On April 18, 1872, with 200 in attendance, the Baltimore Canaries played the Washington Olympics in the first major league game at which a surviving box score was kept. John Radcliffe, the Baltimore shortstop, batted lead-off. Listed at 5 feet, 6 inches, 140 pounds, he knocked three hits in five at bats, scored four runs, and set a precedent that has been faithfully followed since: For 136 years, nearly every team in the majors has, when possible, lined up a quick, rail-thin shortstop atop the batting order.

Over 56 National Association games that season, in which Radcliffe scored 71 runs, he didn’t walk once. This was no feat; at the time, batters could still call for the pitcher, just 45 feet away, to throw the ball where they wanted it, and the Canaries’ team leader drew just five free passes. Still, in this way, too, he set a precedent.

Plucked from the ether and set down to watch a few games in today’s National League East, Radcliffe could, amid all the changes, hardly fail to note that the Mets’ Jose Reyes, Philadelphia’s Jimmy Rollins, and Florida’s Hanley Ramirez are three variations on his theme. Each is among the best players in the league; each seems a threat to score whenever he reaches base. The question of which of them has the best season won’t decide the division this year, given the Marlins’ self-imposed miseries, but it should still prove one of the season’s more entertaining subplots.

It wasn’t long ago that the style these three represent underwent a rare test. Six years ago, Jeremy Giambi, famous mainly for being a vastly less athletic version of his famously unathletic brother Jason, actually led off 42 games for a 103-win Oakland team. The clubfooted designated hitter limping down the first base line after drawing a walk at the end of a nine-pitch at bat may not make for as pleasing a visual as an image of a nimble shortstop bounding to first after laying down a drag bunt, but it does acknowledge the basic reality that a leadoff man’s first job is to get on base. This briefly seemed to be a direction in which the game could go.

Happily for anyone who appreciates the game aesthetically, it didn’t. Oakland earned most of those 103 wins after getting rid of Giambi and his .390 on base average, and the experiment was not seriously attempted elsewhere. It’s a simple thing to show, using a lineup calculator like the one at baseballmusings.com, that a team will in theory score more runs with a player like Giambi batting leadoff and a player like Reyes batting as low as fifth. But because reality is far more complex than theory, because no one really wants to see lethargic Giambi-types setting the pace of games, and because traditions a century and a half old don’t die easily, it looks like it will be a long time before anyone starts making concessions to the calculator.

Last year, Reyes, Rollins, and Ramirez hit 38 triples, stole 195 bases, scored 383 runs, and drew 157 walks in 2,249 plate appearances, which, if not outright Radcliffean, isn’t as far off as it could be. It’s an astonishing thing to have a concentration of this kind of talent at one position within one division. But the differences between them show why Oakland was right in thinking that Giambi would best serve the team atop the lineup, and why some team that follows up on the idea will reap real benefits.

Consider, for instance, that last year’s National League no. 1 hitters batted .277 BA/.341 OBA/.427 SLG. Reyes’s career line is .284/.330/.426, and Rollins’s is .277/.331/.441. Both are excellent players, but their real value comes from their base-running, their defense, and their ability to play every day. As hitters, strictly speaking, neither is much better than Shawn Green was last year, and in fact, just at the plate, each is slightly below average, worth a few runs less than the league-average leadoff man over the course of a year. Ramirez, though, while as fast on the bases as either of his divisional rivals, is simply an excellent hitter full-stop, having hit .312/.369/.520 in his career, a line that would make him a great young first baseman, let alone shortstop. Compared to the average leadoff man, he’s worth more like 30 runs. His advantage is serious, middle-of-the-order power, something that’s led the Marlins to bat him third at various times and had them considering doing so over the winter.

The Marlins are batting him atop the lineup not just because he can steal 50 bases, but because they recognize that his power makes him a unique threat. Just as Oakland recognized that on base average was especially valuable in the leadoff spot, so Florida sees that power is even better there than in the third spot. It’s the same consideration that has Grady Sizemore leading off in Cleveland and Curtis Granderson leading off in Detroit, and it’s a small logical leap from the recognition that, while clubfooted DHs may not make good leadoff men, players like Carlos Beltran and David Wright would. And if enough teams ever recognize this, who knows? Perhaps we’ll see a game that wouldn’t be quite so familiar to someone who last played in 1875.

tmarchman@nysun.com