Editing Cleveland Guardians (section)

===1865–1872 Forest Citys of Cleveland===
From 1865 to 1868 Forest Citys was an amateur ball club. During the [[1869 in baseball|1869 season]], Cleveland was among several cities that established professional baseball teams following the success of the 1869 [[Cincinnati Red Stockings]], the first fully professional team.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/04/the-first-professional-baseball-team-was-the-1869-cincinnati-red-stockings/|title=The First Professional Baseball Team Was the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings|date=April 4, 2011|work=Today I Found Out|access-date=October 13, 2017|language=en-US|archive-date=October 14, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171014034356/http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/04/the-first-professional-baseball-team-was-the-1869-cincinnati-red-stockings/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3ZyJHkplESoC&q=the+success+of+the+1869+Cincinnati+Red+Stockings%2C+the+first+fully+professional+team&pg=PA36|title=Ohio, the Buckeye State|last=Martin|first=Michael A.|date=2001|publisher=Gareth Stevens|isbn=9780836851243|language=en|access-date=October 16, 2020|archive-date=December 14, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201214154319/https://books.google.com/books?id=3ZyJHkplESoC&q=the+success+of+the+1869+Cincinnati+Red+Stockings%2C+the+first+fully+professional+team&pg=PA36|url-status=live}}</ref> In the newspapers before and after 1870, the team was often called the [[Cleveland Forest Citys|Forest Citys]], in the same generic way that the team from Chicago was sometimes called The Chicagos.

In 1871 the Forest Citys joined the new [[National Association of Professional Base Ball Players]] (NA), the first professional league. Ultimately, two of the league's western clubs went out of business during the first season and the [[1871 Great Chicago Fire|Chicago Fire]] left that city's [[Chicago Cubs|White Stockings]] impoverished, unable to field a team again until 1874. Cleveland was thus the NA's westernmost outpost in 1872, the year the club folded. Cleveland played its full schedule to July 19 followed by two games versus Boston in mid-August and disbanded at the end of the season.<ref>{{cite web |title=The 1872 Cleveland Forest Citys |url=http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1872/TCL101872.htm |publisher=retrosheet.org |access-date=February 17, 2009 |archive-date=February 5, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160205091816/http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1872/TCL101872.htm |url-status=live}}</ref>