andJim O'Rourke collected the league's first basehit. | [6][8] |
| April 25 | Louisville | Louisville Baseball Park | InChicago's first National League game,Albert Spalding threw the NL's firstshutout as Chicago defeatedLouisville by the score of 4–0. Spalding threw another shutout in the Chicagos' second game, on April 25, also against Louisville. | [6][9] |
| May 2 | Cincinnati | Avenue Grounds | Ross Barnes of theChicagos hit the first NLhome run, aninside-the-park home run off pitcherCherokee Fisher ofCincinnati. | [6][10] |
| May 13 | Hartford | Hartford Ball Club Grounds | TheNew York Mutuals achieved atriple play in a loss toHartford. | [6][11][12] |
| May 25 | Philadelphia | Jefferson Street Grounds | The game betweenAthletic andLouisville ended in a 2–2 tie, the first game to end in a tie in the NL and in major league history. | [6][13][14] |
| May 30 | New York | Union Grounds | In a game betweenLouisville andMutual, Louisvilleright fielderGeorge Bechtel committed three of the nineerrors that led to his team's defeat. Louisville's ownership suspected that he intentionally "fixed" the game by intentionally committing errors to ensure a winning bet for himself and other gamblers. Management intercepted a wire dated June 10, in which Bechtel conspired to lose the game that day. Bechtel refused to resign when confronted with the evidence, so Louisville banished him from the team. | [15] |
| June 14 | Philadelphia | Jefferson Street Grounds | George Hall andEzra Sutton ofAthletic each hit threetriples in a 20–5 victory againstCincinnati, the only time teammates have accomplished this feat. | [6][16] |
| June 17 | Philadelphia | Jefferson Street Grounds | In a 23–15 victory overCincinnati,George Hall ofAthletic becomes the first major league player to hit twohome runs in a single game. | [16][17] |
| June 27 | Chicago | 23rd Street Grounds | Davy Force ofAthletic collects sixhits in sixat bats in a 14–13 victory againstChicago andAlbert Spalding. He is the first major leaguer to collect six hits in a nine-inning game. | [6][9][18] |
| July 15 | St. Louis | Grand Avenue Park | George Bradley ofSt. Louis pitches the firstno-hitter in MLB history, a 2–0 victory againstHartford. It is the second no-hitter recorded in professional play, afterJoe Borden's on July 28, 1875. | [19][20] |
| July 25 | Chicago | 23rd Street Grounds | Cal McVey of theChicagos collects sixhits for the second consecutive nine-inning game. He has totaled 15 hits in the last three games, and 18 hits in the last four, both records. After collecting two more hits on July 27, and four more on July 29, McVey will have tied his own record with 18 hits in a four-game stretch. | [6][9] |
| August 4 | Louisville | Louisville Baseball Park | TrailingChicago with rain looming, theLouisvilles stall the game by committingerror after error until theumpire rules the game a forfeit. The game result would later be removed from the official league standings. | [6] |
| August 21 | St. Louis | Grand Avenue Park | In the ninth inning, and the score tied 6–6, of a game betweenChicago andSt. Louis, a St. Louis batter hit the base-runner coming from third base with batted ball. Theumpire ruled that the runner was allowed to score, so Chicago left the field in protest. The umpire then awarded the game to St. Louis. | [21] |
| September 5 | New York | Union Grounds | George Bradley ofSt. Louis records his 16thshutout of the season in a 9–0 win overMutual. This season total of 16 shutouts has since been tied, byGrover Cleveland Alexander, of thePhiladelphia Phillies in 1916. | [19][22] |
| September 11 | Philadelphia | | ThePhiladelphia Athletic Club informs the league office that it will be unable to make its last western road trip due to financial trouble. The owner of the Athletics suggested that theChicago andSt. Louis Clubs play additional games in Philadelphia, take a larger than normal portion of the gate receipts, so they raise enough money to finish their schedule, which was denied. | [6] |
| September 16 | New York | | TheMutual Club of New York announces to the league office that it will not make its final western road trip of the season due to lack of funds. | [6] |
| September 26 | Chicago | 23rd Street Grounds | TheChicago Club clinches the firstNational League pennant with a 7–6 win overHartford. | [6][9] |
| October 23 | Chicago | | TheChicago Tribune published the year-end player statistics, one of which would be the newly created,batting average; the first known instance of this statistic being published. | [6] |
| December 10 | Cleveland | | During the NL'sWinter Meetings, it was announced thatWilliam Hulbert was elected President of the league, and that thePhiladelphia Athletics and theNew York Mutuals were expelled for failure to complete their required schedule in the 1876 season. | [23] |
