Editing Cleveland Spiders (section)

===1887–1888===
After the 1886 season, the [[Pittsburgh Pirates|Pittsburgh Alleghenys]] left the [[American Association (1882–1891)|American Association]] (AA) to join the National League. The AA, then considered a [[Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada|major league]], chose the Cleveland group headed by [[Frank Robison]] as an expansion team to begin play in 1887 over proposals from Kansas City and Detroit. Later, Robison's brother [[Stanley Robison|Stanley]] was added to the ownership group. Initially, the team was known as the Forest Citys, drawing on the city's nickname and the nickname that had been used on the city's two previous professional baseball teams. The nickname Blues was also used again in reference to the team uniforms.<ref name="Fleitz 22"/><ref name=cwru>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Cleveland Spiders |url=http://ech.cwru.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=CS5 |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Cleveland History |date = 11 May 2018|publisher=[[Case Western Reserve University]] |access-date=July 13, 2020}}</ref> The Forest Citys were a weak team in their early years.