After the team's successes in the first half of the 1880s, the club began trading away its stars, and by the end of the decade the team was populated by young players, with the exception of long-time player–manager Cap Anson. By the late 1880s, local newspapers had started to call the team "Anson's Colts", or just "Colts". With the advent of the Players' League in 1890, what little talent the club still had was drained away, and the nickname, though never "official", became standard. ("The Golden Era Cubs: 1876–1940", Eddie Gold and Art Ahrens, Bonus Books, 1985, p. 2) and [https://web.archive.org/web/20120107015052/http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&bid=1257&pid=305]