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The history of baseball can be broken down into various aspects: by era, by locale, by organizational-type, game evolution, as well as by political and cultural influence. The game evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century. This game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. By the late 19th century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball is popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and East Asia, particularly in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

References to baseball date back to the 1700s when in England it was referenced in 1744 in the children's book A Little Pretty Pocket-Book by John Newberry, though he was actually referring to the game " rounders". In the early 1800s "baseball" and a game first mentioned in 1828 as the aforementioned "rounders" may have been the same or very similar. During the 1830s and 1840s organized amateur club baseball grew up in eastern United States cities; however, the first official baseball game with a documented score card took place not in the US, but in Canada in 1838 The first "baseball" game ever played. While Canada invented the version of baseball we know today, innovations made by New York City clubs became the basis for the modern game, far removed from its English ancestor, but extremely similar to the Canadian version. These clubs formed a national governing body with uniform rules in 1858, the National Association of Base Ball Players. In 1871 the first professional league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, was founded. Five years later, the National League was created; it was followed by the American League in 1901. The first World Series between the champions of the two major leagues was held in 1903, and by 1905 it became an annual event. Baseball early in the 20th century was characterized by low-scoring games, but the dead-ball era ended in the early 1920s with rule changes and the rise of power hitter Babe Ruth. The major leagues had a color barrier that lasted until 1947, when Jackie Robinson made his debut. The major leagues began the process of expansion in 1961 and attendance increased from the mid-1970s to 1994, when a work stoppage led to the cancellation of the World Series.

Professional baseball leagues featured teams from Canada as early as 1877, and the sport spread to numerous countries in the 1800s and 1900s. It was played in the Olympics as a medal sport from 1992 to 2008. Other competitions between national teams include the Baseball World Cup and the World Baseball Classic, which was first held in 2006.

A game from the Cantigas de Santa Maria, c. 1280, involving tossing a ball, hitting it with a stick and competing with others to catch it

The evolution of baseball from older bat-and-ball games is difficult to trace with precision. A French manuscript from 1344 contains an illustration of clerics playing a game, possibly , with similarities to baseball. Other old French games such as thèque, la balle au bâton, and la balle empoisonnée also appear to be related. Consensus once held that today's baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, popular in Great Britain and Ireland. Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game (2005), by David Block, suggests that the game originated in England; recently uncovered historical evidence supports this position. Block argues that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of each other, and that the game's most direct antecedents are the English games of stoolball and "tut-ball". It has long been believed that cricket also descended from such games, though evidence uncovered in early 2009 suggests that cricket may have been imported to England from Flanders.

A Little Pretty Pocket-Book (1744), included an illustration of base-ball, depicting a batter, a bowler, and three rounders posts. The rhyme refers to the ball being hit, the boy running to the next post, and then home to score. Updated to four bases by 1828, rounders has remained extremely popular among children in the UK.[5]

The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British children's publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, by John Newbery. It contains a rhymed description of "base-ball" and a woodcut that shows a field set-up somewhat similar to the modern game-though in a triangular rather than diamond configuration, and with posts instead of ground-level bases. Block discovered that the first recorded game of "Bass-Ball" took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featured the Prince of Wales as a player. William Bray, an English lawyer, recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford, Surrey. This early form of the game was apparently brought to Canada by English immigrants. Rounders was also brought to the United States by Canadians of both British and Irish ancestry. The first known American reference to baseball appears in a 1791 Pittsfield, Massachusetts town bylaw prohibiting the playing of the game near the town's new meeting house. By 1796, a version of the game was well known enough to earn a mention in a German scholar's book on popular pastimes. As described by Johann Gutsmuths, " englische Base-ball" involved a contest between two teams, in which "the batter has three attempts to hit the ball while at the home plate." Only one out was required to retire a side.

In 1828, William Clarke in London published the second edition of The Boy's Own Book, which included the rules of rounders and contained the first printed description in English of a bat and ball base-running game played on a diamond. The following year, the book was published in Boston, Massachusetts.

By the early 1830s, there were reports of a variety of uncodified bat-and-ball games recognizable as early forms of baseball being played around North America. These games were often referred to locally as " town ball", though other names such as "round-ball" and "base-ball" were also used. Among the earliest examples to receive a detailed description-albeit five decades after the fact, in a letter from an attendee to Sporting Life magazine-took place in Beachville, Ontario, in 1838. There were many similarities to modern baseball, and some crucial differences: five bases (or byes); first bye just 18 feet (5.5 m) from the home bye; batter out if a hit ball was caught after the first bounce. The once widely accepted story that US Army officer Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839 has been conclusively debunked by sports historians. The Doubleday myth appeared after a dispute arose about the origins of baseball and whether it had been invented in the United States or developed as a variation of rounders. The theory that the sport was created in the U.S. was backed by Chicago Cubs president Albert Spalding and National League president Abraham G. Mills. In 1889, Mills gave a speech declaring that baseball was American, which he said was determined through "patriotism and research"; a crowd of about 300 people responding by chanting "No rounders!" The rounders theory was supported by prominent sportswriter Henry Chadwick, a native of Britain who noted common factors between rounders and baseball in a 1903 article. In 1905, Spalding called for an investigation into how the sport was invented. Chadwick supported the idea, and later in the year the Mills commission was formed. Spalding instructed the commission to decide between the American game of "Old Cat" and rounders as baseball's predecessor. Seven men served on the commission, including Mills. Spalding chose the committee's members, picking men who supported his theory and excluding supporters of the rounders claim, such as Chadwick.

Alexander Cartwright, father of modern baseball

In 1845, Alexander Cartwright, a member of New York City's Knickerbocker Club, produced a code of baseball rules now called the Knickerbocker Rules. The practice, common to bat-and-ball games of the day, of "soaking" or "plugging"-effecting a putout by hitting a runner with a thrown ball-was barred. The rules thus facilitated the use of a smaller, harder ball than had been common. Several other rules also brought the Knickerbockers' game close to the modern one, though a ball caught on the first bounce was, again, an out and only underhand pitching was allowed. While there are reports that the New York Knickerbockers played games in 1845, the contest long recognized as the first officially recorded baseball game in U.S. history took place on June 19, 1846, in Hoboken, New Jersey: the "New York Nine" defeated the Knickerbockers, 23-1, in four innings. With the Knickerbocker code as the basis, the rules of modern baseball continued to evolve over the next half-century.

Professional leagues develop

In the mid-1850s, a baseball craze hit the New York metropolitan area. By 1856, local journals were referring to baseball as the "national pastime" or "national game." A year later, 16 area clubs formed the sport's first governing body, the National Association of Base Ball Players. In 1863, the organization disallowed putouts made by catching a fair ball on the first bounce. Four years later, it barred participation by African Americans. The game's commercial potential was developing: in 1869 the first fully professional baseball club, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was formed and went undefeated against a schedule of semipro and amateur teams. They still remain as baseball's only undefeated team during the regular season. The first professional league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, lasted from 1871 to 1875; scholars dispute its status as a major league.

The more formally structured National League was founded in 1876. As the oldest surviving major league, the National League is sometimes referred to as the "senior circuit." Several other major leagues formed and failed. In 1884, African American Moses Walker (and, briefly, his brother Welday) played in one of these, the American Association. An injury ended Walker's major league career, and by the early 1890s, a gentlemen's agreement in the form of the baseball color line effectively barred black players from the white-owned professional leagues, major and minor. Professional Negro leagues formed, but quickly folded. Several independent African American teams succeeded as barnstormers. Also in 1884, overhand pitching was legalized. In 1887, softball, under the name of indoor baseball or indoor-outdoor, was invented as a winter version of the parent game. Virtually all of the modern baseball rules were in place by 1893; the last major change-counting foul balls as strikes-was instituted in 1901. The National League's first successful counterpart, the American League, which evolved from the minor Western League, was established that year. The two leagues, each with eight teams, were rivals that fought for the best players, often disregarding each other's contracts and engaging in bitter legal disputes.

The NL champion New York Giants baseball team, 1913. Fred Merkle, sixth in line, had committed a baserunning gaffe in a crucial 1908 game that became famous as Merkle's Boner.

A modicum of peace was eventually established, leading to the National Agreement of 1903. The pact formalized relations both between the two major leagues and between them and the National Association of Professional Base Ball Leagues, representing most of the country's minor professional leagues. The National Baseball Commission was created to oversee Organized Baseball. The World Series, pitting the two major league champions against each other, was inaugurated that fall, albeit without express major league sanction: The Boston Americans of the American League defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League. The next year, the series was not held, as the National League champion New York Giants, under manager John McGraw, refused to recognize the major league status of the American League and its champion. In 1905, the Giants were National League champions again and team management relented, leading to the establishment of the World Series as the major leagues' annual championship event.

As professional baseball became increasingly profitable, players frequently raised grievances against owners over issues of control and equitable income distribution. During the major leagues' early decades, players on various teams occasionally attempted strikes, which routinely failed when their jobs were sufficiently threatened. In general, the strict rules of baseball contracts and the reserve clause, which bound players to their teams even when their contracts had ended, tended to keep the players in check. Motivated by dislike for particularly stingy owner Charles Comiskey and gamblers' payoffs, real and promised, members of the Chicago White Sox conspired to throw the 1919 World Series. The Black Sox Scandal led to the dissolution of the National Baseball Commission and the formation of the office of the Commissioner of Baseball. The first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, was elected in 1920. That year also saw the founding of the Negro National League; the first significant Negro league, it would operate until 1931. For part of the 1920s, it was joined by the Eastern Colored League. On May 29, 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case Federal Baseball Club v. National League that MLB's activities were not considered interstate commerce and therefore not subject to federal antitrust law; MLB is the only American major sports league that has such a status, and has not faced any competition since this case; the last competitor was the Federal League, which played as a major league in 1914 and 1915. However, this ruling has been weakened only slightly in subsequent years.

Rise of Ruth and racial integration

Babe Ruth in 1920, the year he joined the New York Yankees

Compared with the present, professional baseball in the early 20th century was lower-scoring, and pitchers, including stars Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson, were more dominant. The " inside game", which demanded that players "scratch for runs", was played much more aggressively than it is today: The so-called dead-ball era ended in the early 1920s with several changes in rule and circumstance that were advantageous to hitters. Strict new regulations governing the ball's size, shape and composition, along with a new rule officially banning the spitball and other pitches that depended on the ball being treated or roughed-up with foreign substances, followed the death of Ray Chapman after a pitch struck him in the head in August 1920. Coupled with superior materials available after World War I, this resulted in a ball that traveled farther when hit. The construction of additional seating to accommodate the rising popularity of the game often had the effect of reducing the distance to the outfield fences, making home runs more common. The rise of the legendary player Babe Ruth, the first great power hitter of the new era, helped permanently alter the nature of the game. The club with which Ruth set most of his slugging records, the New York Yankees, built a reputation as the majors' premier team. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, St. Louis Cardinals general manager Branch Rickey invested in several minor league clubs and developed the first modern " farm system". A new Negro National League was organized in 1933; four years later, it was joined by the Negro American League. The first elections to the National Baseball Hall of Fame took place in 1936. In 1939 Little League Baseball was founded in Pennsylvania. By the late 1940s, it was the organizing body for children's baseball leagues across the United States.

Jackie Robinson in 1945, with the era's Kansas City Royals, a barnstorming squad associated with the Negro American League's Kansas City Monarchs

With America's entry into World War II, many professional players had left to serve in the armed forces. A large number of minor league teams disbanded as a result and the major league game seemed under threat as well. Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley led the formation of a new professional league with women players to help keep the game in the public eye-the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League existed from 1943 to 1954. The inaugural College World Series was held in 1947, and the Babe Ruth League youth program was founded. This program soon became another important organizing body for children's baseball. The first crack in the unwritten rules barring blacks from white-controlled professional ball occurred the previous year: Jackie Robinson was signed by the National League's Brooklyn Dodgers-where Branch Rickey had become general manager-and began playing for their minor league team in Montreal. In 1947, Robinson broke the major leagues' color barrier when he debuted with the Dodgers; Larry Doby debuted with the American League's Cleveland Indians later the same year. Latin American players, largely overlooked before, also started entering the majors in greater numbers. In 1951, two Chicago White Sox, Venezuelan-born Chico Carrasquel and black Cuban-born Minnie Miñoso, became the first Hispanic All-Stars.

Facing competition as varied as television and football, baseball attendance at all levels declined. While the majors rebounded by the mid-1950s, the minor leagues were gutted and hundreds of semipro and amateur teams dissolved. Integration proceeded slowly: by 1953, only six of the 16 major league teams had a black player on the roster. That year, the Major League Baseball Players Association was founded. It was the first professional baseball union to survive more than briefly, but it remained largely ineffective for years. No major league team had been located west of St. Louis until 1958, when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants relocated to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively. The majors' final all-white bastion, the Boston Red Sox, added a black player in 1959. With the integration of the majors drying up the available pool of players, the last Negro league folded the following year. In 1961, the American League reached the West Coast with the Los Angeles Angels expansion team, and the major league season was extended from 154 games to 162. This coincidentally helped Roger Maris break Babe Ruth's long-standing single-season home run record, one of the most celebrated marks in baseball. Along with the Angels, three other new franchises were launched during 1961-62. With this, the first major league expansion in 60 years, each league now had ten teams.

Attendance records, the age of steroids and today

In May 2010, the Philadelphia Phillies' Roy Halladay pitched the 20th major league perfect game. That October, he pitched only the second no-hitter in MLB postseason history.

The players' union became bolder under the leadership of former United Steelworkers chief economist and negotiator Marvin Miller, who was elected executive director in 1966. On the playing field, major league pitchers were becoming increasingly dominant again. After the 1968 season, in an effort to restore balance, the strike zone was reduced and the height of the pitcher's mound was lowered from 15 to 10 inches (38.1-25.4 cm). In 1969, both the National and American Leagues added two more expansion teams, the leagues were reorganized into two divisions each, and a new tier of the playoffs, the League Championship Series that decided the World Series participants was instituted. Also that same year, Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals made the first serious legal challenge to the reserve clause. The major leagues' first general players' strike took place in 1972, delaying the season's start for two weeks. In another effort to add more offense to the game, the American League adopted the designated hitter rule the following year. In 1975, the union's power-and players' salaries-began to increase greatly when the reserve clause was effectively struck down, leading to the free agency system. In 1977, two more expansion teams joined the American League. Significant work stoppages occurred again in 1981 and 1994, the former causing a split-season playoff format, and the latter forcing the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years. Attendance had been growing steadily since the mid-1970s and in 1994, before the stoppage, the majors were setting their all-time record for per-game attendance.

The addition of two more expansion teams after the 1993 season had facilitated another restructuring of the major leagues, this time into three divisions each. Offensive production-the number of home runs in particular-had surged that year, and again in the abbreviated 1994 season. After play resumed in 1995, this trend continued and one non-division-winning wild card team and a second tier of the playoffs, the League Division Series was added, in addition to both leagues now having three divisions each (with the addition of the Central Division). Regular-season interleague play was introduced in 1997 and the second-highest attendance mark for a full season was set. The next year, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both surpassed Maris's decades-old single-season home run record, and two more expansion franchises were added. In 2000, the National and American Leagues were dissolved as legal entities. While their identities were maintained for scheduling purposes (and the designated hitter distinction until 2022), the regulations and other functions-such as player discipline and umpire supervision-they had administered separately were consolidated under the rubric of Major League Baseball (MLB).

In 2001, Barry Bonds established the current record of 73 home runs in a single season. There had long been suspicions that the dramatic increase in power hitting was fueled in large part by the abuse of illegal steroids (as well as by the dilution of pitching talent due to expansion), but the issue only began attracting significant media attention in 2002 and there was no penalty for the use of performance-enhancing drugs before 2004. In 2007, Bonds became MLB's all-time home run leader, surpassing Hank Aaron (Bonds finished his career that year with 762 home runs), as total major league and minor league attendance both reached all-time highs. Even though McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds-as well as many other players, including storied pitcher Roger Clemens-have been implicated in the steroid abuse scandal, their feats and those of other sluggers had become the major leagues' defining attraction. In contrast to the professional game's resurgence in popularity after the 1994 interruption, Little League enrollment was in decline: after peaking in 1996, it dropped 1 percent a year over the following decade. With more rigorous testing and penalties for performance-enhancing drug use a possible factor, the balance between bat and ball swung markedly in 2010, which became known as the "Year of the Pitcher". Runs per game fell to their lowest level in 18 years, and the strikeout rate was higher than it had been in half a century.

Before the start of the 2012 season, MLB altered its rules to double the number of wild card teams admitted into the playoffs to two per league. The playoff expansion resulted in the addition of annual one-game playoffs between the wild card teams in each league. MLB's playoffs would be expanded further in 2022, with three Wild Card teams per league (with six teams in each league qualifying now), and turning the Wild Card game into a Wild Card series. Also that season, MLB instituted the universal designated hitter, thus ending the National League use of pitchers batting for themselves.

Around the world

Baseball, widely known as America's pastime, is well established in several other countries as well. The history of baseball in Canada has remained closely linked with that of the sport in the United States. As early as 1877, a professional league, the International Association, featured teams from both countries. While baseball is widely played in Canada and many minor league teams have been based in the country, the American major leagues did not include a Canadian club until 1969, when the Montreal Expos joined the National League as an expansion team. In 1977, the expansion Toronto Blue Jays joined the American League. The Blue Jays won the World Series in 1992 and 1993, the first and still the only club from outside the United States to do so. After the 2004 season, Major League Baseball relocated the Expos to Washington, D.C., where the team is now known as the Nationals.

Sadaharu Oh managing the Japan national team in the 2006 World Baseball Classic. Playing for the Central League's Yomiuri Giants (1959-80), Oh set the professional world record for home runs with 868.

In 1847, American soldiers played what may have been the first baseball game in Mexico at Parque Los Berros in Xalapa, Veracruz. A few days after the Battle of Cerro Gordo, they used the "wooden leg captured (by the Fourth Illinois regiment) from General Santa Anna". The first formal baseball league outside of the United States and Canada was founded in 1878 in Cuba, which maintains a rich baseball tradition and whose national team has been one of the world's strongest since international play began in the late 1930s (all organized baseball in the country has officially been amateur since the Cuban Revolution). The Dominican Republic held its first islandwide championship tournament in 1912. Professional baseball tournaments and leagues began to form in other countries between the world wars, including the Netherlands (formed in 1922), Australia (1934), Japan (1936), Mexico (1937), and Puerto Rico (1938). The Japanese major leagues-the Central League and Pacific League -have long been considered the highest quality professional circuits outside of the United States. Japan has a professional minor league system as well, though it is much smaller than the American version-each team has only one farm club in contrast to MLB teams' four or five.

After World War II, professional leagues were founded in many Latin American countries, most prominently Venezuela (1946) and the Dominican Republic (1955). Since the early 1970s, the annual Caribbean Series has matched the championship clubs from the four leading Latin American winter leagues: the Dominican Professional Baseball League, Mexican Pacific League, Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League, and Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. In Asia, South Korea (1982), Taiwan (1990) and China (2003) all have professional leagues.

Many European countries have professional leagues as well, the most successful, other than the Dutch league, being the Italian league founded in 1948. Compared to those in Asia and Latin America, the various European leagues and the one in Australia historically have had no more than niche appeal. In 2004, Australia won a surprise silver medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics. The Israel Baseball League, launched in 2007, folded after one season. The Confédération Européene de Baseball (European Baseball Confederation), founded in 1953, organizes a number of competitions between clubs from different countries, as well as national squads. Other competitions between national teams, such as the Baseball World Cup and the Olympic baseball tournament, were administered by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) from its formation in 1938 until its 2013 merger with the International Softball Federation to create the current joint governing body for both sports, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC). By 2009, the IBAF had 117 member countries. Women's baseball is played on an organized amateur basis in numerous countries. Since 2004, the IBAF and now WBSC have sanctioned the Women's Baseball World Cup, featuring national teams.

After being admitted to the Olympics as a medal sport beginning at the 1992 Summer Olympics, baseball was dropped from the 2012 Summer Olympics at the 2005 International Olympic Committee meeting. It remained part of the 2008 Summer Olympics. The elimination of baseball, along with softball, from the 2012 Olympic program enabled the IOC to consider adding two different sports, but none received the votes required for inclusion. While the sport's lack of a following in much of the world was a factor, more important was Major League Baseball's reluctance to have a break during the Games to allow its players to participate, as the National Hockey League now does during the Winter Olympic Games. Such a break is more difficult for MLB to accommodate because it would force the playoffs deeper into cold weather. Seeking reinstatement for the 2016 Summer Olympics, the IBAF proposed an abbreviated competition designed to facilitate the participation of top players, but the effort failed. Major League Baseball initiated the World Baseball Classic, scheduled to precede the major league season, partly as a replacement, high-profile international tournament. The inaugural Classic, held in March 2006, was the first tournament involving national teams to feature a significant number of MLB participants. The Baseball World Cup was discontinued after its 2011 edition in favor of an expanded World Baseball Classic.

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The history of baseball can be broken down into various aspects: by era, by locale, by organizational-type, game evolution, as well as by political and cultural influence. The game evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century. This game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed.

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1 of 16 History of Baseball Lectures

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The resources in this primary source set are intended for classroom use. If your use will be beyond a single classroom, please review the copyright and fair use guidelines.

Teacher's Guide

To help your students analyze these primary sources, get a graphic organizer and guides: Analysis Tool and Guides

Baseball has been part of the culture of the United States since the earliest days of the nation, and the ways in which the game has changed through the centuries provide opportunities to explore changes in U.S. society.

Background

Baseball came to American shores as an immigrant, a variant of the many bat-and-ball games common in England, and it expanded and adapted as the new nation did. It was heavily concentrated in the northeastern U.S. in the early decades of the 19th century, but the upheavals of the Civil War led to its spread, as young soldiers from other regions learned the game from their comrades and brought it back home with them at war's end.

The new technologies and communications tools that facilitated the nation's expansion did the same for baseball. New developments in printing made it possible to publish advertising cards with images of baseball teams and players, as well as baseball-themed sheet music with vivid covers. The rise of inexpensive illustrated newspapers provided readers with daily updates on teams around the league, while the telegraph and the telephone carried the results of games across the country at lightning speed. By the time cities began springing up on the west coast of the continent, their residents could keep up with their favorite teams back east almost as well as Bostonians or Baltimoreans could.

As the U.S. became a more urban and industrial nation in the late 19th century, baseball saw a surge in popularity. While it had been known as a "gentleman's game" several decades before, now it pulled in men and women of the working world who claimed the game as their own. In factory towns and cities across the country, workers found leisure in a sport that was likely much less physically demanding than their own jobs. By 1900, baseball had become a popular sport for young people in cities, played in improvised neighborhood fields called sandlots. During an era of public debate over urbanization, baseball was sometimes presented as a cure to what were seen as the ills of urban life.

The expansion of U.S. influence worldwide during the late 19th century and 20th century was accompanied by the international expansion of baseball. The U.S. government used baseball to promote goodwill abroad, both in foreign countries and in newly-acquired U.S. territories, and military authorities ensured that troops overseas had ample facilities and opportunities to play ball.

At home, Depression-era government camps for migrant farm workers had regular baseball games, and during World War II, residents of internment camps for Japanese Americans organized dozens of baseball teams, playing their games behind barbed wire, under the eye of armed guards.

Even as baseball expanded its reach geographically, the major professional leagues excluded or marginalized many players based on racial or gender identity. African American players were excluded from the major professional leagues in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, instead playing in all-African American leagues or on independent professional teams. After the World War II, Jackie Robinson and other African American players integrated the major leagues, enduring hecklers and death threats to do so. Native American players participated in the major leagues, but were often subject to insults and racial slurs, and were portrayed in stereotypical ways in team promotions and news coverage.

A number of Hispanic players born outside of the U.S. played in the major leagues in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly Cuban-born players, who encountered fewer obstacles than other Hispanic players did. Armando Marsans became the first Cuban-born player to play for the major leagues on July 4, 1911.

Women have played baseball for more than a century, on college teams, in amateur leagues, and on independent semi-pro and professional teams, even though they continue to be excluded from the U.S. major leagues. In the early 20th century, a number of barnstorming professional teams made up mostly of women, often called "bloomer girl" teams, traveled the country playing local all-male teams. During and shortly after World War II, when many male baseball players were in the military, major-league executives launched a multi-city women's professional league that lasted for almost a decade, providing women in baseball with the highest level of visibility that they have experienced to date.

Baseball continues to change in our own times, and continues to provide valuable opportunities to explore the ways in which a popular sport can both reflect and advance changes in larger society.

Suggestions for Teachers

Invite students to select an illustration or photograph to analyze, and ask them to respond to the following prompts:

Why did you select this particular image?

If the photographer or illustrator came to your class, what questions would you ask?

Write a caption for your image

Assign or allow students to choose a depiction of a baseball game, identifying or describing the following:

Who is playing the game?

Who is the audience for the game?

What is the setting?

What equipment do the players have?

How was this depiction made?

Create a timeline: Ask students to select a number of items, research the items, and identify significant events and social changes that took place at the time each item was created. As a follow-up question, ask students to identify a social change that is currently taking place in the United States and describe ways in which they see baseball either reflecting or contributing to that change.

Additional Resources

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Baseball Across a Changing Nation | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

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The resources in this primary source set are intended for classroom use. If your use will be beyond a single classroom, please review the copyright and fair use guidelines.

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Search results for Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress, Baseball, Available Online

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Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again. | Khan Academy

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The figures immortalized here inspired generations. Pioneers and builders of dynasties. They left their mark, brought fans together, and made dreams come true. And they all capped their careers with the greatest play of all. They made it to Cooperstown.

SEEK OUT LEGENDS

Here you'll find household names and overlooked heroes. People of all backgrounds and experiences. All champions of baseball. Each an inspiration. Every one a Hall of Famer.

Hear their stories

Baseball is defined by stories of perseverance and triumph. Of bravery, tragedy and redemption. Social change and personal victories. In short, stories that connect us all.

Witness history

Hall of Fame Weekend happens every year, with the Hall of Famers returning to Cooperstown to honor the current year's class of members. There's no substitute for experiencing it first hand.

SEEK OUT LEGENDS

Here you'll find household names and overlooked heroes. People of all backgrounds and experiences. All champions of baseball. Each an inspiration. Every one a Hall of Famer.

Hear their stories

Baseball is defined by stories of perseverance and triumph. Of bravery, tragedy and redemption. Social change and personal victories. In short, stories that connect us all.

Witness history

Hall of Fame Weekend happens every year, with the Hall of Famers returning to Cooperstown to honor the current year's class of members. There's no substitute for experiencing it first hand.

Discover baseball's most cherished objects

The materials in the Baseball Hall of Fame collection evoke awe, reflection, and no shortage of emotion. Here are some of the items and exhibits you'll want to see in person.

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The figures immortalized here inspired generations. Pioneers and builders of dynasties. They left their mark, brought fans together, and made dreams come true. And they all capped their careers with the greatest play of all. They made it to Cooperstown. Here you'll find household names and overlooked heroes.

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To round out our series on the the design of baseball equipment, let's take a brief look at the baseball glove. Unlike the baseball bat or the baseball itself, the glove was not initially a part of the game. Players just used the mitts they were born with. Lest you think that all men were walking around with swollen and broken fingers, it's important to remember that this was a very different game than the today. There were a lot of differences in the game, not least of which is the fact that much of the throwing was underhand. In the beginning, there wasn't much need for hand protection, but even as the game evolved and balls were thrown harder and faster, there was some reluctance to use any protection or padding. These were the days when the measure of a man was the number of calluses on his fingers and of broken bones in his hand. Wearing a glove just wasn't manly.

The earliest gloves were simple leather work gloves, often with its finger removed to ensure that ball handling isn't inhabited in any way. It's hard to say exactly who wore the first glove, but some reports claim that catchers were wearing work gloves as early as 1860. A pitcher for the by the name of A.G. Spalding claims that it was New Haven first baseman Charles C. Waite who, in an 1875 game against Boston, first had the audacity (i.e. common sense) to take the field with a glove. Maybe "audacity" isn't quite the right word. Though there were no rules against gloves, Waite tried to preserve his masculinity by wearing a tan, flesh-colored work glove, hoping no one would notice. People noticed. And Waite was ridiculed mercilessly by fans and players alike. Nonetheless, he persevered.

Spalding thought Waite might be on to something.

"I had for a good while felt the need of some sort of hand protection for myself. For several years I had pitched in every game played by the Boston team, and had developed severe bruises on the inside of my left hand. Therefore, I asked Waite about his glove. He confessed that he was a bit ashamed to wear it, but had it on to save his hand. He also admitted that he had chosen a color as inconspicuous as possible, because he didn't care to attract attention....Meanwhile, my own hand continued to take its medicine with utmost regularity, occasionally being bored with a warm twister that hurt excruciatingly. Still, it was not until 1877 that I overcame my scruples against joining the 'kid-glove aristocracy' by donning a glove. I found that the glove, thin as it was, helped considerably, and inserted one pad after another until a good deal of relief was afforded. If anyone wore a padded glove before this date, I do not know it."

The year after Waite's debut, Spalding and his brothers started a sports equipment company and one of their first products, alongside the first official baseball, was a baseball glove -though Spalding wouldn't wear one himself until 1877 when he started playing first base. Unlike Waite's glove, Spaldings was made from dark, almost black leather. Spalding's reputation kept away the ridicule and in fact, he may be responsible for helping to remove the stigma that came with wearing a glove.

With the stigma removed (mostly), the development of the glove accelerated. Along with that extra padding, shallow webbing was added between the fingers - most notably between the thumb and first finger. The glove caught on, much to the chagrin of some early baseball purists, and in 1895 the National League and American Association of Baseball Clubs created the first restrictions on glove size:

"The catcher and the first baseman are permitted to wear a glove or mitt of any size, shape or weight. All other players are restricted to the use of a glove or mitt weighing not over ten ounces, and measuring in circumference around the palm of the hand not over fourteen inches."

By the end of the century, every player in organized baseball was playing with a glove.

After padding, the next big innovation came in 1920 when St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Bill Doak came up with a design to replace the leather webbing used in some gloves with a system of straps between the first finger and thumb, creating a larger, deeper pocket that would help relieve some of the impact on the players palms and fingers while also extending a fielder's reach. Doak patented his idea, the precursor to all modern gloves, and sold it to Rawlings. With it, Rawlings surpassed Spalding as the preferred glove of pro players and today, the sports equipment company provides gloves for about 50 percent of professional ballplayers and produces specialized designs for pitchers, catchers, first basemen, infielders and outfielders, as well as custom designs for individual players. While the pillow-like catchers mitt is obviously unique, and has been from the beginning, the differences between other gloves emerged more slowly over the years, and can be subtle to accommodate different styles of play.

According to glove designer Bob Clevenhagen, known as "Michelangelo of the mitt," "For outfielders, the ball will be funneled into the webbing. They are more apt to snag the ball up high in the web," while "an infielder wants the ball where there's no problem finding it with his bare hand, not in the webbing, but at the base of the fingers." From its humble beginnings as an home-made object of scorn and ridicule, the baseball glove has become an iconic piece of sports equipment and often stunningly crafted object that only gets better with time. Now quit reading the Internet and go have a catch.

Like this article?
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About Jimmy Stamp

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
To round out our series on the the design of baseball equipment, let's take a brief look at the baseball glove. Unlike the baseball bat or the baseball itself, the glove was not initially a part of the game. Players just used the mitts they were born with.

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Primary Source Learning: Women in Baseball | Citizen U Primary Source Nexus

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Use this primary source set of women in baseball to have students examine cultural attitudes of American women from the late 1800s through the 1920s. You might start with having students complete a gallery walk with the images. After, you might have them analyze the song lyrics and read various newspaper articles…

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Between the end of the Civil War and 1890, some African American baseball players played alongside white players in minor and major leagues. After 1890, Jim Crow segregation dominated the sport until Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball in 1947. Consequently African Americans formed their own professional baseball leagues commonly and collectively known as Negro League baseball. During its heyday in the 1920s and 30s, the Negro Leagues drew large crowds and fielded over thirty teams throughout the East Coast and Midwest.In this primary source set, students will view original photographs, listen to oral history recordings, and read historical texts to gain a better understanding of of the lives and experiences of Negro League baseball players.

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Between the end of the Civil War and 1890, some African American baseball players played alongside white players in minor and major leagues. After 1890, Jim Crow segregation dominated the sport until Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball in 1947. Consequently African Americans formed their own professional baseball leagues commonly and collectively known as Negro League baseball.

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In 1919, Cardinal pitcher "Spittin' Bill" Doak went to the Rawlings Sporting Goods Company of St. Louis and pitched a new idea in glove design.

Essentially, the plan introduced an adjustable laced web from the thumb to forefinger that formed a deep natural pocket and didn't need to be broken in.

Little did Doak know that his idea would revolutionize the fielder's glove as the most important design feature in 50 years. Rawlings rolled out the Doak model to the public in 1920 and hired a chief glove designer named Harry Latina two years later. Gloves soon became indispensable tools of the game.

While some prefer the bat as their trusty tool, it doesn't quite compare to the connection one has with their glove.

The evolution of the baseball glove is fascinating, but even more fascinating is piecing together the various stories and accounts from so many differing sources. Many sources and player memories contradict each other. Meticulous research has been done over the years as to the origin of the glove. Author/historians such as Peter Morris, Harvey Frommer and William Curran unearthed many early accounts of players wearing a glove.

It's common knowledge among baseball historians that gloves first made a brief appearance in the 1860s, grew in the 1870s, were commonplace in the 1880s and were used by most players in the 1890's.

To tell the story of how gloves evolved over the years, we have to start from the beginning.

References to amateur players donning gloves started to appear as early as the 1860s. In most instances, it was by a catcher using them to protect sore hands. These gloves were oftentimes flesh-colored or light in color as to not draw unwanted attention to them. Players would purchase or repurpose a set of work gloves or tradesmen's gloves and cut off the fingers. Some players used a bricklayer's glove while others used driving gloves or a railroad brakeman's glove.

But no matter the primary source, gloves were utilitarian in nature and not made as sporting goods. They were repurposed from other trades and used for one reason only: protection. Players improvised and used everything from hay to sponges to raw meat as padding. As the pitching rules evolved along with pitch deliveries and the need for catchers to stand nearer the plate, so did the need for protection.

A well-known account of 1869 Red Stockings catcher Doug Allison indicated he wore a set of buckskin gloves to protect his sore hands in 1870. Due to the stature of the Cincinnati club, the publicity cast a wide net and paved the way for others.

Charles Waitt was widely known as one of the first fielders to wear a protective glove in 1875 according to Hall of Famer Albert G. Spalding. Although Waitt was not the first, Spalding wrote:
"The first glove I ever saw on the hand of a ball player in a game was worn by Charles C. Waite (sic), in Boston, in 1875. He had come from New Haven and was playing at first base. The glove worn by him was of flesh color, with a large, round opening in the back. Now, I had for a good while felt the need of some sort of hand protection for myself...For several years I had pitched in every game played by the Boston team, and had developed severe bruises on the inside of my left hand. When it is recalled that every ball pitched had to be returned, and that every swift one coming my way, from infielders, outfielders or hot from the bat, must be caught or stopped, some idea may be gained of the punishment received. "Therefore, I asked Waite (sic) about his glove. He confessed that he was a bit ashamed to wear it, but had it on to save his hand. He also admitted that he had chosen a color as inconspicuous as possible, because he didn't care to attract attention. He added that the opening on the back was for purpose of ventilation...Still, it was not until 1877 that I overcame my scruples against joining the "kid-glove aristocracy" by donning a glove. When I did at last decide to do so, I did not select a flesh-colored glove, but got a black one, and cut out as much of the back as possible to let the air in. "I found that the glove, thin as it was, helped considerably, and inserted one pad after another until a good deal of relief was afforded. If anyone wore padded glove before this date I do not know it. The 'pillow mitt' was a later invention." (America's National Game, 1911)
A.G. Spalding started the sporting goods company bearing his name in 1876, and his 1877 Spalding's Official Base Ball Guide first listed catcher's gloves for sale.

Austin Butts applied for the first patent on a sporting glove on May 15, 1877, and was granted a patent on Jan. 1, 1878. The Butts glove was similar to a bricklayer glove and used to bear the brunt of the pitched ball. On April 12, 1883, he applied for his second ball glove patent, this time for a fingerless glove. In 1885, George H. Rawlings of St. Louis patented the padded glove.

Providence infielder Arthur Irwin broke a couple fingers on his catching hand in 1883. He had an idea for a protective glove and took it to the J.F. Draper & Co. (later Draper & Maynard). His design was to transform an oversized buckskin driving glove into a padded glove to use on his injured hand so he could play. He continued to wear it after his hand healed and it caught on widely throughout the league. He said he made these gloves for other players as well as companies like Spalding & Reach who ordered them directly for retail sale. D&M then manufactured the Irwin Model for other retailers.

Until this time, gloves were only used at catcher and first base. In addition, the Irwin model further bridged the gap between gloves being homemade to gloves being manufactured as sporting goods and thus work or workman's gloves now became baseball gloves, or sporting goods.

These were all gloves - protection with fingers up to this point. The mitt or mitten or "pillow mitt" referred to by Spalding had yet to come along. So catchers wore two padded fingerless gloves on both hands up through the mid-1880s. The catching glove developed padded fingers, and a thinner, smaller fingerless glove was used on the throwing hand to allow the catcher to return the ball to the pitcher. This would all change in the late 1880s with Joe Gunson's design of the round catcher's mitt...but the credit can't be given so quickly.

Many claimed to have invented the round mitt, and Morris wrote about it well. While Jack McCloskey, Paul Buckley, Ted Kennedy and Harry Decker all claimed to have invented it, it's more widely believed that Joe Gunson should be given credit of the idea and that Kennedy took Gunson's idea and patented it prior to Gunson, who didn't really worry about such things. In a 1939, hand-written letter by Gunson to William Beattie, Curator at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Gunson recounts making a mitt out of a glove by sewing the fingers together and using a perimeter wire, belts and sheepskin to be used in two games to be played on Decoration Day in 1888 while playing against Kennedy, the pitcher on the opposing team. Gunson explained his design to Kennedy who was quick to patent an inferior version of Gunson's mitt. Decker realized the design deficiency then patented a better one more closely resembling Gunson's.

The use of gloves was nearly universal by the end of the 1880's. The 1890s saw baseball gloves progress toward fielding tools. Crescent padded heels were sewn on the front exterior of the glove to form a pocket. Webs were sewn between the thumbs and forefingers. They started out large and later became smaller to allow more flexibility. Purists like George Wright thought gloves would give fielders an unfair advantage, yet his company manufactured them. In 1895, the rules committee felt the need to restrict the size of a glove to 10 ounces and no more than 14 inches in circumference. The catcher and first baseman were free to use a glove of any size.

With the advent of the automobile and its gaining popularity, the horse from horse and carriage fame became more and more obsolete. Horses, and their hides, were abundant, so most gloves were made of horsehide after the turn of the century. Cowhide gloves were still years away.

Not much happened during the dead ball era. Reach's Diverted Seam patent of 1908 was the most important. As glove manufacturers strived for the next best invention, many of them fell flat and are treasured today due to their rarity. Gloves like a duck web ("Duk Fut") where webs were sewn between all the fingers started to appear around the same time along with ambidextrous gloves. Fielder's mitts were also produced - mitts that could be worn at any position. The practice of mitts only allowed at first base and catcher did not come until later.

The Draper & Maynard Co. led the way as the preferred glove among professional players and then Rawlings really came on the scene with the introduction of the Doak glove. That changed everything. Harry Latina rolled through the 1930s as the leading glove designer and his son Rollie joined the design team in 1947. Harry crossed paths with Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg who had modified the web of his basemitt to a whopping 13" resembling a fish net, which led to a rule change from the Commissioner's office in 1939 banning mitts over 12" from top to bottom. It also led to Latina's revolutionary 1940 basemitt design called the Trapper, which essentially closed around the ball when caught. It was the most exciting and important design feature for basemitts ever. He was king - and then came 1957.

Although there were nearly 100 glove design patents from 1920 to 1957, none were as revolutionary as Wilson's new glove. In spring training 1957, Wilson introduced a glove designed mostly by the players. According to the first reference in the 1958 Wilson catalog:
"The glove, known as the A2000, has a bigger, longer pocket...the ball stays trapped and caught, yet easy to retract for your split-second throw. That's the amazing Snap-Action feature! The deep, sewed-in, Grip-Tite pocket allows No Rebound! That ball just can't pop out again!"
The Snap Action heel was the key to the way gloves look today. It allowed the thumb to close over the fingers when a ball hit the web. The Latinas responded to the A2000 with the XPG model and Trap-Eze in 1959 featuring their new Edge-U-Cated Heel patent. Both the A2000 and Trap-Eze remain extremely popular today.

Harry retired a year later, and Rollie filled his shoes as head designer. Rawlings led the way through the 1960s. The 60s experimented with different hides like kangaroo, which was lighter and softer but not as durable. The same was true of buffalo leather.

The 1980s and 90s saw the use of synthetics and other artificial materials, which were lighter and more durable but design features tailed off slightly. After Wilson's game-changer, and the leading Rawlings patents of the 60s, gloves changed very little, and new patent features were subtle.

Glove design has come a long way in its journey from protection to performance. When showing someone a vintage glove, the response is always the same: "How did they ever catch with these!"
Jim Daniel is a baseball glove historian and enthusiast and resides in Huntington Beach, Calif.

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#GoingDeep: The evolution of baseball gloves

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In 1919, Cardinal pitcher "Spittin' Bill" Doak went to the Rawlings Sporting Goods Company of St. Louis and pitched a new idea in glove design. Essentially, the plan introduced an adjustable laced web from the thumb to forefinger that formed a deep natural pocket and didn't need to be broken in.

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The History of Baseball: A Journey Through America's Past

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The History of Baseball: A Journey Through America's Past

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To round out our series on the the design of baseball equipment, let's take a brief look at the baseball glove. Unlike the baseball bat or the baseball itself, the glove was not initially a part of the game. Players just used the mitts they were born with. Lest you think that all men were walking around with swollen and broken fingers, it's important to remember that this was a very different game than the today. There were a lot of differences in the game, not least of which is the fact that much of the throwing was underhand. In the beginning, there wasn't much need for hand protection, but even as the game evolved and balls were thrown harder and faster, there was some reluctance to use any protection or padding. These were the days when the measure of a man was the number of calluses on his fingers and of broken bones in his hand. Wearing a glove just wasn't manly.

The earliest gloves were simple leather work gloves, often with its finger removed to ensure that ball handling isn't inhabited in any way. It's hard to say exactly who wore the first glove, but some reports claim that catchers were wearing work gloves as early as 1860. A pitcher for the by the name of A.G. Spalding claims that it was New Haven first baseman Charles C. Waite who, in an 1875 game against Boston, first had the audacity (i.e. common sense) to take the field with a glove. Maybe "audacity" isn't quite the right word. Though there were no rules against gloves, Waite tried to preserve his masculinity by wearing a tan, flesh-colored work glove, hoping no one would notice. People noticed. And Waite was ridiculed mercilessly by fans and players alike. Nonetheless, he persevered.

Spalding thought Waite might be on to something.

"I had for a good while felt the need of some sort of hand protection for myself. For several years I had pitched in every game played by the Boston team, and had developed severe bruises on the inside of my left hand. Therefore, I asked Waite about his glove. He confessed that he was a bit ashamed to wear it, but had it on to save his hand. He also admitted that he had chosen a color as inconspicuous as possible, because he didn't care to attract attention....Meanwhile, my own hand continued to take its medicine with utmost regularity, occasionally being bored with a warm twister that hurt excruciatingly. Still, it was not until 1877 that I overcame my scruples against joining the 'kid-glove aristocracy' by donning a glove. I found that the glove, thin as it was, helped considerably, and inserted one pad after another until a good deal of relief was afforded. If anyone wore a padded glove before this date, I do not know it."

The year after Waite's debut, Spalding and his brothers started a sports equipment company and one of their first products, alongside the first official baseball, was a baseball glove -though Spalding wouldn't wear one himself until 1877 when he started playing first base. Unlike Waite's glove, Spaldings was made from dark, almost black leather. Spalding's reputation kept away the ridicule and in fact, he may be responsible for helping to remove the stigma that came with wearing a glove.

With the stigma removed (mostly), the development of the glove accelerated. Along with that extra padding, shallow webbing was added between the fingers - most notably between the thumb and first finger. The glove caught on, much to the chagrin of some early baseball purists, and in 1895 the National League and American Association of Baseball Clubs created the first restrictions on glove size:

"The catcher and the first baseman are permitted to wear a glove or mitt of any size, shape or weight. All other players are restricted to the use of a glove or mitt weighing not over ten ounces, and measuring in circumference around the palm of the hand not over fourteen inches."

By the end of the century, every player in organized baseball was playing with a glove.

After padding, the next big innovation came in 1920 when St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Bill Doak came up with a design to replace the leather webbing used in some gloves with a system of straps between the first finger and thumb, creating a larger, deeper pocket that would help relieve some of the impact on the players palms and fingers while also extending a fielder's reach. Doak patented his idea, the precursor to all modern gloves, and sold it to Rawlings. With it, Rawlings surpassed Spalding as the preferred glove of pro players and today, the sports equipment company provides gloves for about 50 percent of professional ballplayers and produces specialized designs for pitchers, catchers, first basemen, infielders and outfielders, as well as custom designs for individual players. While the pillow-like catchers mitt is obviously unique, and has been from the beginning, the differences between other gloves emerged more slowly over the years, and can be subtle to accommodate different styles of play.

According to glove designer Bob Clevenhagen, known as "Michelangelo of the mitt," "For outfielders, the ball will be funneled into the webbing. They are more apt to snag the ball up high in the web," while "an infielder wants the ball where there's no problem finding it with his bare hand, not in the webbing, but at the base of the fingers." From its humble beginnings as an home-made object of scorn and ridicule, the baseball glove has become an iconic piece of sports equipment and often stunningly crafted object that only gets better with time. Now quit reading the Internet and go have a catch.

Like this article?
SIGN UP for our newsletter

About Jimmy Stamp

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
To round out our series on the the design of baseball equipment, let's take a brief look at the baseball glove. Unlike the baseball bat or the baseball itself, the glove was not initially a part of the game. Players just used the mitts they were born with.

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Though the players wore short skirts as part of their uniforms, the AAGPBL lasted for more than a decade because it relied on players' skills to draw fans to the ballpark. Attendance rose steadily during the early years of the league, topping out at around 1 million fans in 1948.

"We have some glamour pusses, but most of us are just white collar girls who stopped wearing collars," said one unnamed young lady. "Me, I'm strictly the fresh, wholesome type. If the customers were interested in legs instead of arms, you'd never see me in the lineup."

The Cubs manager in the mid-1940s, Charley Grimm, said of Kenosha shortstop Dottie Schroeder, "I'd pay $50,000 for her if she were a boy."

Eventually, with the end of WWII and the rise of televised major league games, among other issues, led to the demise of the AAGPBL.

"When we were playing, we didn't realize what we had," said Daisy pitcher Dottie Collins years later. "We were just a bunch of young kids doing what we liked best. But most of us recognize now that those were the most meaningful days of our lives."

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Though the players wore short skirts as part of their uniforms, the AAGPBL lasted for more than a decade because it relied on players' skills to draw fans to the ballpark. Attendance rose steadily during the early years of the league, topping out at around 1 million fans in 1948.

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Brooklyn Dodgers - The Ghosts of Flatbush

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Welcome to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

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National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

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Drone Fly Through of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

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Take Me Out To The Ballgame (Original 1908 recording)

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Take Me out to the Ball Game | Smithsonian Institution

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America’s “greatest pastime” as captured in the collections. For more see ¡Pleibol!... Learn more

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Play Ball! Teacher Resources to Explore the Science of Baseball | Envision Experience Blog

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Engaging teaching resources to help students see America’s pastime as a way to explore physics.

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The Research Collection – Society for American Baseball Research

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The SABR Research Collection is an archive of 50+ years of groundbreaking baseball research that contains thousands of articles from the Baseball Research Journal (BRJ), The National Pastime (TNP), the SABR Digital Library, and more. Use the search bar at the top to find articles and content on just…

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MLB Stats, Scores, History, & Records | Baseball-Reference.com

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Complete source for baseball history including complete major league player, team, and league stats, awards, records, leaders, rookies and scores.

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Full-text Search Results | HathiTrust Digital Library

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Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball that a player on the batting team, called the batter, tries to hit with a bat. The objective of the offensive team (batting team) is to hit the ball into the field of play, away from the other team's players, allowing its players to run the bases, having them advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called " runs". The objective of the defensive team (referred to as the fielding team) is to prevent batters from becoming runners, and to prevent runners' advance around the bases. A run is scored when a runner legally advances around the bases in order and touches home plate (the place where the player started as a batter).

The principal objective of the batting team is to have a player reach first base safely; this generally occurs either when the batter hits the ball and reaches first base before an opponent retrieves the ball and touches the base, or when the pitcher persists in throwing the ball out of the batter's reach. Players on the batting team who reach first base without being called " out" can attempt to advance to subsequent bases as a runner, either immediately or during teammates' turns batting. The fielding team tries to prevent runs by getting batters or runners "out", which forces them out of the field of play. The pitcher can get the batter out by throwing three pitches which result in strikes, while fielders can get the batter out by catching a batted ball before it touches the ground, and can get a runner out by tagging them with the ball while the runner is not touching a base.

The opposing teams switch back and forth between batting and fielding; the batting team's turn to bat is over once the fielding team records three outs. One turn batting for each team constitutes an inning. A game is usually composed of nine innings, and the team with the greater number of runs at the end of the game wins. Most games end after the ninth inning, but if scores are tied at that point, extra innings are usually played. Baseball has no game clock, though some competitions feature pace-of-play regulations such as the pitch clock to shorten game time.

Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century. This game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. Baseball's American origins, as well as its reputation as a source of escapism during troubled points in American history such as the American Civil War and the Great Depression, have led the sport to receive the moniker of "America's Pastime"; since the late 19th century, it has been unofficially recognized as the national sport of the United States, though in modern times is considered less popular than other sports, such as American football. In addition to North America, baseball is considered the most popular sport in parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and East Asia, particularly in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

In Major League Baseball (MLB), the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, teams are divided into the National League (NL) and American League (AL), each with three divisions: East, West, and Central. The MLB champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series. The top level of play is similarly split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the West League and East League. The World Baseball Classic, organized by the World Baseball Softball Confederation, is the major international competition of the sport and attracts the top national teams from around the world. Baseball was played at the Olympic Games from 1992 to 2008, and was reinstated in 2020.

Rules and gameplay

Diagram of a baseball field Diamond may refer to the square area defined by the four bases or to the entire playing field. The dimensions given are for professional and professional-style games. Children often play on smaller fields.

A baseball game is played between two teams, each usually composed of nine players, that take turns playing offense (batting and baserunning) and defense (pitching and fielding). A pair of turns, one at bat and one in the field, by each team constitutes an inning. A game consists of nine innings (seven innings at the high school level and in doubleheaders in college, Minor League Baseball and, since the 2020 season, Major League Baseball; and six innings at the Little League level). One team-customarily the visiting team-bats in the top, or first half, of every inning. The other team-customarily the home team-bats in the bottom, or second half, of every inning. The goal of the game is to score more points ( runs) than the other team. The players on the team at bat attempt to score runs by touching all four bases, in order, set at the corners of the square-shaped baseball diamond. A player bats at home plate and must attempt to safely reach a base before proceeding, counterclockwise, from first base, to second base, third base, and back home to score a run. The team in the field attempts to prevent runs from scoring by recording outs, which remove opposing players from offensive action, until their next turn at bat comes up again. When three outs are recorded, the teams switch roles for the next half-inning. If the score of the game is tied after nine innings, extra innings are played to resolve the contest. Many amateur games, particularly unorganized ones, involve different numbers of players and innings.

The game is played on a field whose primary boundaries, the foul lines, extend forward from home plate at 45-degree angles. The 90-degree area within the foul lines is referred to as fair territory; the 270-degree area outside them is foul territory. The part of the field enclosed by the bases and several yards beyond them is the infield; the area farther beyond the infield is the outfield. In the middle of the infield is a raised pitcher's mound, with a rectangular rubber plate (the rubber) at its center. The outer boundary of the outfield is typically demarcated by a raised fence, which may be of any material and height. The fair territory between home plate and the outfield boundary is baseball's field of play, though significant events can take place in foul territory, as well.

There are three basic tools of baseball: the ball, the bat, and the glove or mitt:

The baseball is about the size of an adult's fist, around 9 inches (23 centimeters) in circumference. It has a rubber or cork center, wound in yarn and covered in white cowhide, with red stitching.

The bat is a hitting tool, traditionally made of a single, solid piece of wood. Other materials are now commonly used for nonprofessional games. It is a hard round stick, about 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) in diameter at the hitting end, tapering to a narrower handle and culminating in a knob. Bats used by adults are typically around 34 inches (86 centimeters) long, and not longer than 42 inches (110 centimeters).

The glove or mitt is a fielding tool, made of padded leather with webbing between the fingers. As an aid in catching and holding onto the ball, it takes various shapes to meet the specific needs of different fielding positions.

Protective helmets are also standard equipment for all batters.

At the beginning of each half-inning, the nine players of the fielding team arrange themselves around the field. One of them, the pitcher, stands on the pitcher's mound. The pitcher begins the pitching delivery with one foot on the rubber, pushing off it to gain velocity when throwing toward home plate. Another fielding team player, the catcher, squats on the far side of home plate, facing the pitcher. The rest of the fielding team faces home plate, typically arranged as four infielders-who set up along or within a few yards outside the imaginary lines (basepaths) between first, second, and third base-and three outfielders. In the standard arrangement, there is a first baseman positioned several steps to the left of first base, a second baseman to the right of second base, a shortstop to the left of second base, and a third baseman to the right of third base. The basic outfield positions are left fielder, center fielder, and right fielder. With the exception of the catcher, all fielders are required to be in fair territory when the pitch is delivered. A neutral umpire sets up behind the catcher. Other umpires will be distributed around the field as well.

David Ortiz, the batter, awaiting a pitch, with the catcher and umpire

Play starts with a member of the batting team, the batter, standing in either of the two batter's boxes next to home plate, holding a bat. The batter waits for the pitcher to throw a pitch (the ball) toward home plate, and attempts to hit the ball with the bat. The catcher catches pitches that the batter does not hit-as a result of either electing not to swing or failing to connect-and returns them to the pitcher. A batter who hits the ball into the field of play must drop the bat and begin running toward first base, at which point the player is referred to as a runner (or, until the play is over, a batter-runner). A batter-runner who reaches first base without being put out is said to be and is on base. A batter-runner may choose to remain at first base or attempt to advance to second base or even beyond-however far the player believes can be reached safely. A player who reaches base despite proper play by the fielders has recorded a hit. A player who reaches first base safely on a hit is credited with a single. If a player makes it to second base safely as a direct result of a hit, it is a double; third base, a triple. If the ball is hit in the air within the foul lines over the entire outfield (and outfield fence, if there is one), or if the batter-runner otherwise safely circles all the bases, it is a home run: the batter and any runners on base may all freely circle the bases, each scoring a run. This is the most desirable result for the batter. The ultimate and most desirable result possible for a batter would be to hit a home run while all three bases are occupied or "loaded", thus scoring four runs on a single hit. This is called a grand slam. A player who reaches base due to a fielding mistake is not credited with a hit-instead, the responsible fielder is charged with an error.

Any runners already on base may attempt to advance on batted balls that land, or contact the ground, in fair territory, before or after the ball lands. A runner on first base must attempt to advance if a ball lands in play, as only one runner may occupy a base at any given time. If a ball hit into play rolls foul before passing through the infield, it becomes dead and any runners must return to the base they occupied when the play began. If the ball is hit in the air and caught before it lands, the batter has flied out and any runners on base may attempt to advance only if they tag up (contact the base they occupied when the play began, as or after the ball is caught). Runners may also attempt to advance to the next base while the pitcher is in the process of delivering the ball to home plate; a successful effort is a stolen base.

A pitch that is not hit into the field of play is called either a strike or a ball. A batter against whom three strikes are recorded strikes out. A batter against whom four balls are recorded is awarded a base on balls or walk, a free advance to first base. (A batter may also freely advance to first base if the batter's body or uniform is struck by a pitch outside the strike zone, provided the batter does not swing and attempts to avoid being hit.) Crucial to determining balls and strikes is the umpire's judgment as to whether a pitch has passed through the strike zone, a conceptual area above home plate extending from the midpoint between the batter's shoulders and belt down to the hollow of the knee. Any pitch which does not pass through the strike zone is called a ball, unless the batter either swings and misses at the pitch, or hits the pitch into foul territory; an exception generally occurs if the ball is hit into foul territory when the batter already has two strikes, in which case neither a ball nor a strike is called.

While the team at bat is trying to score runs, the team in the field is attempting to record outs. In addition to the strikeout and flyout, common ways a member of the batting team may be put out include the ground out, force out, and tag out. These occur either when a runner is forced to advance to a base, and a fielder with possession of the ball reaches that base before the runner does, or the runner is touched by the ball, held in a fielder's hand, while not on a base. (The batter-runner is always forced to advance to first base, and any other runners must advance to the next base if a teammate is forced to advance to their base.) It is possible to record two outs in the course of the same play. This is called a double play. Three outs in one play, a triple play, is possible, though rare. Players put out or retired must leave the field, returning to their team's dugout or bench. A runner may be stranded on base when a third out is recorded against another player on the team. Stranded runners do not benefit the team in its next turn at bat as every half-inning begins with the bases empty.

An individual player's turn batting or plate appearance is complete when the player reaches base, hits a home run, makes an out, or hits a ball that results in the team's third out, even if it is recorded against a teammate. On rare occasions, a batter may be at the plate when, without the batter's hitting the ball, a third out is recorded against a teammate-for instance, a runner getting caught stealing (tagged out attempting to steal a base). A batter with this sort of incomplete plate appearance starts off the team's next turn batting; any balls or strikes recorded against the batter the previous inning are erased. A runner may circle the bases only once per plate appearance and thus can score at most a single run per batting turn. Once a player has completed a plate appearance, that player may not bat again until the eight other members of the player's team have all taken their turn at bat in the batting order. The batting order is set before the game begins, and may not be altered except for substitutions. Once a player has been removed for a substitute, that player may not reenter the game. Children's games often have more lenient rules, such as Little League rules, which allow players to be substituted back into the same game.

If the designated hitter (DH) rule is in effect, each team has a tenth player whose sole responsibility is to bat (and run). The DH takes the place of another player-almost invariably the pitcher-in the batting order, but does not field. Thus, even with the DH, each team still has a batting order of nine players and a fielding arrangement of nine players.

Defensive positions on a baseball field, with abbreviations and scorekeeper's position numbers (not uniform numbers)

The number of players on a baseball roster, or squad, varies by league and by the level of organized play. A Major League Baseball (MLB) team has a roster of 26 players with specific roles. A typical roster features the following players:

Most baseball leagues worldwide have the DH rule, including MLB, Japan's Pacific League, and Caribbean professional leagues, along with major American amateur organizations. The Central League in Japan does not have the rule and high-level minor league clubs connected to National League teams are not required to field a DH. In leagues that apply the designated hitter rule, a typical team has nine offensive regulars (including the DH), five starting pitchers, seven or eight relievers, a backup catcher, and two or three other reserve players.

Managers and coaches

The manager, or head coach, oversees the team's major strategic decisions, such as establishing the starting rotation, setting the lineup, or batting order, before each game, and making substitutions during games-in particular, bringing in relief pitchers. Managers are typically assisted by two or more coaches; they may have specialized responsibilities, such as working with players on hitting, fielding, pitching, or strength and conditioning. At most levels of organized play, two coaches are stationed on the field when the team is at bat: the first base coach and third base coach, who occupy designated coaches' boxes, just outside the foul lines. These coaches assist in the direction of baserunners, when the ball is in play, and relay tactical signals from the manager to batters and runners, during pauses in play. In contrast to many other team sports, baseball managers and coaches generally wear their team's uniforms; coaches must be in uniform to be allowed on the field to confer with players during a game.

Any baseball game involves one or more umpires, who make rulings on the outcome of each play. At a minimum, one umpire will stand behind the catcher, to have a good view of the strike zone, and call balls and strikes. Additional umpires may be stationed near the other bases, thus making it easier to judge plays such as attempted force outs and tag outs. In MLB, four umpires are used for each game, one near each base. In the playoffs, six umpires are used: one at each base and two in the outfield along the foul lines.

Many of the pre-game and in-game strategic decisions in baseball revolve around a fundamental fact: in general, right-handed batters tend to be more successful against left-handed pitchers and, to an even greater degree, left-handed batters tend to be more successful against right-handed pitchers. A manager with several left-handed batters in the regular lineup, who knows the team will be facing a left-handed starting pitcher, may respond by starting one or more of the right-handed backups on the team's roster. During the late innings of a game, as relief pitchers and pinch hitters are brought in, the opposing managers will often go back and forth trying to create favorable matchups with their substitutions. The manager of the fielding team trying to arrange same-handed pitcher-batter matchups and the manager of the batting team trying to arrange opposite-handed matchups. With a team that has the lead in the late innings, a manager may remove a starting position player-especially one whose turn at bat is not likely to come up again-for a more skillful fielder (known as a defensive substitution).

Pitching and fielding

The tactical decision that precedes almost every play in a baseball game involves pitch selection. By gripping and then releasing the baseball in a certain manner, and by throwing it at a certain speed, pitchers can cause the baseball to break to either side, or downward, as it approaches the batter, thus creating differing pitches that can be selected. Among the resulting wide variety of pitches that may be thrown, the four basic types are the fastball, the changeup (or off-speed pitch), and two breaking balls-the curveball and the slider. Pitchers have different repertoires of pitches they are skillful at throwing. Conventionally, before each pitch, the catcher signals the pitcher what type of pitch to throw, as well as its general vertical or horizontal location. If there is disagreement on the selection, the pitcher may shake off the sign and the catcher will call for a different pitch.

With a runner on base and taking a lead, the pitcher may attempt a pickoff, a quick throw to a fielder covering the base to keep the runner's lead in check or, optimally, effect a tag out. Pickoff attempts, however, are subject to rules that severely restrict the pitcher's movements before and during the pickoff attempt. Violation of any one of these rules could result in the umpire calling a balk against the pitcher, which permits any runners on base to advance one base with impunity. If an attempted stolen base is anticipated, the catcher may call for a pitchout, a ball thrown deliberately off the plate, allowing the catcher to catch it while standing and throw quickly to a base. Facing a batter with a strong tendency to hit to one side of the field, the fielding team may employ a shift, with most or all of the fielders moving to the left or right of their usual positions. With a runner on third base, the infielders may play in, moving closer to home plate to improve the odds of throwing out the runner on a ground ball, though a sharply hit grounder is more likely to carry through a drawn-in infield.

Batting and baserunning

Several basic offensive tactics come into play with a runner on first base, including the fundamental choice of whether to attempt a steal of second base. The hit and run is sometimes employed, with a skillful contact hitter, the runner takes off with the pitch, drawing the shortstop or second baseman over to second base, creating a gap in the infield for the batter to poke the ball through. The sacrifice bunt, calls for the batter to focus on making soft contact with the ball, so that it rolls a short distance into the infield, allowing the runner to advance into scoring position as the batter is thrown out at first. A batter, particularly one who is a fast runner, may also attempt to bunt for a hit. A sacrifice bunt employed with a runner on third base, aimed at bringing that runner home, is known as a squeeze play. With a runner on third and fewer than two outs, a batter may instead concentrate on hitting a fly ball that, even if it is caught, will be deep enough to allow the runner to tag up and score-a successful batter, in this case, gets credit for a sacrifice fly. In order to increase the chance of advancing a batter to first base via a walk, the manager will sometimes signal a batter who is ahead in the count (i.e., has more balls than strikes) to take, or not swing at, the next pitch. The batter's potential reward of reaching base (via a walk) exceeds the disadvantage if the next pitch is a strike.

The evolution of baseball from older bat-and-ball games is difficult to trace with precision. Consensus once held that today's baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, popular among children in Great Britain and Ireland. American baseball historian David Block suggests that the game originated in England; recently uncovered historical evidence supports this position. Block argues that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of each other, and that the game's most direct antecedents are the English games of stoolball and "tut-ball". The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, by John Newbery. Block discovered that the first recorded game of "Bass-Ball" took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featured the Prince of Wales as a player. This early form of the game was apparently brought to Canada by English immigrants.

By the early 1830s, there were reports of a variety of uncodified bat-and-ball games recognizable as early forms of baseball being played around North America. The first officially recorded baseball game in North America was played in Beachville, Ontario, Canada, on June 4, 1838. In 1845, Alexander Cartwright, a member of New York City's Knickerbocker Club, led the codification of the so-called Knickerbocker Rules, which in turn were based on rules developed in 1837 by William R. Wheaton of the Gotham Club. While there are reports that the New York Knickerbockers played games in 1845, the contest long recognized as the first officially recorded baseball game in U.S. history took place on June 19, 1846, in Hoboken, New Jersey: the "New York Nine" defeated the Knickerbockers, 23-1, in four innings. With the Knickerbocker code as the basis, the rules of modern baseball continued to evolve over the next half-century. By the time of the Civil War, baseball had begun to overtake its fellow bat-and-ball sport cricket in popularity within the United States, due in part to baseball being of a much shorter duration than the form of cricket played at the time, as well as the fact that troops during the Civil War did not need a specialized playing surface to play baseball, as they would have required for cricket.

In the United States

Establishment of professional leagues

In the mid-1850s, a baseball craze hit the New York metropolitan area, and by 1856, local journals were referring to baseball as the "national pastime" or "national game". A year later, the sport's first governing body, the National Association of Base Ball Players, was formed. In 1867, it barred participation by African Americans. The more formally structured National League was founded in 1876. Professional Negro leagues formed, but quickly folded. In 1887, softball, under the name of indoor baseball or indoor-outdoor, was invented as a winter version of the parent game. The National League's first successful counterpart, the American League, which evolved from the minor Western League, was established in 1893, and virtually all of the modern baseball rules were in place by then.

The National Agreement of 1903 formalized relations both between the two major leagues and between them and the National Association of Professional Base Ball Leagues, representing most of the country's minor professional leagues. The World Series, pitting the two major league champions against each other, was inaugurated that fall. The Black Sox Scandal of the 1919 World Series led to the formation of the office of the Commissioner of Baseball. The first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, was elected in 1920. That year also saw the founding of the Negro National League; the first significant Negro league, it would operate until 1931. For part of the 1920s, it was joined by the Eastern Colored League.

Rise of Ruth and racial integration

Compared with the present, professional baseball in the early 20th century was lower-scoring, and pitchers were more dominant. The so-called dead-ball era ended in the early 1920s with several changes in rule and circumstance that were advantageous to hitters. Strict new regulations governed the ball's size, shape and composition, along with a new rule officially banning the spitball and other pitches that depended on the ball being treated or roughed-up with foreign substances, resulted in a ball that traveled farther when hit. The rise of the legendary player Babe Ruth, the first great power hitter of the new era, helped permanently alter the nature of the game. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, St. Louis Cardinals general manager Branch Rickey invested in several minor league clubs and developed the first modern farm system. A new Negro National League was organized in 1933; four years later, it was joined by the Negro American League. The first elections to the National Baseball Hall of Fame took place in 1936. In 1939, Little League Baseball was founded in Pennsylvania.

Jackie Robinson in 1945, with the era's Kansas City Royals, a barnstorming squad associated with the Negro American League's Kansas City Monarchs

A large number of minor league teams disbanded when World War II led to a player shortage. Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley led the formation of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League to help keep the game in the public eye. The first crack in the unwritten agreement barring blacks from white-controlled professional ball occurred in 1945: Jackie Robinson was signed by the National League's Brooklyn Dodgers and began playing for their minor league team in Montreal. In 1947, Robinson broke the major leagues' color barrier when he debuted with the Dodgers. Latin-American players, largely overlooked before, also started entering the majors in greater numbers. In 1951, two Chicago White Sox, Venezuelan-born Chico Carrasquel and black Cuban-born Minnie Miñoso, became the first Hispanic All-Stars. Integration proceeded slowly: by 1953, only six of the 16 major league teams had a black player on the roster.

Attendance records and the age of steroids

In 1975, the union's power-and players' salaries-began to increase greatly when the reserve clause was effectively struck down, leading to the free agency system. Significant work stoppages occurred in 1981 and 1994, the latter forcing the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years. Attendance had been growing steadily since the mid-1970s and in 1994, before the stoppage, the majors were setting their all-time record for per-game attendance. After play resumed in 1995, non-division-winning wild card teams became a permanent fixture of the post-season. Regular-season interleague play was introduced in 1997 and the second-highest attendance mark for a full season was set. In 2000, the National and American Leagues were dissolved as legal entities. While their identities were maintained for scheduling purposes (and the designated hitter distinction), the regulations and other functions-such as player discipline and umpire supervision-they had administered separately were consolidated under the rubric of MLB.

In 2001, Barry Bonds established the current record of 73 home runs in a single season. There had long been suspicions that the dramatic increase in power hitting was fueled in large part by the abuse of illegal steroids (as well as by the dilution of pitching talent due to expansion), but the issue only began attracting significant media attention in 2002 and there was no penalty for the use of performance-enhancing drugs before 2004. In 2007, Bonds became MLB's all-time home run leader, surpassing Hank Aaron, as total major league and minor league attendance both reached all-time highs.

Around the world

With the historic popular moniker as "America's national pastime", baseball is well-established in several other countries as well. As early as 1877, a professional league, the International Association, featured teams from both Canada and the United States. While baseball is widely played in Canada and many minor league teams have been based in the country, the American major leagues did not include a Canadian club until 1969, when the Montreal Expos joined the National League as an expansion team. In 1977, the expansion Toronto Blue Jays joined the American League.

Sadaharu Oh managing the Japan national team in the 2006 World Baseball Classic. Playing for the Central League's Yomiuri Giants (1959-80), Oh set the professional world record for home runs.

In 1847, American soldiers played what may have been the first baseball game in Mexico at Parque Los Berros in Xalapa, Veracruz. The first formal baseball league outside of the United States and Canada was founded in 1878 in Cuba, which maintains a rich baseball tradition. The Dominican Republic held its first islandwide championship tournament in 1912. Professional baseball tournaments and leagues began to form in other countries between the world wars, including the Netherlands (formed in 1922), Australia (1934), Japan (1936), Mexico (1937), and Puerto Rico (1938). The Japanese major leagues have long been considered the highest quality professional circuits outside of the United States.

Pesäpallo, a Finnish variation of baseball, was invented by Lauri "Tahko" Pihkala in the 1920s,[95] and after that, it has changed with the times and grown in popularity. Picture of Pesäpallo match in 1958 in Jyväskylä, Finland.

After World War II, professional leagues were founded in many Latin American countries, most prominently Venezuela (1946) and the Dominican Republic (1955). Since the early 1970s, the annual Caribbean Series has matched the championship clubs from the four leading Latin American winter leagues: the Dominican Professional Baseball League, Mexican Pacific League, Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League, and Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. In Asia, South Korea (1982), Taiwan (1990) and China (2003) all have professional leagues.

The English football club, Aston Villa, were the first British baseball champions winning the 1890 National League of Baseball of Great Britain. The 2020 National Champions were the London Mets. Other European countries have seen professional leagues; the most successful, other than the Dutch league, is the Italian league, founded in 1948. In 2004, Australia won a surprise silver medal at the Olympic Games. The Confédération Européene de Baseball (European Baseball Confederation), founded in 1953, organizes a number of competitions between clubs from different countries. Other competitions between national teams, such as the Baseball World Cup and the Olympic baseball tournament, were administered by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) from its formation in 1938 until its 2013 merger with the International Softball Federation to create the current joint governing body for both sports, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC). Women's baseball is played on an organized amateur basis in numerous countries.

After being admitted to the Olympics as a medal sport beginning with the 1992 Games, baseball was dropped from the 2012 Summer Olympic Games at the 2005 International Olympic Committee meeting. It remained part of the 2008 Games. While the sport's lack of a following in much of the world was a factor, more important was MLB's reluctance to allow its players to participate during the major league season. MLB initiated the World Baseball Classic, scheduled to precede its season, partly as a replacement, high-profile international tournament. The inaugural Classic, held in March 2006, was the first tournament involving national teams to feature a significant number of MLB participants. The Baseball World Cup was discontinued after its 2011 edition in favor of an expanded World Baseball Classic.

Distinctive elements

Baseball has certain attributes that set it apart from the other popular team sports in the countries where it has a following. All of these sports use a clock, play is less individual, and the variation between playing fields is not as substantial or important. The comparison between cricket and baseball demonstrates that many of baseball's distinctive elements are shared in various ways with its cousin sports.

No clock to kill

A well-worn baseball

In clock-limited sports, games often end with a team that holds the lead killing the clock rather than competing aggressively against the opposing team. In contrast, baseball has no clock, thus a team cannot win without getting the last batter out and rallies are not constrained by time. At almost any turn in any baseball game, the most advantageous strategy is some form of aggressive strategy. Whereas, in the case of multi-day Test and first-class cricket, the possibility of a draw (which occurs because of the restrictions on time, which like in baseball, originally did not exist) often encourages a team that is batting last and well behind, to bat defensively and run out the clock, giving up any faint chance at a win, to avoid an overall loss.

While nine innings has been the standard since the beginning of professional baseball, the duration of the average major league game has increased steadily through the years. At the turn of the 20th century, games typically took an hour and a half to play. In the 1920s, they averaged just less than two hours, which eventually ballooned to 2:38 in 1960. By 1997, the average American League game lasted 2:57 (National League games were about 10 minutes shorter-pitchers at the plate making for quicker outs than designated hitters). In 2004, Major League Baseball declared that its goal was an average game of 2:45. By 2014, though, the average MLB game took over three hours to complete. The lengthening of games is attributed to longer breaks between half-innings for television commercials, increased offense, more pitching changes, and a slower pace of play, with pitchers taking more time between each delivery, and batters stepping out of the box more frequently. Other leagues have experienced similar issues. In 2008, Nippon Professional Baseball took steps aimed at shortening games by 12 minutes from the preceding decade's average of 3:18.

In 2016, the average nine-inning playoff game in Major League baseball was 3 hours and 35 minutes. This was up 10 minutes from 2015 and 21 minutes from 2014. In response to the lengthening of the game, MLB decided from the 2023 season onward to institute a pitch clock rule to penalize batters and pitchers who take too much time between pitches; this had the effect of shortening 2023 regular season games by 24 minutes on average.

Individual focus

Although baseball is a team sport, individual players are often placed under scrutiny and pressure. While rewarding, it has sometimes been described as "ruthless" due to the pressure on the individual player. In 1915, a baseball instructional manual pointed out that every single pitch, of which there are often more than two hundred in a game, involves an individual, one-on-one contest: "the pitcher and the batter in a battle of wits". Pitcher, batter, and fielder all act essentially independent of each other. While coaching staffs can signal pitcher or batter to pursue certain tactics, the execution of the play itself is a series of solitary acts. If the batter hits a line drive, the outfielder is solely responsible for deciding to try to catch it or play it on the bounce and for succeeding or failing. The statistical precision of baseball is both facilitated by this isolation and reinforces it.

Cricket is more similar to baseball than many other team sports in this regard: while the individual focus in cricket is mitigated by the importance of the batting partnership and the practicalities of tandem running, it is enhanced by the fact that a batsman may occupy the wicket for an hour or much more. There is no statistical equivalent in cricket for the fielding error and thus less emphasis on personal responsibility in this area of play.

Uniqueness of parks

Unlike those of most sports, baseball playing fields can vary significantly in size and shape. While the dimensions of the infield are specifically regulated, the only constraint on outfield size and shape for professional teams, following the rules of MLB and Minor League Baseball, is that fields built or remodeled since June 1, 1958, must have a minimum distance of 325 feet (99 m) from home plate to the fences in left and right field and 400 feet (122 m) to center. Major league teams often skirt even this rule. For example, at Minute Maid Park, which became the home of the Houston Astros in 2000, the Crawford Boxes in left field are only 315 feet (96 m) from home plate. There are no rules at all that address the height of fences or other structures at the edge of the outfield. The most famously idiosyncratic outfield boundary is the left-field wall at Boston's Fenway Park, in use since 1912: the Green Monster is 310 feet (94 m) from home plate down the line and 37 feet (11 m) tall.

Similarly, there are no regulations at all concerning the dimensions of foul territory. Thus a foul fly ball may be entirely out of play in a park with little space between the foul lines and the stands, but a foulout in a park with more expansive foul ground. A fence in foul territory that is close to the outfield line will tend to direct balls that strike it back toward the fielders, while one that is farther away may actually prompt more collisions, as outfielders run full speed to field balls deep in the corner. These variations can make the difference between a double and a triple or inside-the-park home run. The surface of the field is also unregulated. While the adjacent image shows a traditional field surfacing arrangement (and the one used by virtually all MLB teams with naturally surfaced fields), teams are free to decide what areas will be grassed or bare. Some fields-including several in MLB-use artificial turf. Surface variations can have a significant effect on how ground balls behave and are fielded as well as on baserunning. Similarly, the presence of a roof (seven major league teams play in stadiums with permanent or retractable roofs) can greatly affect how fly balls are played. While football and soccer players deal with similar variations of field surface and stadium covering, the size and shape of their fields are much more standardized. The area out-of-bounds on a football or soccer field does not affect play the way foul territory in baseball does, so variations in that regard are largely insignificant.

A New York Yankees batter (Andruw Jones) and a Boston Red Sox catcher at Fenway Park

These physical variations create a distinctive set of playing conditions at each ballpark. Other local factors, such as altitude and climate, can also significantly affect play. A given stadium may acquire a reputation as a pitcher's park or a hitter's park, if one or the other discipline notably benefits from its unique mix of elements. The most exceptional park in this regard is Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies. Its high altitude-5,282 feet (1,610 m) above sea level-is partly responsible for giving it the strongest hitter's park effect in the major leagues due to the low air pressure. Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, is known for its fickle disposition: a pitcher's park when the strong winds off Lake Michigan are blowing in, it becomes more of a hitter's park when they are blowing out. The absence of a standardized field affects not only how particular games play out, but the nature of team rosters and players' statistical records. For example, hitting a fly ball 330 feet (100 m) into right field might result in an easy catch on the warning track at one park, and a home run at another. A team that plays in a park with a relatively short right field, such as the New York Yankees, will tend to stock its roster with left-handed pull hitters, who can best exploit it. On the individual level, a player who spends most of his career with a team that plays in a hitter's park will gain an advantage in batting statistics over time-even more so if his talents are especially suited to the park.

Statistics

Organized baseball lends itself to statistics to a greater degree than many other sports. Each play is discrete and has a relatively small number of possible outcomes. In the late 19th century, a former cricket player, English-born Henry Chadwick of Brooklyn, was responsible for the "development of the box score, tabular standings, the annual baseball guide, the batting average, and most of the common statistics and tables used to describe baseball." The statistical record is so central to the game's "historical essence" that Chadwick came to be known as Father Baseball. In the 1920s, American newspapers began devoting more and more attention to baseball statistics, initiating what journalist and historian Alan Schwarz describes as a "tectonic shift in sports, as intrigue that once focused mostly on teams began to go to individual players and their statistics lines."

The Official Baseball Rules administered by MLB require the official scorer to categorize each baseball play unambiguously. The rules provide detailed criteria to promote consistency. The score report is the official basis for both the box score of the game and the relevant statistical records. General managers, managers, and baseball scouts use statistics to evaluate players and make strategic decisions.

Rickey Henderson-the major leagues' all-time leader in runs and stolen bases-stealing third base in a 1988 game

Certain traditional statistics are familiar to most baseball fans. The basic batting statistics include:

At bats: plate appearances, excluding walks and hit by pitches-where the batter's ability is not fully tested-and sacrifices and sacrifice flies-where the batter intentionally makes an out in order to advance one or more baserunners

Hits: times a base is reached safely, because of a batted, fair ball without a fielding error or fielder's choice

Runs: times circling the bases and reaching home safely

Runs batted in (RBIs): number of runners who scored due to a batter's action (including the batter, in the case of a home run), except when batter grounded into double play or reached on an error

Home runs: hits on which the batter successfully touched all four bases, without the contribution of a fielding error

Batting average: hits divided by at bats-the traditional measure of batting ability

The basic baserunning statistics include:

Stolen bases: times advancing to the next base entirely due to the runner's own efforts, generally while the pitcher is preparing to deliver or delivering the ball

Caught stealing: times tagged out while attempting to steal a base

The basic pitching statistics include:

Wins: credited to pitcher on winning team who last pitched before the team took a lead that it never relinquished (a starting pitcher must pitch at least five innings to qualify for a win)

Losses: charged to pitcher on losing team who was pitching when the opposing team took a lead that it never relinquished

Saves: games where the pitcher enters a game led by the pitcher's team, finishes the game without surrendering the lead, is not the winning pitcher, and either (a) the lead was three runs or less when the pitcher entered the game; (b) the potential tying run was on base, at bat, or on deck; or (c) the pitcher pitched three or more innings

Innings pitched: outs recorded while pitching divided by three (partial innings are conventionally recorded as, e.g., "5.2" or "7.1", the last digit actually representing thirds, not tenths, of an inning)

Strikeouts: times pitching three strikes to a batter

Winning percentage: wins divided by decisions (wins plus losses)

Earned run average (ERA): runs allowed, excluding those resulting from fielding errors, per nine innings pitched

The basic fielding statistics include:

Putouts: times the fielder catches a fly ball, tags or forces out a runner, or otherwise directly effects an out

Assists: times a putout by another fielder was recorded following the fielder touching the ball

Errors: times the fielder fails to make a play that should have been made with common effort, and the batting team benefits as a result

Total chances: putouts plus assists plus errors

Fielding average: successful chances (putouts plus assists) divided by total chances

Among the many other statistics that are kept are those collectively known as situational statistics. For example, statistics can indicate which specific pitchers a certain batter performs best against. If a given situation statistically favors a certain batter, the manager of the fielding team may be more likely to change pitchers or have the pitcher intentionally walk the batter in order to face one who is less likely to succeed.

Sabermetrics

Sabermetrics refers to the field of baseball statistical study and the development of new statistics and analytical tools. The term is also used to refer directly to new statistics themselves. The term was coined around 1980 by one of the field's leading proponents, Bill James, and derives from the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

The growing popularity of sabermetrics since the early 1980s has brought more attention to two batting statistics that sabermetricians argue are much better gauges of a batter's skill than batting average:

On-base percentage (OBP) measures a batter's ability to get on base. It is calculated by taking the sum of the batter's successes in getting on base (hits plus walks plus hit by pitches) and dividing that by the batter's total plate appearances (at bats plus walks plus hit by pitches plus sacrifice flies), except for sacrifice bunts.

Slugging percentage (SLG) measures a batter's ability to hit for power. It is calculated by taking the batter's total bases (one per each single, two per double, three per triple, and four per home run) and dividing that by the batter's at bats.

Some of the new statistics devised by sabermetricians have gained wide use:

On-base plus slugging (OPS) measures a batter's overall ability. It is calculated by adding the batter's on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

Walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) measures a pitcher's ability at preventing hitters from reaching base. It is calculated by adding the number of walks and hits a pitcher surrendered, then dividing by the number of innings pitched.

Wins Above Replacement (WAR) measures number of additional wins his team has achieved above the number of expected team wins if that player were substituted with a replacement-level player.

Popularity and cultural impact

Two players on the baseball team of Tokyo, Japan's Waseda University in 1921

Writing in 1919, philosopher Morris Raphael Cohen described baseball as the national religion of the US. In the words of sports columnist Jayson Stark, baseball has long been "a unique paragon of American culture"-a status he sees as devastated by the steroid abuse scandal. Baseball has an important place in other national cultures as well: Scholar Peter Bjarkman describes "how deeply the sport is ingrained in the history and culture of a nation such as Cuba, [and] how thoroughly it was radically reshaped and nativized in Japan."

In the United States

The major league game in the United States was originally targeted toward a middle-class, white-collar audience: relative to other spectator pastimes, the National League's set ticket price of 50 cents in 1876 was high, while the location of playing fields outside the inner city and the workweek daytime scheduling of games were also obstacles to a blue-collar audience. A century later, the situation was very different. With the rise in popularity of other team sports with much higher average ticket prices-football, basketball, and hockey-professional baseball had become among the most blue-collar-oriented of leading American spectator sports.

Overall, baseball has a large following in the United States; a 2006 poll found that nearly half of Americans are fans. In the late 1900s and early 2000s, baseball's position compared to football in the United States moved in contradictory directions. In 2008, MLB set a revenue record of $6.5 billion, matching the NFL's revenue for the first time in decades. A new MLB revenue record of more than $10 billion was set in 2017. On the other hand, the percentage of American sports fans polled who named baseball as their favorite sport was 9%, compared to pro football at 37%. In 1985, the respective figures were pro football 24%, baseball 23%. Because there are so many more major league games played, there is no comparison in overall attendance. In 2008, total attendance at major league games was the second-highest in history: 78.6 million, 0.7% off the record set the previous year. The following year, amid the U.S. recession, attendance fell by 6.6% to 73.4 million. Eight years later, it dropped under 73 million. Attendance at games held under the Minor League Baseball umbrella set a record in 2008, with 43.3 million. While MLB games have not drawn the same national TV viewership as football games, MLB games are dominant in teams' local markets and regularly lead all programs in primetime in their markets during the summer.

Since the early 1980s, the Dominican Republic, in particular the city of San Pedro de Macorís, has been the major leagues' primary source of foreign talent. In 2017, 83 of the 868 players on MLB Opening Day rosters (and disabled lists) were from the country. Among other Caribbean countries and territories, a combined 97 MLB players were born in Venezuela, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Hall-of-Famer Roberto Clemente remains one of the greatest national heroes in Puerto Rico's history. While baseball has long been the island's primary athletic pastime, its once well-attended professional winter league has declined in popularity since 1990, when young Puerto Rican players began to be included in the major leagues' annual first-year player draft. In Cuba, where baseball is by every reckoning the national sport, the national team overshadows the city and provincial teams that play in the top-level domestic leagues.

An Afghan girl playing baseball in August 2002

In Asia, baseball is among the most popular sports in Japan and South Korea. In Japan, where baseball is inarguably the leading spectator team sport, combined revenue for the twelve teams in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), the body that oversees both the Central and Pacific Leagues, was estimated at $1 billion in 2007. Total NPB attendance for the year was approximately 20 million. While in the preceding two decades, MLB attendance grew by 50 percent and revenue nearly tripled, the comparable NPB figures were stagnant. There are concerns that MLB's growing interest in acquiring star Japanese players will hurt the game in their home country. Revenue figures are not released for the country's amateur system. Similarly, according to one official pronouncement, the sport's governing authority "has never taken into account attendance ... because its greatest interest has always been the development of athletes". In Taiwan, baseball is one of the most widely spectated sports, with the origins dating back to Japanese rule.

Among children

As of 2018, Little League Baseball oversees leagues with close to 2.4 million participants in over 80 countries. The number of players has fallen since the 1990s, when 3 million children took part in Little League Baseball annually. Babe Ruth League teams have over 1 million participants. According to the president of the International Baseball Federation, between 300,000 and 500,000 women and girls play baseball around the world, including Little League and the introductory game of Tee Ball.

A varsity baseball team is an established part of physical education departments at most high schools and colleges in the United States. In 2015, nearly half a million high schoolers and over 34,000 collegians played on their schools' baseball teams. By early in the 20th century, intercollegiate baseball was Japan's leading sport. Today, high school baseball in particular is immensely popular there. The final rounds of the two annual tournaments-the National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament in the spring, and the even more important National High School Baseball Championship in the summer-are broadcast around the country. The tournaments are known, respectively, as Spring Koshien and Summer Koshien after the 55,000-capacity stadium where they are played. In Cuba, baseball is a mandatory part of the state system of physical education, which begins at age six. Talented children as young as seven are sent to special district schools for more intensive training-the first step on a ladder whose acme is the national baseball team.

In popular culture

The American Tobacco Company's line of baseball cards featured shortstop Honus Wagner of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1909 to 1911. In 2007, the card shown here sold for $2.8 million.[187]

Baseball has had a broad impact on popular culture, both in the United States and elsewhere. Dozens of English-language idioms have been derived from baseball; in particular, the game is the source of a number of widely used sexual euphemisms. The first networked radio broadcasts in North America were of the 1922 World Series: famed sportswriter Grantland Rice announced play-by-play from New York City's Polo Grounds on WJZ- Newark, New Jersey, which was connected by wire to WGY- Schenectady, New York, and WBZ- Springfield, Massachusetts. The baseball cap has become a ubiquitous fashion item not only in the United States and Japan, but also in countries where the sport itself is not particularly popular, such as the United Kingdom.

Baseball has inspired many works of art and entertainment. One of the first major examples, Ernest Thayer's poem " Casey at the Bat", appeared in 1888. A wry description of the failure of a star player in what would now be called a "clutch situation", the poem became the source of vaudeville and other staged performances, audio recordings, film adaptations, and an opera, as well as a host of sequels and parodies in various media. There have been many baseball movies, including the Academy Award-winning The Pride of the Yankees (1942) and the Oscar nominees The Natural (1984) and Field of Dreams (1989). The American Film Institute's selection of the ten best sports movies includes The Pride of the Yankees at number 3 and Bull Durham (1988) at number 5. Baseball has provided thematic material for hits on both stage-the Adler- Ross musical Damn Yankees-and record- George J. Gaskin's "Slide, Kelly, Slide", Simon and Garfunkel's " Mrs. Robinson", and John Fogerty's " Centerfield". The baseball-inspired comedic sketch " Who's on First?", popularized by Abbott and Costello in 1938, quickly became famous. Six decades later, named it the best comedy routine of the 20th century.

Literary works connected to the game include the short fiction of Ring Lardner and novels such as Bernard Malamud's The Natural (the source for the movie), Robert Coover's The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., John Grisham's Calico Joe and W. P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe (the source for Field of Dreams). Baseball's literary canon also includes the beat reportage of Damon Runyon; the columns of Grantland Rice, Red Smith, Dick Young, and Peter Gammons; and the essays of Roger Angell. Among the celebrated nonfiction books in the field are Lawrence S. Ritter's The Glory of Their Times, Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, and Michael Lewis's . The 1970 publication of major league pitcher Jim Bouton's tell-all chronicle is considered a turning point in the reporting of professional sports.

Baseball has also inspired the creation of new cultural forms. Baseball cards were introduced in the late 19th century as trade cards. A typical example featured an image of a baseball player on one side and advertising for a business on the other. In the early 1900s they were produced widely as promotional items by tobacco and confectionery companies. The 1930s saw the popularization of the modern style of baseball card, with a player photograph accompanied on the rear by statistics and biographical data. Baseball cards-many of which are now prized collectibles-are the source of the much broader trading card industry, involving similar products for different sports and non-sports-related fields.

Modern fantasy sports began in 1980 with the invention of Rotisserie League Baseball by New York writer Daniel Okrent and several friends. Participants in a Rotisserie league draft notional teams from the list of active MLB players and play out an entire imaginary season with game outcomes based on the players' latest real-world statistics. Rotisserie-style play quickly became a phenomenon. Now known more generically as fantasy baseball, it has inspired similar games based on an array of different sports. The field boomed with increasing Internet access and new fantasy sports-related websites. By 2008, 29.9 million people in the United States and Canada were playing fantasy sports, spending $800 million on the hobby. The burgeoning popularity of fantasy baseball is also credited with the increasing attention paid to sabermetrics-first among fans, only later among baseball professionals.

Derivative games

Informal variations of baseball have popped up over time, with games like corkball reflecting local traditions and allowing the game to be played in diverse environments. Two variations of baseball, softball and Baseball5, are internationally governed alongside baseball by the World Baseball Softball Confederation.

British baseball

American professional baseball teams toured Britain in 1874 and 1889, and had a great effect on similar sports in Britain. In Wales and Merseyside, a strong community game had already developed with skills and plays more in keeping with the American game and the Welsh began to informally adopt the name "baseball" (Pêl Fas), to reflect the American style. By the 1890s, calls were made to follow the success of other working class sports (like Rugby in Wales and Soccer in Merseyside) and adopt a distinct set of rules and bureaucracy. During the 1892 season rules for the game of "baseball" were agreed and the game was officially codified.

Finnish baseball

Finnish baseball, known as pesäpallo, is a combination of traditional ball-batting team games and North American baseball, invented by Lauri "Tahko" Pihkala in the 1920s. The basic idea of pesäpallo is similar to that of baseball: the offense tries to score by hitting the ball successfully and running through the bases, while the defense tries to put the batter and runners out. One of the most important differences between pesäpallo and baseball is that the ball is pitched vertically, which makes hitting the ball, as well as controlling the power and direction of the hit, much easier. This gives the offensive game more variety, speed, and tactical aspects compared to baseball.

Related sports

General and cited sources

Block, David (2005). Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-6255-3. OCLC 70261798.

Burgos, Adrian (2007). Playing America's Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25143-4. OCLC 81150202.

Clarke, William Jones & Fredrick Thomas Dawson (1915). Baseball: Individual Play and Team Play in Detail. Charles Scribner's Sons. OCLC 2781766.

Lewis, Michael M. (2003). Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-32481-5. OCLC 54896532.

Mahony, Phillip (2014). Baseball Explained. McFarland Books. ISBN 978-0-7864-7964-1. Archived from the original on August 13, 2014.

Mandelbaum, Michael (2005). The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football, and Basketball and What They See When They Do. PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-330-2. OCLC 55539339.

Rudel, Anthony J. (2008). Hello, Everybody!: The Dawn of American Radio. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-15-101275-6. OCLC 192042215.

Stallings, Jack; Bob Bennett, eds. (2003). Baseball Strategies: Your Guide to the Game Within the Game. American Baseball Coaches Association/Human Kinetics. ISBN 978-0-7360-4218-5. OCLC 50203866.

Terry, Thomas Philip (1911). Terry's Mexico: Handbook for Travellers (2nd rev. ed.). Gay and Hancock, Houghton Mifflin, and Sonora News. OCLC 7587420.

Further reading

Dickson, Paul. The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 3rd ed. (W. W. Norton, 2009). ISBN 0-393-06681-9.

Fitts, Robert K. Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game (Southern Illinois University Press, 2005). ISBN 0-8093-2629-9.

Gillette, Gary, and Pete Palmer (eds.). The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, 5th ed. (Sterling, 2008). ISBN 1-4027-6051-5.

Peterson, Robert. Only the Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams (Oxford University Press, 1992 [1970]). ISBN 0-19-507637-0.

Reaves, Joseph A. Taking in a Game: A History of Baseball in Asia (Bison, 2004). ISBN 0-8032-3943-2.

Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns. Baseball: An Illustrated History (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996). ISBN 0-679-40459-7.

External links

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Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball that a player on the batting team, called the batter, tries to hit with a bat.

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A national pastime

The United States is credited with developing several popular sports, including some (such as baseball, gridiron football, and basketball) that have large fan bases and, to varying degrees, have been adopted internationally. But baseball, despite the spread of the game throughout the globe and the growing influence of Asian and Latin American leagues and players, is the sport that Americans still recognize as their "national pastime." The game has long been woven into the fabric of American life and identity. "It's our game," exclaimed the poet Walt Whitman more than a century ago, "that's the chief fact in connection with it: America's game." He went on to explain that baseball

has the snap, go, fling of the American atmosphere-it belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life. It is the place where memory gathers.

Perhaps Whitman exaggerated baseball's importance to and its congruency with life in the United States, but few would argue the contrary, that baseball has been merely a simple or an occasional diversion.

It was nationalistic sentiment that helped to make baseball "America's game." In the quest to obtain greater cultural autonomy, Americans yearned for a sport they could claim as exclusively their own. Just as the English had cricket and the Germans their turnvereins (gymnastic clubs), a sporting newspaper declared as early as 1857 that Americans should have a "game that could be termed a 'Native American Sport.' " A powerful confirmation of baseball as the sport to fill that need came in 1907 when a special commission appointed by A.G. Spalding, a sporting goods magnate who had formerly been a star pitcher and an executive with a baseball team, reported that baseball owed absolutely nothing to England and the children's game of rounders. Instead, the commission claimed that, to the best of its knowledge (a knowledge based on flimsy research and self-serving logic), baseball had been invented by Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. This origin myth was perpetuated for decades.

In a country comprising a multiplicity of ethnic and religious groups, one without a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a long and mythic past, the experience of playing, watching, and talking about baseball games became one of the nation's great common denominators. It provided, in the perceptive words of British novelist Virginia Woolf, "a centre, a meeting place for the divers activities of a people whom a vast continent isolates [and] whom no tradition controls." No matter where one lived, the "hit-and-run," the "double play," and the "sacrifice bunt" were carried out the same way. The unifying power of baseball in the United States was evident in the Depression-ravaged 1930s, when a group of Cooperstown's businessmen along with officials from the major leagues established the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. The Hall of Fame became a quasi-religious shrine for many Americans, and, since its founding, millions of fans have made "pilgrimages" to Cooperstown, where they have observed the "relics"-old bats, balls, and uniforms-of bygone heroes.

Baseball also reshaped the nation's calendar. With the rise of industrialization, the standardized clock time of the office or factory robbed people of the earlier experience of time in its rich associations with the daylight hours, the natural rhythms of the seasons, and the traditional church calendar. Yet, for Americans, the opening of the baseball training season signaled the arrival of spring, regular-season play meant summer, and the World Series marked the arrival of fall. In the winter, baseball fans participated in "hot stove leagues," reminiscing about past games and greats and speculating about what the next season had to offer.

The World Series, inaugurated in 1903 and pitting the champions of the American and National Leagues in a postseason play-off, quickly took its place alongside the Fourth of July and Christmas as one of the most popular annual rites. The series was, said Everybody's Magazine in 1911, "the very quintessence and consummation of the Most Perfect Thing in America." Each fall it absorbed the entire nation.

Baseball terms and phrases, such as "He threw me a curve," "Her presentation covered all the bases," and "He's really out in left field," soon became part of the national vocabulary, so entrenched is baseball in the ordinary conversation of Americans. During the administration of President George H.W. Bush, a baseball player during his years at Yale University, the foreign press struggled to translate the president's routine use of baseball metaphors. As early as the 1850s, baseball images began to appear in periodicals, and, in the 20th century, popular illustrator Norman Rockwell often used baseball as the subject for his The Saturday Evening Post covers. " Casey at the Bat" and " Take Me Out to the Ballgame" remain among the best-known poems and songs, respectively, among Americans. Novelists and filmmakers frequently have turned to baseball motifs. After the mid-20th century, at the very time baseball at the grassroots level had begun a perceptible descent, baseball fiction proliferated. American colleges and universities even began to offer courses on baseball literature, and baseball films likewise proliferated. In 1994 the Public Broadcasting System released Ken Burns's nostalgic Baseball, arguably the most monumental historical television documentary ever made.

While baseball possessed enormous integrative powers, the game's history also has been interwoven with and reflective of major social and cultural cleavages. Until the first decades of the 20th century, middle-class Evangelical Protestants viewed the sport with profound suspicion. They associated baseball, or at least the professional version of the game, with ne'er-do-wells, immigrants, the working class, drinking, gambling, and general rowdiness. Conversely, these very qualities provided a foothold for the upward ascent of ethnic groups from the nation's ghettos. Usually encountering less discrimination in baseball (as well as in other venues of commercial entertainment) than they did in the more "respectable" occupations, in the 19th century Irish and German Americans were so conspicuous in professional baseball that some observers wondered if they had a special capacity for playing the game.

For a brief time in the 1880s, before racial segregation became the norm in the United States, Black players competed with whites in professional baseball. After that period, however, Blacks had to carve out a separate world of baseball. Dozens of Black teams faced local semiprofessional teams while barnstorming throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Despite playing a high quality of baseball, the players frequently engaged in various forms of clowning that perpetuated prevailing stereotypes of Blacks to appeal to spectators. From the 1920s until the '50s, separate Black professional leagues-the Negro leagues-existed as well, but in 1947 Jackie Robinson crossed the long-standing colour bar in major league baseball. Because baseball was the national game, its racial integration was of enormous symbolic importance in the United States; indeed, it preceded the U.S. Supreme Court's decision ending racial segregation in the schools (in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka) and helped to usher in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. Moreover, in the 1980s and '90s a huge influx of Hispanics into professional baseball reflected the country's changing ethnic composition.

Baseball likewise contributed to the shaping of American conceptions of gender roles. Although women were playing baseball as early as the 1860s, their involvement in the sport was confined for the most part to the role of spectator. To counter the game's reputation for rowdiness, baseball promoters took pains to encourage women to attend. "The presence of an assemblage of ladies purifies the moral atmosphere of a baseball gathering," reported the Baseball Chronicle, "repressing as it does, all the out-burst of intemperate language which the excitement of a contest so frequently induces." When women played on barnstorming teams in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, the press routinely referred to them as "Amazons," "freaks," or "frauds." In 1943, during World War II, when it was feared that professional baseball might be forced to close down, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League made its debut. After having provided more than 600 women an opportunity to play baseball and to entertain several million fans, the league folded in 1954.

But, even if unable to heal conflicts arising from fundamental social divisions, baseball exhibited an extraordinary capacity for fostering ties. In the 1850s, young artisans and clerks, frequently displaced in the city and finding their way of life changing rapidly in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, conceived of themselves as members of what was known as the "base ball fraternity." Like the volunteer fire departments and militia units of the day, they donned special uniforms, developed their own rituals, and, in playing baseball, shared powerful common experiences. Playing and watching baseball contests also strengthened occupational, ethnic, and racial identities. Butchers, typesetters, draymen, bricklayers, and even clergymen organized baseball clubs. So did Irish Americans, German Americans, and African Americans.

Professional baseball nourished and deepened urban identities. "If we are ahead of the big city [New York] in nothing else," crowed the Brooklyn Eagle as early as 1862, "we can beat her in baseball." Fans invested their emotions in their professional representative nines. "A deep gloom settled over the city," reported a Chicago newspaper in 1875 after the local White Stockings had been defeated by the St. Louis (Missouri) Brown Stockings. "Friends refused to recognize friends, lovers became estranged, and business was suspended." Even in the late 20th century, in an age more given to cynicism, the successes and failures of professional teams continued to evoke strong feelings among local residents. For example, during the 1990s, after having experienced urban decay and demoralization in the previous two decades, Cleveland experienced a great civic revival fueled in part by the success of the Indians baseball team.

The significance of specific baseball teams and individual players extended beyond the localities that they represented. The New York Yankees, who in the first half of the 20th century were the quintessential representatives of the big city, of the East, of urban America with its sophistication, and of ethnic and religious heterogeneity, became synonymous with supernal success, while the St. Louis Cardinals emerged as the quintessential champions of the Midwest, of small towns and the farms, of rural America with its simplicity, rusticity, and old-stock Protestant homogeneity. In the 1920s Babe Ruth became the diamond's colossal demigod. To those toiling on assembly lines or sitting at their desks in corporate bureaucracies, Ruth embodied America's continuing faith in upward social mobility. His mighty home runs furnished vivid proof that men remained masters of their own destinies and that they could still rise from mean, vulgar beginnings to fame and fortune. For African Americans, Black stars such as Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson furnished equally compelling models of individual inspiration and success.

Baseball parks became important local civic monuments and repositories of collective memories. The first parks had been jerry-built, flimsy wooden structures, but between 1909 and 1923 some 15 major league clubs constructed new, more permanent parks of steel and concrete. These edifices were akin to the great public buildings, skyscrapers, and railway terminals of the day; local residents proudly pointed to them as evidence of their city's size and its achievements.

Seeing them as retreats from the noise, dirt, and squalor of the industrial city, the owners gave the first parks pastoral names-Ebbets Field, Sportsman's Park, and the Polo Grounds-but, with the construction of symmetrical, multisports facilities in the 1960s and '70s, urban and futuristic names such as Astrodome and Kingdome predominated. In a new park-building era in the 1990s, designers sought to recapture the ambience of earlier times by designing "retro parks," a term that was something of an oxymoron in that, while the new parks offered the fan the intimacy of the old-time parks, they simultaneously provided modern conveniences such as escalators, climate-controlled lounges, high-tech audiovisual systems, Disneyesque play areas for children, and space for numerous retail outlets. The increasing corporate influence on the game was reflected in park names such as Network Associates Stadium and Bank One Ballpark.

After about the mid-20th century, baseball's claim to being America's game rested on more precarious foundations than in the past. The sport faced potent competition, not only from other professional sports (especially gridiron football) but even more from a massive conversion of Americans from public to private, at-home diversions. Attendance as a percentage of population fell at all levels of baseball, the minor leagues became a shell of their former selves, and hundreds of semipro and amateur teams folded. In the 1990s, player strikes, free agency, disparities in competition, and the rising cost of attending games added to the woes of major league baseball. Yet, baseball continued to exhibit a remarkable resiliency; attendance at professional games improved, and attendance at minor league games was close to World War II records by the end of the century. As the 21st century opened, baseball still faced serious problems, but the sport was gaining in popularity around the world, and a strong case could still be made for baseball holding a special place in the hearts and minds of the American people.
Benjamin G. Rader

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baseball, game played with a bat, a ball, and gloves between two teams of nine players each on a field with four white bases laid out in a diamond (i.e., a square oriented so that its diagonal line is vertical).

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Baseball’s Never-Never Land - New Hampshire Magazine

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Ageless players become the boys of summer at coastal baseball league

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Major League Baseball Players Born in New Hampshire | Baseball Almanac

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Major League Baseball Players Born in New Hampshire, research by Baseball Almanac.

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The Official Site of Minor League Baseball web site includes features, news, rosters, statistics, schedules, teams, live game radio broadcasts, and video clips.

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Your source for baseball coverage in the Granite State.

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Carlton Fisk will forever be remembered for one game-winning home run.

But it was durability over the long run that built the Hall of Fame career for a man who retired as the player who spent more games in catcher's gear than any other in history.

Fisk hit a dramatic game-winning home run off the left field foul pole at Fenway Park in the 12th inning of Game 6 of the 1975 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. The at-bat is still showed on highlight reels of the best moments in baseball.

"And then after that, running around the bases, it was just one of those things. You couldn't believe what happened to you," said Fisk. "And I look back on it, it's almost like it happened to somebody else."

The 11-time All-Star, known for his work ethic and ability to handle pitchers, spent 24 years in the big leagues and 2,226 games behind the plate. That hard work earned him the respect of fans, competitors and teammates.

"He played the game the right way," said Hall of Fame teammate Carl Yastrzemski. "Both behind the plate and at the plate."

Born in Bellows Falls, Vt. on Dec. 26, 1947, Fisk attended the University of New Hampshire on a basketball scholarship, but switched games when he was drafted in the first round of the 1967 amateur draft by the Boston Red Sox.

Fisk won the Rookie of the Year Award with Boston in 1972 after leading the league in triples and hitting .293 with 61 RBI and 22 home runs.

Fisk had two home runs and three intentional walks in that 1975 World Series and provided the defining moment despite the fact that the Red Sox lost in seven games. In 1980, Fisk signed with the Chicago White Sox after a procedural error made him a free agent .

In 1985, Fisk hit a career-high 37 home runs and set a single-season record for American League catchers. He also recorded a career-high 107 RBI that season. Fisk set the record for most home runs by a catcher with 351 as well as AL records for most seasons, putouts and chances. He finished his career with 2,356 hits, 376 home runs, 1,330 RBI and a .269 batting average - along with three Silver Slugger Awards and one Gold Glove Award.

He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2000.

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Carlton Fisk will forever be remembered for one game-winning home run. But it was durability over the long run that built the Hall of Fame career for a man who retired as the player who spent more games in catcher's gear than any other in history.

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While the Red Sox suffered through a rough 2022, let's hit the ground running for the 2023 baseball season with a look back at New Hampshire's firm baseball foundations. The Granite State punches well above its weight in producing Major League Baseball talent. Considering its population and long winters, New Hampshire is a veritable factory for producing big league players. Sixty current or former Major Leaguers were either born or raised in New Hampshire. It produced a Hall of Fame catcher in Red Sox and White Sox legend Carlton Fisk, as well as a Hall of Fame manager, Frank Selee, who piloted the Boston Braves (then Beaneaters) to five National League (NL) pennants in the late-19th century. I've selected an all-time New Hampshire starting nine to represent the embarrassment of baseball riches produced by the state. New Hampshire has proved particularly fertile ground for growing pitchers, so that selection will include several of the best in state history. The aforementioned Hall of Fame manager Frank Selee will serve as the club's skipper.

Catcher: Carlton Fisk, Boston Red Sox, 1969-1980; Chicago White Sox, 1981-1993

Born across the Connecticut River in Bellows Falls, Vermont, Carlton Fisk was an unparalleled amateur athlete in his home of Charlestown. By the time he entered the University of New Hampshire on a basketball scholarship, Fisk was a local legend. Everyone of a certain age in the region has a story about Fisk's prowess in American Legion baseball or the New Hampshire state basketball tournament. In 1967, the Boston Red Sox selected Fisk, who debuted for the Olde Towne Team in 1969. He went on to become one of the game's best offensive and defensive catchers for close to a quarter-century. For a time, he held the record for most games played at catcher and homeruns by a catcher. His Game Six-winning 12th inning home run in the 1975 World Series, which he willed with his hands to "stay fair," is one of the most iconic moments in baseball history.

First Base: Harry Bemis, Cleveland Indians, 1902-1910

Farmington's Harry Bemis grew up on a farm and worked alongside his father as a shoemaker before becoming a professional ballplayer. He began his career as a catcher before moving to first base, having sustained a number of injuries protecting the plate in the rough-and-tumble game of the early twentieth century. He is perhaps best known for pummeling Ty Cobb after the notorious baseball great collided with him at home plate in 1907.

Second Base: Bernie Friberg, Chicago Cubs, 1919-1925; Philadelphia Phillies, 1925-1932; Boston Red Sox, 1933

Friberg was born to a family of Swedish immigrants in Manchester that later moved to Lynn, Massachusetts, to work in shoe factories. A .281 career hitter, Friberg was one of the NL's best-hitting second basemen of his generation. On five occasions, he batted over .300 for the season. "Barney," as he was known, was also a tremendous defensive infielder who demonstrated his prowess at all four infield positions.

Shortstop: Red Rolfe, New York Yankees, 1931, 1934-1942

Robert Abial "Red" Rolfe grew up in Penacook, the son of a lumber mill owner. He excelled in the classroom and on the baseball field, earning a spot on the Penacook varsity in eighth grade and leading them to a Merrimack Valley baseball title. He later brought his talents to Phillips Exeter Academy, where he drew the attention of a gaggle of scouts. Rolfe played college baseball and studied English at Dartmouth before signing on with the New York Yankees. In need of a shortstop, I've shoehorned Rolfe into the position, which he played occasionally. He is best known for his long tenure as the Yankees third basemen, where he earned four consecutive All Star bids and starred on the Bronx Bombers' four consecutive World Series championship teams (1936-1939) alongside the likes of Lou Gehrig, Bill Dickey, Tony Lazzeri and Joe DiMaggio.

Third Base: Joe Lefebvre, New York Yankees, 1980; San Diego Padres, 1981-1983; Philadelphia Phillies, 1983-1986

Concord's Joe Lefebvre starred for the hometown Minutemen before drawing significant attention from big league scouts with the Wareham Gatemen of the Cape Cod League, the country's best summer collegiate baseball league. He was selected in the third round by the New York Yankees before ending up in San Diego, where he platooned in the infield with several other players. Lefebvre enjoyed his best season in 1983 with the Philadelphia Phillies, where he batted .310 and helped lead Philadelphia to an NL East title. A series of injuries derailed Lefebvre's career, but he made a long baseball life for himself as a well-traveled and highly respected coach for several MLB organizations.

Outfielder: Phil Plantier, Boston Red Sox, 1990-1992; San Diego Padres, 1993-1994, 1995, 1997; Houston Astros, 1995; Oakland A's, 1996; St. Louis Cardinals, 1997

Manchester's Phil Plantier has one of the most memorable stances in baseball history. He stands coiled and crouched on the left side of the plate. When he swings, he unleashes the most vicious uppercut this side of Mike Tyson. A Phil Plantier homerun is one of the most beautiful things in sports. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he terrorized minor league pitching like few sluggers before or since. His 33 homeruns for the Pawtucket Red Sox led the AAA International League in 1990. As a rookie in 1991, he hit 11 homeruns for the Red Sox in just 53 games. After a rough 1992 in Boston, Plantier was traded to the Padres, where he enjoyed a career year in 1993, belting 34 home-runs while driving in 100 runs. Though he never matched that performance, Plantier remains one of the most memorable sluggers of his era. He later served as a coach for the Padres.

Outfielder: Sam Fuld, Chicago Cubs, 2007-2010; Tampa Bay Rays, 2011-2013; Minnesota Twins, 2014; Oakland A's, 2014-2015

Durham-born Sam Fuld impressed enough at Phillips Exeter to earn a baseball scholarship to Stanford, one of the country's top collegiate programs. Fuld went on to become one of the most productive players in the history of the Pac-12. He played on three teams that reached the College World Series and finished his career as the conference's all-time leader in runs scored. Fuld was a journeyman outfielder throughout his decade-long big-league odyssey, highly valued for his baseball smarts and skills as a base stealer and defensive outfielder. The Stanford economics graduate parlayed his intellect into a career behind the scenes in the MLB. He is the current general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Born in Exeter, Kevin Romine's family relocated to Southern California, where he excelled on the baseball diamond and football gridiron. He received both football and baseball scholarship offers but chose to attend nearby Orange Coast College on a baseball scholarship. Romine dominated the junior college competition and earned a spot on the Arizona State baseball team. As a junior, he helped lead the Sun Devils to the College World Series and was named an All-American as a senior. Arizona State has since retired his number 12. Romine was selected in the second round of the 1982 MLB Draft by the Red Sox. Though he struggled with a number of injuries, Romine was able to put together a solid MLB career, spending the back-half of the 1980s and early 1990s with the Sox as a reserve outfielder. The apple did not fall far from the tree in the Romine family; his sons Austin and Andrew have both enjoyed long MLB careers.

Pitcher(s): Stan Williams, Lefty Tyler, Bob Tewksbury, Mike Flanagan, Brian Wilson, Chris Carpenter

It is impossible to select one pitcher to represent the Granite State's starting nine. New Hampshire has a pitching staff that could rival many states with much larger populations and climates much more amenable to year-round baseball. The best are probably Manchester's Mike Flanagan and Exeter's Chris Carpenter, the latter of whom grew up in Raymond and Bedford and starred in high school for Trinity in Manchester. Flanagan won 167 games over 18 seasons, earned an appearance to the All-Star game in 1978 and won the American League Cy Young Award in 1979. He is a member of the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame. Chris Carpenter won 144 games over 16 seasons, went to three All-Star games, won the 2005 NL Cy Young Award and earned two World Series rings as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals. He is a member of the Cardinals Hall of Fame. Rounding out the New Hampshire bullpen are Londonderry's Brian Wilson, best known for his long beard and closing out games for the San Francisco Giants during their 2010 World Series run. He earned three All-Star bids himself. Penacook's Bob Tewksbury won 110 games between 1986 and 1998 for six MLB teams. Enfield's Stan Williams pitched for a half-dozen MLB teams himself between 1958 and 1972, enjoying his best years for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Williams was as well-traveled a coach as he was a player, serving as pitching coach for six different MLB teams. Last but not least is Derry's Lefty Tyler, who won 127 games for the Boston Braves and Chicago Cubs between 1910 and 1921. He was a member of the Braves' 1914 World Championship team.

Taken together, all of New Hampshire's baseball talent is an impressive testament to the grit, determination and skill of the people in this quiet corner of New England.

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The Granite State has proved particularly fertile ground for producing big league players

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Long before managers had scouts, sabermetrics or video at their disposal, Frank Selee was one of the first master talent evaluators in baseball history. Selee himself never played an inning of major league baseball. He was working at a watch factory in Waltham, Mass., when he learned to play the game with an amateur team from nearby Melrose. In 1884, Selee quit his job and raised $1,000 to form a minor league team. His reputation for having a sharp baseball mind soon spread to the major leagues, and in 1890 Selee was named manager of the National League’s Boston Beaneaters.

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Frank Gibson Selee (October 26, 1859 - July 5, 1909) was an American Major League Baseball manager in the National League (NL). In his 16-year Major League career, he managed the Boston Beaneaters (1890-1901) and Chicago Orphans / Cubs (1902-1905), winning 1,284 games. Selee managed the Beaneaters during their 1890s run of five NL championships. His 1892 and 1898 teams each won 100 games, becoming the first teams to ever achieve the mark in baseball history (only one other team achieved the feat in the 19th century); their 102 wins in each season would not be surpassed by a National League team until 1902. After joining the Orphans, he helped build the team that would become the Cubs dynasty of the 1900s. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999.

Selee was born in Amherst, New Hampshire. He was described as a "balding little man with a modest demeanor and a formidable mustache that gave his face a melancholy cast", and was shy and reticent in public. Selee left a job at a watch manufacturer in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1884 to form a minor league team in the Massachusetts State League. In 1885 and 1886, he managed the Haverhill team in the New England League. The following year Selee managed the Oshkosh, Wisconsin based Oshkosh Indians franchise in the Northwest League, winning the league championship. In 1888 he was hired to manage at the Omaha Omahogs in the Western Association. In 1889 he led Omaha to the pennant while posting the highest team winning percentage in all of organized baseball, after signing a teenage Kid Nichols to the Omaha roster. Selee's managerial success in the minor leagues propelled him to the major leagues in 1890.

Boston Beaneaters

Selee was a rare 19th century major league manager who did not double as a player or rise from the ranks of former players. His only experiences playing professional baseball were brief roster appearances with minor league teams in Waltham and Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1884. Thereafter his only professional role was as manager.

Selee (middle row, fourth from left) with the 1892 Boston Beaneaters

In Selee's first season, he signed Kid Nichols to a major league contrac and the Beaneaters finished with a 76-57-1 record, 12 games behind the Brooklyn Bridegrooms. In the following year, the schedule increased to 140 games. His team finished 87-51-2, while winning the National League pennant by games over the Chicago Colts, their first pennant since 1883. In 1892, the schedule increased to 150 games, while having a split season. The Beaneaters went 102-48-2 overall while winning the first half of the season, with the Cleveland Spiders winning the second half; the two teams played a "World's Championship Series" at the end of the season, with Boston winning five of the seven games played. They were the first team to ever win 100 games in a single season. In 1893, the Beaneaters went 86-43-2 while winning the league pennant for the third consecutive year, winning by five games over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The 1894 season was a disappointment. Though the team had a winning record (83-49), they finished in third place, eight games behind the Baltimore Orioles. The following year, the team went 71-60-2 while finishing in a tie for fifth place with the Brooklyn Grooms and games behind the Orioles. The team rebounded a bit the following year, finishing 74-57-1 and in fourth place, although it was 17 games back of the Orioles. The 1897 season was a return to prominence as they went 93-39-3 while winning the National League pennant by two games over the Orioles. This was their fourth league pennant. After the season, the two teams played in the Temple Cup, with Boston losing in five games. The 1898 team went 102-47-3 while winning the league pennant once again, doing so by six games over the Orioles. This was the fifth and final pennant for Selee and the Beaneaters. As it turned out, it was the peak of his tenure with the team.

The following year the team went 95-57-1, placing second behind Brooklyn. The team finished the 1900 season in fourth place with a record of 66-72-4, the first sub-.500 season under Selee's reign and the first for the team since 1886. He closed out his tenure with the Beaneaters in 1901 with a 69-69-2 record and a fifth place finish ( games behind the Pirates). On September 20, he won his 1,000th career game, doing so in the second game of a doubleheader with the Chicago Orphans, winning 7-0. During his years with Boston, he won 1,004 games and lost 649, with 24 ties.

Chicago Orphans / Cubs

Selee (middle row, center) with the 1903 Chicago Cubs

In 1902, Selee was hired to manage the Chicago Orphans (which served as a name after the team fired famed manager Cap Anson, although they were also known as "Remnants"). Selee managed them to a 68-69-6 record, finishing in fifth place (34 games behind the Pirates), which was an improvement from the team's 53-86 record the previous year. The following year the team (in their first season referred to as "Cubs" in print) improved to an 82-56-1 record, finishing in 3rd place, eight games behind the pennant-winning Pirates. They improved to a 93-60-3 record in Selee's third season, finishing in second place, 13 games behind the New York Giants.

With the Cubs, Selee developed the famous Tinker-to- Evers-to- Chance infield combination, by converting Frank Chance from catcher to first base, Joe Tinker from third base to shortstop, and Johnny Evers from shortstop to second base. Selee also traded two players to the St. Louis Cardinals to acquire a rookie pitcher named Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown; Brown became a major factor in the Cubs' post-Selee success and went on to a Hall of Fame career.

The 1905 season was Selee's last in the majors, as he resigned in June due to illness; at the time, the Cubs had a record of 37-28, and Chance would lead them to a 92-61 record. It was the third straight season they had finished in the top three in the National League, which was the first time they had three consecutive seasons of first division finishes since the 1885-1891 seasons. Chance would lead the Cubs to four National League titles and two World Series victories during his tenure. The last Cubs' championship under Chance was in 1910; eight of the top thirteen players from the 1905 squad were major contributors on that 1910 club.

Selee managed the Pueblo Indians of the minor league Western League from 1906 to 1908. The team had a losing record each year and never finished higher than fifth place.[citation needed ] In 1909, Selee died of consumption (tuberculosis) at the age of 49 in Denver, Colorado, and was interred at Wyoming Cemetery in Melrose, Massachusetts.

In total, Selee had 1,284 victories in 2,180 games as a manager during his 16-year MLB career, with a winning percentage of .598. Twelve of his players went on to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Selee was noted for his ability to assess and hire talented players, which helped earn him five NL titles with the Beaneaters. He repeated the feat in Chicago, where he built the basis for the Cubs' later success by signing and developing the talents of Frank Chance, Joe Tinker, and Johnny Evers, among others. Baseball historian David Nemec wrote that Selee had "a flair for bending players acquired from here, there and everywhere. [He was] a master at putting together a team better than the sum of its parts."

In 1999, Selee was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee for his achievements as a manager. According to his bio at the Hall of Fame, "Contrary to the rough tactics of rival clubs like the Baltimore Orioles, Selee encouraged his players to play a more civilized style. His teams surpassed brawnier opponents by hitting behind runners, employing the bunt and utilizing the double steal." Selee is one of only two people from New Hampshire to be inducted into the Hall of Fame; the other is Carlton Fisk, who was enshrined in 2000.

Selee appeared as a character in the 1991 episode "Batter Up" of the animated Back to the Future series, which involved Marty McFly and the Brown children traveling back to 1897 to help one of Marty's ancestors, a player for the Beaneaters, to improve his game. Selee was portrayed without his well-known mustache.

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Frank Gibson Selee (October 26, 1859 - July 5, 1909) was an American Major League Baseball manager in the National League (NL). In his 16-year Major League career, he managed the Boston Beaneaters (1890-1901) and Chicago Orphans / Cubs (1902-1905), winning 1,284 games. Selee managed the Beaneaters during their 1890s run of five NL championships.

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Nashua’s Holman Stadium honored for historic role in racially integrating baseball

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Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella and Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Don Newcombe joined the Nashua Dodgers in the 1940s.

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National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

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Spalding Baseball World Tour Surprises - A View From the Vault