Professional baseball in Nebraska prior to 1900 was one of starts and stops as teams/leagues and various owners tried their hand at having a professional baseball team in Omaha and in Lincoln.

1869 In the Beginning
The first professional team to play in Omaha was the Cincinatti Reds during their famous first year of 1869. They stopped and defeated a local team during their western road trip of that year. The score was 65-1 in the seventh inning when the game was called. The Omaha catcher disappeared and the team could not field a team for the eight inning.

1979 League Attempt
In 1879, the Northwestern League was formed. It is claimed that this was the first minor league west of the atlantic seaboard. Teams included Davenport, Rockford Illinois, Omaha and Dubuque. Each team had a color assigned to them with Davenport being the Brown Stockings. The Omaha team had green stockings, Rockford was white and Dubuque was red. William Paxton was the leading force for bringing the team to Omaha and John Cowin was the president. The Omaha Mashers was not competitive. Pitcher James "Grasshopper" Whitney was the leading pitcher for Omaha. He broke into the majors with the Red Caps in 1881 and played for 10 years in the majors. Omaha had an 8-12 record in a 36 game season when the team folded. The league folded before the season ended.(TTYWL)

The Lincoln Tree Planters. This is one of the few years during this era where I have player data and a review of the season.

While the book "Through the Years with the Western League claimed that the league Omaha participated in was the Western League, other sources state that it was properly named the Western Association. A 2002 SABR Minor League Newsletter reported on the research of Bob Hole which indicated that the proper name of the league is the Western Association. Thanks to Oldjudge for pointing this out.

Nebraska State League of 1892
The NSL of 1892 featured 6 teams. A unique feature of the league was that it was an integrated league with African Americans playing for at least three of the teams.

In 1889, a touring baseball team of African Americans called the Lafayettes was formed in Nebraska. In 1890, William Pope formed the Lincoln Giants. He raided the best of the Lafayette players and the Lafayette team folded. In 1892, when the NSL was being formed there was a movement to make the Lincoln Giants one of the teams. Those who were against allowing blacks in the league successfully kept the Giants from being one of the teams. As the Lincoln Giants folded some of their players were picked up by NSL teams.

T Bud Fowler played for Kearney. He was with the Keokuks in 1885 and Topeka in 1886. He was captain of the Kearney team. He went on to play for the Paige Fence Giants in 1894. (strong> William Castone also played for Kearney in 1892.

John Patterson , John Reeves and Frank Maupin played for Plattsmouth. In addition to the three African American players, A.S. Kennedy from Cedar Bluffs Kansas, William Myers from Carroll Iowa and F. Long from Chicago played for Plattsmouth.

George Taylor was with Beatrice. The efficiency of the Jim Crow laws across the country prevented talented black players from playing in higher leagues. In the NSL Ulysses Rohrer from Hastings tried to keep black players from being in the NSL. He was manager and shortstop for Hastings and was league secretary. He lobbied to keep Hastings out of the league if African Americans were allowed to play.
Team records in July. Beatrice 27-10, Grand Island 25-15, Kearney 18-21, Hastings 17-20, Fremont 11-18, Plattsmouth 11-24. Lincoln transferred to Kearney on May 13th. Fremont dropped out on June 20th. Beatrice disbanded on July 5th. Plattsmouth disbanded on July 9th.

Kearney, Hastings and Grand Island tried to keep going with a three team league. Grand Island disbanded on July 9th and the other two teams folded on July 13th.

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