As the end of the 1880s approached, the club had begun trading away its stars in favor of young players, with the exception of the veteran Anson. Local newspapers had started to call the team "Anson's Colts", or just "Colts", before the decade was out. With the advent of the Players' League in 1890, what little talent the club still had was drained away, and the team nickname "Colts", though never official, became standard usage in the local media along with variants such as (Anson's) White Colts and (Anson's) Broncos.