continued to win regularly, perhaps 24 games before losing 8–7 in eleven innings to the Brooklyn Atlantics in Brooklyn, June 14. The Red Stockings remained one of the few strongest teams on the field, losing only six games, but attendance declined badly, especially at home. Perfect season In 1869, the Red Stockings posted a perfect 57–0 record, the only perfect season in professional baseball history. This was the first team to play on the East and West coasts in the same season. More than 2,000 people greeted the team when it arrived in San Francisco at 10:00 p.m. "They really helped nationalize the game and put Cincinnati on the map as a baseball town," said Greg Rhodes, a Reds historian who wrote The First Boys of Summer (Road West Publishing Company, 1994), along with Cincinnati Enquirer reporter John Erardi, about the 1869–1870 Red Stockings. 1870–1871 On June 14, 1870, after 81 consecutive wins since assembling as the first openly professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings lost 8–7 to the Brooklyn Atlantics before a crowd of 20,000 at the Capitoline Grounds. Bob Ferguson scored the winning run in the 11th inning on a hit by pitcher George Zettlein. The Executive Board now led by President A.P.C. Bonte recommended on November 21, 1870, that the club not employ a nine for 1871, for that had become too expensive. The spokesmen anticipated "a development of the amateur talent of our club, such as has not been displayed since we employed professionals." The officers subsequently decided to disband the company (the players having disbanded via the market) and a public meeting of the members put that decision into effect. Harry Wright was hired by founder and president Ivers Whitney Adams to organize a new pro club in Boston and he signed three Cincinnati teammates to join the 1871 Boston Red Stockings in the first professional league, as it turned out. Ex-Cincinnati Red Stockings moved around some (see the note on Team members) but Boston retained both Wright brothers throughout the five years of the National Association. The current Cincinnati Reds club identifies itself with the Cincinnati Red Stockings, despite reorganization and defections in the early years. The distinct Boston Red Stockings, beginning business with half of the Cincinnati team, both followed the young tradition and spread it to Boston. Eventually, the Boston Red Stockings adopted the name Boston Braves; the club is now based