ball in the fall. National Association Harry Wright was hired to organize a new team in Boston, where he signed three teammates for 1871, also bringing along the "Red Stockings" designation. The other five regulars including Asa Brainard and catcher Doug Allison signed with Nick Young's Washington Olympics, an established club that also joined the new, entirely professional National Association (NA). The five former Red Stockings led the Olympics to a respectable finish in the inaugural NA season. Brainard's published "career statistics" begin with this year. Later, Brainard played from 1871 to 1874 for the Washington Olympics, Middletown Mansfields, and Baltimore Canaries, all teams in the National Association. Brainard died of pneumonia in Denver, Colorado at age 47, only a few months after John Bass at age 40, the first major league ballplayer to die in that city. Owing to its dry climate and relative convenience, Denver had become a destination for people suffering from tuberculosis. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn. Notes References Overfield, Joseph (1989). "Asa Brainard (Count)". Nineteenth Century Stars. Edited by Robert L. Tiemann and Mark Rucker. Kansas City, MO: SABR. Retrosheet. "Asa Brainard". Retrieved 2006-08-29. 1841 births 1888 deaths Major League Baseball pitchers Brooklyn Excelsiors players Washington Nationals (NABBP) players Cincinnati Red Stockings players Washington Olympics players Middletown Mansfields players Baltimore Canaries players Baseball players from New York (state) Sportspeople from Albany, New York Deaths from pneumonia in Colorado Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery 19th-century baseball players