History of baseball in the United States
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The history of baseball in the United States dates to the 18th century, when boys and amateur enthusiasts played a
Early history
The earliest known mention of baseball in the US is either a 1786 diary entry by a Princeton University student who describes playing "baste ball,"[1] or a 1791 Pittsfield, Massachusetts, ordinance that barred the playing of baseball within 80 yards (73 m) of the town meeting house and its glass windows.[2] Another early reference reports that base ball was regularly played on Saturdays in 1823 on the outskirts of New York City in an area that today is Greenwich Village.[3] The Olympic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia was organized in 1833.[4]
In 1903, the British-born sportswriter
Which does not mean that the Doubleday myth does not continue to be disputed; in fact, it is likely that the parentage of the modern game of baseball will be in some dispute until long after such future time when the game is no longer played.[9]
The first team to play baseball under modern rules is believed to be the
Initially, Wheaton and Tucker's innovations did not serve the Knickerbockers well. In the first known competitive game between two clubs under the new rules, played at
In spite of its rapid growth in popularity, baseball had yet to overtake the British import, cricket. As late as 1855, the New York press was still devoting more space to coverage of cricket than to baseball.[13]
At a 1857 convention of sixteen New York area clubs, including the Knickerbockers, the
In 1858, at the Fashion Race Course in the Corona neighborhood of Queens (now part of New York City), the first games of baseball to charge admission were played.[14] The All Stars of Brooklyn, including players from the Atlantic, Excelsior, Putnam and Eckford clubs, took on the All Stars of New York (Manhattan), including players from the Knickerbocker, Gotham, Eagle and Empire clubs. These are commonly believed to the first all-star baseball games.[15][16]
Growth
Before the
Professionalism
The NABBP of America was initially established upon principles of
The Cincinnati Red Stockings were the first to declare themselves openly professional, and were aggressive in recruiting the best available players. Twelve clubs, including most of the strongest clubs in the NABBP, ultimately declared themselves professional for the 1869 season.
The first attempt at forming a
Rise of the major leagues
In 1870, a schism developed between professional and amateur ballplayers. The NABBP split into two groups. The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players operated from 1871 through 1875 and is considered by some to have been the first major league. Its amateur counterpart disappeared after only a few years.
William Hulbert's National League, which was formed after the National Association proved ineffective, put its emphasis on "clubs" rather than "players". Clubs now had the ability to enforce player contracts and prevent players from jumping to higher-paying clubs. Clubs in turn were required to play their full schedule of games, rather than forfeiting scheduled games once out of the running for the league championship, a practice that had been common under the National Association. A concerted effort was also made to reduce the amount of gambling on games which was leaving the validity of results in doubt.[20]
Around this time, a gentlemen's agreement was struck between the clubs to exclude non-white players from professional baseball, a de facto ban that remained in effect until 1947. It is a common misconception that Jackie Robinson was the first African-American major-league ballplayer; he was actually only the first after a long gap (and the first in the modern era). Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Weldy Walker were unceremoniously dropped from major and minor-league rosters in the 1880s, as were other African-Americans in baseball. An unknown number of African-Americans played in the major leagues by representing themselves as Indians, or South or Central Americans, and a still larger number played in the minor leagues and on amateur teams. In the majors, however, it was not until the signing of Robinson (in the National League) and Larry Doby (in the American League) that baseball began to relax its ban on African-Americans.
The early years of the National League were tumultuous, with threats from rival leagues and a rebellion by players against the hated "
The Union Association survived for only one season (1884), as did the Players' League (1890), which was an attempt to return to the National Association structure of a league controlled by the players themselves. Both leagues are considered major leagues by many baseball researchers because of the perceived high caliber of play and the number of star players featured. However, some researchers have disputed the major league status of the Union Association, pointing out that franchises came and went and contending that the St. Louis club, which was deliberately "stacked" by the league's president (who owned that club), was the only club that was anywhere close to major-league caliber.
In fact, there were dozens of leagues, large and small, in the late 19th century. What made the National League "major" was its dominant position in the major cities, particularly the edgy, emotional nerve center of baseball that was New York City. Large, concentrated populations offered baseball teams national media distribution systems and fan bases that could generate sufficient revenues to afford the best players in the country.
A number of the other leagues, including the venerable Eastern League, threatened the dominance of the National League. The Western League, founded in 1893, became particularly aggressive. Its fiery leader
The resulting bidding war for players led to widespread contract-breaking and legal disputes. One of the most famous involved star second baseman
The war between the American and National leagues caused shock waves across the baseball world. At a meeting in 1901, the other baseball leagues negotiated a plan to maintain their independence. On September 5, 1901,
These leagues did not consider themselves "minor"—a term that did not come into vogue until St. Louis Cardinals general manager Branch Rickey pioneered the farm system in the 1930s. Nevertheless, these financially troubled leagues, by beginning the practice of selling players to the more affluent National and American leagues, embarked on a path that eventually led to the loss of their independent status.
Ban Johnson had other designs for the NA. While the NA continues to this day, he saw it as a tool to end threats from smaller rivals who might some day want to expand in other territories and threaten his league's dominance.
After 1902 both leagues and the NABPL signed a new National Agreement which achieved three things:
- First and foremost, it governed player contracts that set up mechanisms to end the cross-league raids on rosters and reinforced the power of the hated reserve clause that kept players virtual slaves to their baseball owner/masters.
- Second, it led to the playing of a "World Series" in 1903 between the two major league champions. The first World Series was won by Boston of the American League.
- Lastly, it established a system of control and dominance for the major leagues over the independents. There would not be another Ban Johnson-like rebellion from the ranks of leagues with smaller cities. Selling off player contracts was rapidly becoming a staple business of the independent leagues. During the rough and tumble years of the American–National struggle, player contracts were violated at the independents as well, as players that a team had developed would sign with the majors without any form of compensation to the indy club.
The new agreement tied independent contracts to the reserve-clause national league contracts. Baseball players were a commodity, like cars. A player's skill set had a price of $5,000. It set up a rough classification system for independent leagues that regulated the dollar value of contracts, the forerunner of the system refined by Rickey and used today.
It also gave the NA great power. Many independents walked away from the 1901 meeting. The deal with the NA punished those other indies who had not joined the NA and submitted to the will of the majors. The NA also agreed to the deal so as to prevent more pilfering of players with little or no compensation for the players' development. Several leagues, seeing the writing on the wall, eventually joined the NA, which grew in size over the next several years.
In the very early part of the 20th century, known as the "dead-ball era", baseball rules and equipment favored the "inside game" and the game was played more violently and aggressively than it is today. This period ended in the 1920s with several changes that gave advantages to hitters. In the largest parks, the outfield fences were brought closer to the infield. In addition, the strict enforcement of new rules governing the construction and regular replacement of the ball[21] caused it to be easier to hit, and be hit harder.
The first professional black baseball club, the Cuban Giants, was organized in 1885. Subsequent professional black baseball clubs played each other independently, without an official league to organize the sport. Rube Foster, a former ballplayer, founded the Negro National League in 1920. A second league, the Eastern Colored League, was established in 1923. These became known as the Negro leagues, though these leagues never had any formal overall structure comparable to the Major Leagues. The Negro National League did well until 1930, but folded during the Great Depression.
From 1942 to 1948, the Negro World Series was revived. This was the golden era of Negro league baseball, a time when it produced some of its greatest stars. In 1947, Jackie Robinson signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the color barrier that had prevented talented African-American players from entering the white-only major leagues. Although the transformation was not instantaneous, baseball has since become fully integrated. While the Dodgers' signing of Robinson was a key moment in baseball and civil rights history, it prompted the decline of the Negro leagues. The best black players were now recruited for the Major Leagues, and black fans followed. The last Negro league teams folded in the 1960s.
Pitchers dominated the game in the 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, the designated hitter (DH) rule was adopted by the American League, while in the National League, the DH rule was not adopted until March 2022. The rule had been applied in a variety of ways during the World Series; until the adoption of the DH by the National League, the DH rule applied when Series games were played in an American League stadium, and pitchers would bat during Series games played in National League stadiums. There had been continued disagreement about the future of the DH rule in the World Series until league-wide adoption of the DH rule.[22]
During the late 1960s, the Baseball Players Union became much stronger and conflicts between owners and the players' union led to major work stoppages in 1972, 1981, and 1994. The 1994 baseball strike led to the cancellation of the World Series, and was not settled until the spring of 1995. In the late 1990s, functions that had been administered separately by the two major leagues' administrations were united under the rubric of Major League Baseball (MLB).
The dead-ball era: 1901 to 1919
The period 1901–1919 is commonly called the "Dead-ball era", with low-scoring games dominated by pitchers such as Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, and Grover Cleveland Alexander. The term also accurately describes the condition of the baseball itself. Baseballs cost three dollars each in 1901, a unit price which would be equal to $110 today. In contrast, modern baseballs purchased in bulk as is the case with professional teams cost about seven dollars each as of 2021 and thus make up a negligible portion of a modern MLB team's operating budget. Due to the much larger relative cost, club owners in the early 20th century were reluctant to spend much money on new balls if not necessary. It was not unusual for a single baseball to last an entire game, nor for a baseball to be reused for the next game especially if it was still in relatively good condition as would likely be the case for a ball introduced late in the game. By the end of the game, the ball would usually be dark with grass, mud, and tobacco juice, and it would be misshapen and lumpy from contact with the bat. Balls were replaced only if they were hit into the crowd and lost, and many clubs employed security guards expressly for the purpose of retrieving balls hit into the stands — a practice unthinkable today.
As a consequence, home runs were rare, and the "inside game" dominated—singles, bunts, stolen bases, the hit-and-run play, and other tactics dominated the strategies of the time.
Despite this, there were also several superstar hitters, the most famous being Honus Wagner, held to be one of the greatest shortstops to ever play the game, and Detroit's Ty Cobb, the "Georgia Peach." His career batting average of .366 has yet to be bested.
The Merkle incident
The
For his part, Merkle was doomed to endless ridicule throughout his career (and to a lesser extent for the rest of his life) for this lapse, which went down in history as "Merkle's Boner". In his defense, some baseball historians have suggested that it was not customary for game-ending hits to be fully "run out", it was only Evers's insistence on following the rules strictly that resulted in this unusual play.[23] In fact, earlier in the 1908 season, the identical situation had been brought to the umpires' attention by Evers; the umpire that day was the same Hank O'Day. While the winning run was allowed to stand on that occasion, the dispute raised O'Day's awareness of the rule, and directly set up the Merkle controversy.[24]
New places to play
Turn-of-the-century baseball attendances were modest by later standards. The average for the 1,110 games in the
The "Black Sox"
The fix of baseball games by gamblers and players working together had been suspected as early as the 1850s.
After an excellent regular season (88–52, .629 W%), the
At the time of the scandal, the White Sox were arguably the most successful franchise in baseball, with excellent gate receipts and record attendance. At the time, most baseball players were not paid especially well and had to work other jobs during the winter to survive. Some elite players on the big-city clubs made very good salaries, but Chicago was a notable exception.
For many years, the White Sox were owned and operated by Charles Comiskey, who paid the lowest player salaries, on average, in the American League. The White Sox players all intensely disliked Comiskey and his penurious ways, but were powerless to do anything, thanks to baseball's so-called "reserve clause" that prevented players from switching teams without their team owner's consent.
By late 1919, Comiskey's tyrannical reign over the Sox had sown deep bitterness among the players, and White Sox first baseman
After the 1919 series, and through the beginning of the 1920 baseball season, rumors swirled that some of the players had conspired to purposefully lose.[28] At last, in 1920, a grand jury was convened to investigate these and other allegations of fixed baseball games.[29] Eight players (Charles "Swede" Risberg, Arnold "Chick" Gandil, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, Oscar "Happy" Felsch, Eddie Cicotte, George "Buck" Weaver, Fred McMullin, and Claude "Lefty" Williams) were indicted and tried for conspiracy. The players were ultimately acquitted.
However, the damage to the reputation of the sport of baseball led the team owners to appoint Federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis to be the first Commissioner of Baseball. His first act as commissioner was to ban the "Black Sox" from professional baseball for life. The White Sox, meanwhile, would not return to the World Series until 1959, and it was not until their next appearance in 2005 they won the World Series.
The Negro leagues
Until July 5, 1947, baseball had two histories. One fills libraries, while baseball historians are only just beginning to chronicle the other fully: African Americans have played baseball as long as white Americans. Players of color, both
The
The first professional team, established in 1885, achieved great and lasting success as the Cuban Giants, while the first league, the National Colored Base Ball League, failed in 1887 after only two weeks due to low attendance. The Negro American League of 1951 is considered the last major league season and the last professional club, the Indianapolis Clowns, operated amusingly rather than competitively from the mid-1960s to 1980s.
The first international leagues
While many of the players that made up the black baseball teams were African Americans, many more were
Babe Ruth and the end of the dead-ball era
It was not the Black Sox scandal which put an end to the dead-ball era, but a rule change and a single player.
Some of the increased offensive output can be explained by the 1920 rule change that outlawed tampering with the ball. Pitchers had developed a number of techniques for producing "spitballs", "shine balls" and other trick pitches which had "unnatural" flight through the air. Umpires were now required to put new balls into play whenever the current ball became scuffed or discolored. This rule change was enforced all the more stringently following the death of Ray Chapman, who was struck in the temple by a pitched ball from Carl Mays in a game on August 16, 1920; he died the next day. Discolored balls, harder for batters to see and therefore harder for batters to dodge, have been rigorously removed from play ever since. This meant that batters could now see and hit the ball with less difficulty. With the added prohibition on the ball being purposely wetted or scuffed in any way, pitchers had to rely on pure athletic skill—changes in grip, wrist angle, arm angle and throwing dynamics, plus a new and growing appreciation of the aerodynamic effect of the spinning ball's seams—to pitch with altered trajectories and hopefully confuse or distract batters.
At the end of the 1919 season Harry Frazee, then owner of the Boston Red Sox, sold a group of his star players to the New York Yankees. Among them was George Herman Ruth, known affectionately as "Babe". Ruth's career mirrors the shift in dominance from pitching to hitting at this time. He started his career as a pitcher in 1914, and by 1916 was considered one of the dominant left-handed pitchers in the game. When Edward Barrow, managing the Red Sox, converted him to an outfielder, ballplayers and sportswriters were shocked. It was apparent, however, that Ruth's bat in the lineup every day was far more valuable than Ruth's arm on the mound every fourth day. Ruth swatted 29 home runs in his last season in Boston. The next year, as a Yankee, he would hit 54 and in 1921 he hit 59. His 1927 mark of 60 home runs would last until 1961.
Ruth's power hitting ability demonstrated a dramatic new way to play the game, one that was extremely popular with fans. Accordingly, ballparks were expanded, sometimes by building outfield "bleacher" seating which shrunk the size of the outfield and made home runs more frequent. In addition to Ruth, hitters such as
The first radio broadcast of a baseball game was on August 5, 1921, over Westinghouse station KDKA from Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Harold Arlin announced the Pirates–Phillies game. Attendances in the 1920s were consistently better than they had been before WWI. The interwar peak average attendance was 8,211 in 1930, but baseball was hit hard by the Great Depression and in 1933 the average fell below five thousand for the only time between the wars. At first wary of radio's potential to impact ticket sales at the park, owners began to make broadcast deals and by the late 1930s, all teams' games went out over the air.
1933 also saw the introduction of the yearly All-Star game, a mid-season break in which the greatest players in each league play against one another in a hard-fought but officially meaningless demonstration game. In 1936 the
The war years
In 1941, a year which saw the premature death of Lou Gehrig, Boston's great left fielder Ted Williams had a batting average over .400—the last time anyone has achieved that feat. During the same season Joe DiMaggio hit successfully in 56 consecutive games, an accomplishment both unprecedented and unequaled.
After the United States entered
Baseball boomed after World War II. 1945 saw a new attendance record and the following year average crowds leapt nearly 70% to 14,914. Further records followed in 1948 and 1949, when the average reached 16,913. While average attendances slipped to somewhat lower levels through the 1950s, 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, they remained well above pre-war levels, and total seasonal attendance regularly hit new highs from 1962 onward as the number of major league teams—and games—increased.
Racial integration in baseball
The post-War years in baseball also witnessed the racial integration of the sport. Participation by African Americans in organized baseball had been precluded since the 1890s by formal and informal agreements, with only a few players being surreptitiously included in lineups on a sporadic basis.
American society as a whole moved toward integration in the post-War years, partially as a result of the distinguished service by African American military units such as the
The general manager who would be eventually successful in breaking the color barrier was Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Rickey himself had experienced the issue of segregation. While playing and coaching for his college team at Ohio Wesleyan University, Rickey had a black teammate named Charles Thomas. On a road trip through southern Ohio, his fellow player was refused a room in a hotel. Although Rickey was able to get the player into his room for that night, he was taken aback when he reached his room to find Thomas upset and crying about this injustice. Rickey related this incident as an example of why he wanted a full desegregation of not only baseball, but the entire nation.
In the mid-1940s, Rickey had compiled a list of Negro league ballplayers for possible Major League contracts. Realizing that the first
Eleven weeks later, on July 5, 1947, the
However, the initial pace of
While never prohibited in the same fashion as African Americans, Latin American players also benefitted greatly from the integration era. In 1951, two Chicago White Sox, Venezuelan-born Chico Carrasquel and Cuban-born (and black) Minnie Miñoso, became the first Hispanic All-Stars.[36]
According to some baseball historians, Jackie Robinson and the other African-American players helped reestablish the importance of baserunning and similar elements of play that were previously de-emphasized by the predominance of power hitting.
From 1947 to the 1970s, African-American participation in baseball rose steadily. By 1974, 27% of baseball players were African American.
Although these front-office gains continued, Major League Baseball saw a lengthy slow decline in the percentage of black players after the mid-1970s. By 2007, African Americans made up less than 9% of Major League players. While this trend is largely attributed to an increased emphasis on recruitment of players from Latin America (with the number of Hispanic players in the major leagues rising to 29% by 2007
In 2005, a Racial and Gender Report Card on Major League Baseball was issued, which generally found positive results on the inclusion of African Americans and Latinos in baseball, and gave Major League Baseball a grade of "A" or better for opportunities for players, managers and coaches as well as for MLB's central office.[42] At that time, 37% of major league players were people of color: Latino (26 percent), African American (9 percent) or Asian (2 percent). Also by 2004, 29% of the professional staff in MLB's central office were people of color, 11% of team vice presidents were people of color, and seven of the league's managers were of color (four African Americans and three Latinos).[42]
The Major Leagues move west
Baseball had been in the West for almost as long as the National League and the American League had been around. It evolved into the
The PCL was huge in the West. A member of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, it kept losing great players to the National and the American leagues for less than $8,000 a player.
The PCL was far more independent than the other "minor" leagues, and rebelled continuously against their Eastern masters. Clarence Pants Rowland, the President of the PCL, took on baseball commissioners Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Happy Chandler at first to get better equity from the major leagues, then to form a third major league. His efforts were rebuffed by both commissioners. Chandler and several of the owners, who saw the value of the markets in the West, started to plot the extermination of the PCL. They had one thing that Rowland did not: The financial power of the Eastern major league baseball establishment.
No one was going to back a PCL club building a major-league size stadium if the National or the American League was going to build one too, which discouraged investment in PCL ballparks. PCL games and rivalries still drew fans, but the leagues' days of dominance in the West were numbered.
1953–1955
Before Expansion: The Major Leagues, 1901 to 1960 | ||||
(move) | National League | City | American League | (move) |
to Milwaukee 1953 ← | Braves | Boston | Red Sox
|
|
Phillies | Philadelphia | Athletics | → to Kansas City 1955 | |
to San Francisco 1958 ← | Giants
|
New York City | Yankees | [ ← Baltimore Orioles 1901–2 ] |
to Los Angeles 1958 ← | Dodgers | Brooklyn | ||
Washington, D.C. | Senators | → Minnesota Twins 1961 | ||
Pirates | Pittsburgh | |||
Reds | Cincinnati | |||
Cleveland | Indians
|
|||
Detroit | Tigers | |||
Cubs | Chicago | White Sox | ||
Cardinals | St. Louis | Browns | [ ← Milwaukee Brewers 1901 ] → Baltimore Orioles 1954 | |
New Major League homes, 1953 to 1960 | ||||
Former city | National League | New city | American League | Former city |
Boston 1871 → [ to Atlanta 1966 ← ] |
Braves (1953) | Milwaukee | ||
Baltimore | Orioles (1954) | ← Milwaukee Brewers 1901 ← St. Louis Browns 1902–53 | ||
Kansas City | Athletics (1955)
|
← Philadelphia 1871 [ → to Oakland 1968 ] | ||
New York 1883 → | Giants (1958)
|
San Francisco | ||
Brooklyn 1883 → | Dodgers (1958) | Los Angeles |
Until the 1950s, major league baseball franchises had been largely confined to the northeastern United States, with the teams and their locations remaining unchanged from 1903 to 1952. The first team to relocate in fifty years was the
National League Baseball leaves New York
In 1958 the New York market ripped apart. The Yankees were becoming the dominant draw, and the cities of the West offered generations of new fans in much more sheltered markets for the other venerable New York clubs, the
California
The logical first candidates for major league "expansion" were the same metropolitan areas that had just attracted the Dodgers and Giants. It is said that the Dodgers and Giants—National League rivals in New York City—chose their new cities because Los Angeles (in southern California) and San Francisco (in northern California) already had a fierce rivalry (geographical, economic, cultural and political), dating back to the state's founding.[43] The only California expansion team—and also the first in Major League Baseball in over 70 years—was the Los Angeles Angels (later the California Angels, the Anaheim Angels, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, before reverting to Los Angeles Angels in 2016), who brought the American League to southern California in 1961. Northern California, however, would later gain its own American League team, in 1968, when the Athletics would move again, settling in Oakland, across San Francisco Bay from the Giants.
1961–1962
Along with the Angels, the other 1961 expansion team was the
1969
In 1969, the American League expanded when the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots, the latter in a longtime PCL stronghold, were admitted to the league. The Pilots stayed just one season in Seattle before moving to Milwaukee and becoming today's Milwaukee Brewers. The National League also added two teams that year, the Montreal Expos and San Diego Padres. Given the size of the expanded leagues, 12 teams apiece, each split into East and West divisions, with a playoff series to determine the pennant winner and World Series contender—the first post-season baseball instituted since the advent of the World Series itself.
The Padres were the last of the core PCL teams to be absorbed. The Coast League did not die, though. After reforming and moving into new markets, it successfully transformed into a Class AAA league.
1972–2013
In 1972, the second Washington Senators moved to the Dallas–Fort Worth area and became the Texas Rangers.
In 1977, the American League expanded to fourteen teams, with the newly formed
Beginning with the 1994 season, both the AL and the NL were divided into three divisions (East, West, and Central), with the addition of a wild card team (the team with the best record among those finishing in second place) to enable four teams in each league to advance to the preliminary division series. However, due to the 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike (which canceled the 1994 World Series), the new rules did not go into effect until the 1995 World Series.
In 1998, the AL and the NL each added a fifteenth team, for a total of thirty teams in
In 2013, in keeping with Commissioner Bud Selig's desire for expanded interleague play, the Houston Astros were shifted from the National to the American League; with an odd number (15) in each league, an interleague contest was played somewhere almost every day during the season. At this time the divisions within each league were shuffled to create six equal divisions of five teams.
Pitching dominance and rules changes
By the late 1960s, the balance between pitching and hitting had swung back to favor of the pitchers once more. In 1968 Carl Yastrzemski won the American League batting title with an average of just .301, the lowest in history. That same year, Detroit Tigers pitcher Denny McLain won 31 games—making him the last pitcher to win 30 games in a season. St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Bob Gibson achieved an equally remarkable feat by allowing an ERA of just 1.12.
In response to these events, major league baseball implemented certain rule changes in 1969 to benefit the batters. The pitcher's mound was lowered, and the strike zone was reduced.
In 1973 the American League, which had been suffering from much lower attendance than the National League, made a move to increase scoring even further by initiating the designated hitter rule.
Players assert themselves
From the time of the formation of the Major Leagues to the 1960s, the team owners controlled the game. After the so-called "Brotherhood Strike" of 1890 and the failure of the
The first legal challenge came in 1970. Backed by the MLBPA,
While the legal challenges were going on, the game continued. In 1969, the "Miracle Mets", just seven years after their formation, recorded their first winning season, won the National League East and finally the World Series.
On the field, the 1970s saw some of the longest-standing records fall, along with the rise of two powerhouse dynasties. In Oakland, the
The decade also contained great individual achievements. On April 8, 1974, Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hit his 715th career home run, surpassing Babe Ruth's all-time record. He would retire in 1976 with 755, and that was just one of numerous records he achieved, many of which, including total bases, still stand today. There was great pitching too: between 1973 and 1975, Nolan Ryan threw four "no-hit" games. He would add a record-breaking fifth in 1981 and two more before his retirement in 1993, by which time he had also accumulated 5,714 strikeouts, another record, in a 27-year career.
The marketing and hype era
From the 1980s onward, the major league game changed dramatically, due to the combined effects of free agency, improvements in the science of sports conditioning, changes in the marketing and television broadcasting of sporting events, and the push by brand-name products for greater visibility. These events lead to greater labor difficulties, fan disaffection, rapidly rising prices, changes in game-play, and problems with the use of performance-enhancing substances like
The science of the sport changes the game
During the 1980s, significant advances were made in the science of physical conditioning. Weight rooms and training equipment were improved. Trainers and doctors developed better diets and regimens to make athletes bigger, healthier, and stronger than they had ever been.
Another major change that had been occurring during this time was the adoption of the pitch count. Starting pitchers who played complete games had not been an unusual thing in baseball's history. Now, pitchers were throwing harder than ever and pitching coaches watched to see how many pitches a player had thrown over the game. At anywhere from 100 to 125, pitchers increasingly would be pulled out to preserve their arms. Bullpens began to specialize more, with more pitchers being trained as middle relievers, and a few hurlers, usually possessing high velocity but not much durability, as closers. The science of maximizing effectiveness and career duration, while attempting to minimize injury and downtime, is an ongoing pursuit by coaches and kinesiologists.[48][49][50]
Along with the expansion of teams, the addition of more pitchers needed to play a complete game stressed the total number of quality players available in a system that restricted its talent searches at that time to America, Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
Television
The arrival of live televised sports in the 1950s increased attention and revenue for all major league clubs at first. The television programming was extremely regional, hurting the non-televised minor and independent leagues most. People stayed home to watch Maury Wills rather than watch unknowns at their local baseball park.[51] Major League Baseball, as it always did, made sure that it controlled rights and fees charged for the broadcasts of all games, just as it had on radio.
The national networks began televising national games of the week, opening the door for a national audience to see particular clubs. While most teams were broadcast in the course of a season, emphasis tended toward the league leaders with famous players and the major market franchises that could draw the largest audience.
The rise of cable
In the 1970s the
As player contract values soared, and the number of broadcasters, commentators, columnists, and sports writers also multiplied. The competition for a fresh angle on any story became fierce. Media pundits began questioning the high salaries paid to players when on-field performance was deemed less than deserving. Critical commentary was more of a draw than praise, and coverage began to become intensely negative. Players' personal lives, which had always been off-limits except under extreme circumstances, became the fodder of editorials, insider stories on TV, and features in magazines. When the use of performance-enhancing drugs became an issue, drawing scornful criticism from fans and pundits, the gap between the sports media and the players whom they covered widened further.
With the development of satellite television and digital cable, Major League Baseball launched channels with season-subscription fees, making it possible for fans to watch virtually every game played, in both major leagues, everywhere, in real time.
Team networks
The next refinement of baseball on cable was the creation of single-team cable networks.
Merchandise, endorsements and sponsorships
The first merchandise produced in response to the growing popularity of the game was the baseball trading card. The earliest known player cards were produced in 1868 by a pair of New York baseball-equipment purveyors. Since that time, many enterprises, notably tobacco and candy companies, have used trading cards to promote and sell their products. These cards rarely, if ever, provided any benefit directly to the players, but a growing mania for collecting and trading cards helped personalize baseball, giving some fans a more personal connection to their favorite players and introducing them to new ones. Eventually, older cards became “vintage” and rare cards gained in value until the secondary market for trading cards became a billion-dollar industry in itself, with the rarest individuals bringing mid-six-figures to millions of dollars at auction.[52] The advent of the Internet and websites such as eBay provided huge new venues for buyers, sellers and traders, some of whom have made baseball cards their living.
In recent years baseball cards have disassociated from unrelated products like tobacco and bubble-gum, to become products in their own right. Following the exit of competitor Donruss from the baseball-card industry, former bubble-gum giants Topps and Fleer came to dominate that market through exclusive contracts with players and Major League Baseball.[53] Fleer, in turn, exited the market in 2007, leaving Topps as the only card manufacturer with an MLB contract.[54]
Other genuine baseball memorabilia also trades and sells, often at high prices. Much of what is for sale as "memorabilia" is manufactured strictly for sale and rarely has a direct connection to teams or players beyond the labeling, unless signed in person by a player. Souvenir balls caught by fans during important games, especially significant home run balls, have great rarity value, and balls signed by players have always been treasured, traded and sold. The high value of autographs has created new businessmen whose sole means of making a living was acquiring autographs and memorabilia from the athletes. Memorabilia hounds fought with fans to get signatures worth $20, $60, or even $100 or more in their inventory.[55]
Of great value to individual top players are endorsement contracts wherein the player's fame is used to sell anything from sports equipment to automobiles, soda and underwear. Top players can receive as much as a million dollars a year or more directly from the companies.[56]
In deals with players, teams and Major League Baseball, large corporations like NIKE and Champion pay big money to make sure that their logos are seen on the clothing and shoes worn by athletes on the field. This "association branding" has become a significant revenue stream. In the late 1990s and into the 21st century, the dugout, the backstops behind home plate, and anywhere else that might be seen by a camera, became fair game for the insertion of advertising.[57]
Player wealth
Beginning with the 1972 Flood v. Kuhn Supreme Court case, management's grip on players, as embodied in the reserve clause, began to slip. In 1976, the Messersmith/McNally Arbitration, also known as the Seitz Decision effectively destroyed the reserve clause. Players who had been dramatically underpaid for generations came to be replaced by players who were paid extremely well for their services.[58]
Sports agents
A new generation of
Business
Under the Major League Baseball contract, players must play for minimum salary for six years, at which time they become free agents. With players seeking greener pastures when their six years had passed, fewer players remained career members of one ball club. Large-market clubs like the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, given big revenues from their cable television operations, signed more and more of the best—and best-known—players away from mid-sized and smaller-market clubs that could not afford to compete on salaries. Major League Baseball, unlike many other sports, does not impose a salary cap on teams. The League does attempt to level the field, as it were, by imposing a
Owners and players feud in the 1980s
All was not well with major league baseball. The many contractual disputes between players and owners came to a head in 1981. Previous players' strikes (in 1972, 1973 and 1980) had been held in preseason, with only the 1972 stoppage—over benefits—causing disruption to the regular season from April 1 to April 13. Also, in 1976 the owners had locked the players out of Spring training in a dispute over free agency.[62]
The crux of the 1981 dispute was compensation for the loss of players to free agency. After seeing a top-rank player sign with another team, the aggrieved owner wanted a mid-rank player in return, the so-called sixteenth player (each club was allowed to protect 15 players from this rule). Under this arrangement, losing lower-rated free agents would produce correspondingly smaller compensation. While this seemed reasonable and fair to owners, players only recently freed from the bondage of the reserve clause found it unacceptable, and withdrew their labor, striking on June 12. Immediately, the U.S. Government's National Labor Relations Board ruled that the owners had not been negotiating in good faith, and installed a federal mediator to reach a solution. Seven weeks and 713 games were lost in the middle of the season, before the owners backed down on July 31, settling for proportionally lower-ranked players as compensation. The damaged season was continued as distinct halves starting August 9, with the playoffs reorganized to reflect this.[62]
Throughout the 1980s then, baseball seemed to prosper. The competitive balance between franchises saw fifteen different teams make the
1994–95 Major League Baseball strike
Labor relations were still strained. There had been a two-day strike in 1985 (over the division of television revenue money), and a 32-day spring training lockout in 1990 (again over salary structure and benefits). By far the worst action would come in 1994. The seeds were sown earlier: in 1992 the owners sought to renegotiate salary and free-agency terms, but little progress was made. The standoff continued until early 1994 when the existing agreement expired, with no agreement on what was to replace it. Adding to the conflict was the perception that "small market" teams, such as the struggling Seattle Mariners could not compete with high-spending teams such as those in New York or Los Angeles. Their plan was to institute TV revenue sharing to increase equity among the teams and impose a salary cap to keep expenditures down. Players felt that such a cap would reduce their potential earnings. It wasn't until later, in 2003, that MLB instituted a luxury tax on high-spending teams in an attempt to encourage more equitable player outlays.
Meanwhile, back in 1994, players officially went on strike on August 12. In September 1994, Major League Baseball announced the cancellation of the World Series for the first time since 1904.
Home run mania and the second coming of baseball
The cancellation of the 1994 World Series was a severe embarrassment for Major League Baseball. Fans were outraged and frustrated, their love of the game shaken to its core. The strike was declared an act of war,[64] and fought back: attendance figures and broadcast ratings were lower in 1995 than before the strike. It would be a decade before baseball recovered from the disruption.[65]
On September 6, 1995,
In 1997, the expansion
In 1998, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire and Chicago Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa engaged in a home run race for the ages. With both rapidly approaching Roger Maris's record of 61 home runs (set in 1961), the entire nation watched as the two power hitters raced to be the first to break into uncharted territory. McGwire reached 62 first on September 8, 1998, with Sosa right behind. Sosa finished the season with 66 home runs, well behind McGwire's unheard-of 70. However, recent steroid allegations have marred the season in the minds of many fans.
That same year, the New York Yankees won a record 125 games, including going 11–2 in the postseason, to win the World Series as what many consider to be one of the greatest teams of all time.
McGwire's record of 70 would last a mere three years following the meteoric rise of veteran San Francisco Giants left fielder Barry Bonds in 2001. In 2001 Bonds knocked out 73 home runs, breaking the record set by McGwire by hitting his 71st on October 5, 2001. In addition to the home run record, Bonds also set single-season marks for base on balls with 177 (breaking the previous record of 170, set by Babe Ruth in 1923) and slugging percentage with .863 (breaking the mark of .847 set by Ruth in 1920). Bonds continued his torrid home run hitting in the next few seasons, hitting his 660th career home run on April 12, 2004, tying him with his godfather Willie Mays for third place on the all-time career home runs list. He hit his 661st home run the next day, April 13, to take sole possession of third place. Only three years later Bonds surpassed the great Hank Aaron to become baseball's most prolific home run hitter.
However, none of Bonds's accomplishments in the 2000s have been without controversy. During his run, journalists questioned McGwire about his use of the steroid-precursor
The 1990s also saw Major League Baseball expand into new markets as four new teams joined the league. In 1993, the
The year 1998 brought two more teams into the mix, the
The late 1990s were dominated by the New York Yankees, who won four out of five World Series championships from 1996 to 2000.
The steroid era
Drugs, baseball, and records
The lure of big money pushed players harder and harder to achieve peak performance, while avoiding injury from over-training. The wearying travel schedule and 162-game season meant that
The eventual consequences for the game, the players and the fans were substantial.A memo circulated in 1991 by baseball commissioner Fay Vincent stated that "The possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players and personnel is strictly prohibited ... [and those players involved] are subject to discipline by the Commissioner and risk permanent expulsion from the game.... This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs and controlled substances, including steroids…"[70] Some general managers of the time do not remember this memo; it was not emphasized or enforced and, confusingly, Vincent himself has disclaimed any direct responsibility for a ban on steroids, saying, "I didn't ban steroids...They were banned by Congress".[71]
Ephedra, an herb used to cure cold symptoms, and also used in some allergy medications, sped up the heart and was considered by some to be a weight-loss short-cut. In 2003, Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler had come to training camp 10 pounds overweight. During a workout on February 16, Bechler complained of dizziness and fatigue. His condition worsened while resting in the clubhouse and he was transported to an ambulance on a stretcher. Bechler spent the night in intensive care and died the following morning at the age of 23. The official cause of death was listed as "multi-organ failure due to heat exhaustion". The coroner's report stated it was likely that Bechler had taken three ephedra capsules on an empty stomach prior to working out.[72] Many in the media linked Bechler's death to ephedra, raising concerns over the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. Ephedra was banned, and soon the furor died down.
The 1998 home run race had generated nearly unbroken positive publicity, but Barry Bonds' run for the all-time home run record provoked a backlash over steroids, which increase a person's testosterone level and subsequently enable that person to bodybuild with much more ease. Some athletes have said that the main advantage to steroids is not so much the additional power or endurance that they can provide, but that they can drastically shorten rehab time from injury.[73][74]
Commissioner Bud Selig was criticized, mostly after-the-fact,[75] for a slow response to the rising tide of steroid use in the 1990s. In the early 2000s, as a safe and effective test for anabolic steroids came online and sanctions for their use began to be strictly enforced, some players adopted the use of harder-to-detect human growth hormone (HGH) to increase stamina and strength. Selig, still acting with some caution, imposed a strict anti-drug policy upon its minor league players, who are not part of the Major League Baseball Players Association (the PA). Random drug testing, education and treatment, and strict penalties for those caught became the rule of law. Anyone on a Major League team's forty man roster, including 15 minor leaguers that are on that list, were exempt from that program. Eventually, Selig and MLB had strict rules in place that carried meaningful sanctions against players who "juiced."[76]
In a
In 2005,
In 2006, Commissioner Selig tasked former United States Senator George J. Mitchell to lead an investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball (MLB) and on December 13, 2007, the 409-page
Baseball has been taken to task for turning a blind eye to its drug problems. It benefited from these drugs in the ever-increasingly competitive fight for airtime and media attention. For example, Commissioner Selig sent a personal representative to the 2007 game where Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's career home run record, even though Bonds was widely believed at the time to be a steroid user and had been named in connection with the then-ongoing BALCO scandal; many viewed this as Selig giving wink-and-a-nod tacit approval to the use of PEDs. MLB and its Players Association finally announced tougher measures, but many felt that they did not go far enough.
In December 2009, Sports Illustrated named Baseball's Steroid Scandal as the number one sports story of the decade of the 2000s.[78] In 2013, no player from the first "steroid class" of players eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame was elected. Bonds and Clemens received less than half the number of votes needed,[79] and some voters stated that they would not vote for any first-time candidate who played during the steroid era—whether accused of using banned substances or not—because of the effect the substances had on baseball.[80]
The BALCO steroids scandal
In 2002, a major scandal arose when it was discovered that the company Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (
Grand jury testimony in December 2003—which was illegally leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle and published in December 2004 under the bylines of Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams—revealed that the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative did not merely manufacture nutritional supplements, but also distributed exotic steroids. Williams and Fairanu-Wada also provided compelling evidence that Barry Bonds, arguably the greatest player of his generation, was one of BALCO's steroid clients.[83] The paper reported that these substances were probably designer steroids. Bonds said that Greg Anderson gave him a rubbing balm and a liquid substance that at the time he did not believe them to be steroids and thought they were flaxseed oil and other health supplements. Based on the testimony from many of the athletes, Conte and Anderson accepted plea agreements from the government in 2005, on charges they distributed steroids and laundered money, in order to avoid significant time in jail. Conte received a sentence of four months, Anderson received a sentence of three months. Also that year, James Valente, the vice-president of BALCO, and Remi Korchemny, a track coach affiliated with BALCO, pled guilty to distributing banned substances and received probation.[84]
Various baseball pundits, fans, and even players have taken this as confirmation that Bonds used illegal steroids. Bonds never tested positive in tests performed in 2003, 2004, and 2005, which may be attributable to successful obfuscation of continued use as documented in the 2006 book Game of Shadows. Before-and-after photos of Bonds, early in his career and late in his career, have led most fans to conclude that he must have used steroids to achieve such startling changes in his physique.[85]
The Power Age
While the introduction of steroids certainly increased the power production of greats, there were other factors that drastically increased the power surge after 1994. The factors cited are: smaller sized ballparks than in the past, the "juiced balls" theory claiming that the balls are wound tighter thus travel further following contact with the bat, and "watered down pitching" implying that lesser quality pitchers are up in the Major Leagues due to too many teams. Albeit these factors did play a large role in increasing home run thus scoring totals during this time, others that directly impact ballplayers have an equally important role. As noted earlier, one of those factors is the use of anabolic steroids for increasing muscle mass, which enables hitters to not only hit "mistake" pitches farther, but it also confers faster bat speed, giving hitters a fraction of a second more to adjust to "good" pitches such as a well-placed fastball, slider, changeup, or curveball.[86] A more innocent, but also meaningful factor is better nutrition, as well as scientific training methods and advanced training facilities/equipment which can work without steroids to produce a more potent ballplayer.
In today's baseball age,[when?] players routinely reach 40 and 50 home runs in a season, a feat that was rare as recently as the 1980s. On the other hand, since the end of the steroid era, the emphasis on swinging for home runs has been accompanied by hitting in general falling off, with batting averages trending downwards towards 1960s levels and strikeouts reaching all-time highs: each of the eleven seasons from 2006 through 2016 broke the preceding MLB-total record for strikeouts.
Many modern baseball theorists believe that a new pitch will swing the balance of power back to the pitcher. A pitching revolution would not be unprecedented—several pitches have changed the game of baseball in the past, including the
Summary of modern-era major league teams
Note: The team names listed below are those currently in use. Some of the franchises have changed their names in the past, in some cases more than once. In the early years of the 20th century, many teams did not have official names, and were referred to by their league and city, or by nicknames created by sportswriters.[87][88][89]
- 1876 – National League is established
- 1900 – National League "Classic Eight" lineup of teams is established: Chicago Cubs, Boston Braves, Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, and St. Louis Cardinals
- 1901 – American League is established with eight teams: Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers, Philadelphia Athletics, Washington Senators, Milwaukee Brewers, and Baltimore Orioles
- 1902 – Milwaukee Brewers move to St. Louis and become the Browns
- 1903 – Baltimore Orioles move to New York and become the Yankees
- 1953 – Boston Braves move to Milwaukee
- 1954 – St. Louis Browns move to Baltimore and become the Orioles
- 1955 – Philadelphia Athletics move to Kansas City
- 1958 – New York Giants move to San Francisco; Brooklyn Dodgers move to Los Angeles
- 1961 – Washington Senators move to Minneapolis–Saint Paul and become the Minnesota Twins; new Washington Senators (AL) and Los Angeles Angels (AL) created as expansion teams
- 1962 – Houston Astros (NL) and New York Mets (NL) created as expansion teams
- 1966 – Milwaukee Braves move to Atlanta
- 1968 – Kansas City Athletics move to Oakland
- 1969 – San Diego Padres (NL), Montreal Expos (NL), Kansas City Royals (AL), and Seattle Pilots (AL) created as expansion teams
- 1970 – Seattle Pilots move to Milwaukee and become the Brewers
- 1972 – Washington Senators move to Dallas–Fort Worth and become the Texas Rangers
- 1977 – Seattle Mariners (AL) and Toronto Blue Jays (AL) created as expansion teams
- 1993 – Colorado Rockies (NL) and Miami Marlins (NL) created as expansion teams
- 1998 – Arizona Diamondbacks (NL) and Tampa Bay Rays (AL) created as expansion teams; Milwaukee Brewers switch from AL to NL
- 2005 – Montreal Expos move to Washington and become the Nationals
- 2013 – Houston Astros switch from NL to AL
See also
References
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In 2004, baseball historian John Thorn discovered the 1791 town ordinance, putting Pittsfield's connection to baseball 48 years before Abner Doubleday accepted invention of the game in 1839 in Cooperstown, N.Y., where the National Baseball Hall of Fame now stands. The Hall of Fame recognized the ordinance as the first known reference to the game and honored the town with a plaque.
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…for the Preservation of the Windows in the New Meeting House … no Person or Inhabitant of said town, shall be permitted to play at any game called Wicket, Cricket, Baseball, Football, Cat, Fives or any other game or games with balls, within the Distance of Eighty Yards from said Meeting House.
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{{cite web}}
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- ^ See Major League Baseball#League organization.
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- ^ Simon, Andrew (July 23, 2021). "MLB Teams That Have Changed Their Name". MLB.com. Retrieved December 14, 2021.
In the game's wild and tumultuous early decades, names tended to be quite fluid. Cleveland itself is an example of that, with the franchise known as the Blues (short for Bluebirds) in the inaugural season of the American League in 1901, then briefly the Bronchos and then the Naps, in honor of Hall of Famer Nap Lajoie, who played for the club from 1902–14 and also managed it for part of that time. It wasn't until Lajoie's departure that Cleveland became the Indians.
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Further reading
- "Baseball Pictures from 1900 to 1940". Archived from the original on January 16, 2007.
- Alexander, Charles C. (2002). Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-11342-0.
- Bouton, Jim (1970). Ball Four: My Life and Hard Times Throwing the Knuckleball in the Major Leagues. World Publishing Company. ISBN 0-02-030665-2.
- James, Bill (1985). The Historical Baseball Abstract. New York: Villard. ISBN 9780394537139.
- Lamoreaux, David (1977). "Baseball in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Source of its Appeal". Journal of Popular Culture. 11 (3): 597–613. .
- Murphy, Cait (2007). Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History. New York: Smithsonian Books. ISBN 978-0-06-088937-1.
- Pepe, Phil. (2005). Catfish, Yaz, and Hammerin' Hank: The Unforgettable Era That Transformed Baseball. Chicago, Triumph Books. ISBN 978-1-57243-839-2
- Ritter, Lawrence (1984). The Glory of their Times (Revised ed.). New York: William Morrow. ISBN 9780688039011.
- Ross, Brian (April 6, 2005). "Band of Brothers". Minor League News. Archived from the original on February 21, 2009.
- Seymour, Harold (1960). Baseball: The Early Years. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-500100-1.
- Sullivan, Dean A. (2010). Final Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1972–2008. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-5965-2.
- Tygiel, Jules (2000). Past Time: Baseball as History. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-514604-2.