1.
Baseball
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Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each, who take turns batting and fielding. A run is scored when a player advances around the bases, Players on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to prevent runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the team who reaches a base safely can later attempt to advance to subsequent bases during teammates turns batting. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the team records three outs. One turn batting for both teams, beginning with the team, constitutes an inning. A game is composed of nine innings, and the team with the number of runs at the end of the game wins. Baseball has no clock, although almost all games end in the ninth inning. Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century and 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 sport of the United States. Baseball is now popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, in the United States and Canada, professional Major League Baseball teams are divided into the National League and American League, each with three divisions, East, West, and Central. The major league 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 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 la soule, with similarities to baseball. Other old French games such as thèque, la balle au bâton, consensus once held that todays 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, 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 other. It has long believed that cricket also descended from such games. The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, David 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 and this early form of the game was apparently brought to Canada by English immigrants
2.
New York Mets
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The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball as a club of the National League East division. The Mets are one of two Major League clubs based in New York City, the other is the New York Yankees. One of baseballs first expansion teams, the Mets were founded in 1962 to replace New Yorks departed NL teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. The Mets colors are composed of the Dodgers blue and the Giants orange, during the 1962 and 1963 seasons, the Mets played their home games at the Polo Grounds. From 1964 to 2008, the Mets home ballpark was Shea Stadium, in 2009, they moved into their current ballpark, Citi Field. In their 1962 inaugural season, the Mets posted a record of 40–120, the Mets made the playoffs in 2006 when they came within one game of the World Series, losing to the eventual champion St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS. The Mets missed the playoffs with losses on the last day of the season in 2007 and 2008. The Mets made the playoffs in 2015 for the first time in nine years, the team again returned to the playoffs in 2016, this time with a wild card berth. This is the teams second playoff appearance, the first occurring during the 1999 and 2000 seasons. With the threat of a New York team joining a new third league, for the first two years of its existence, the team played its home games at the historic Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan. In 1964, they moved into newly constructed Shea Stadium in Flushing, Queens, in 2009, the club moved into Citi Field, adjacent to the former Shea Stadium site. During their history, the Mets have won two World Series titles, five National League pennants and six National League East titles, the Mets also qualified for the postseason as the National League wild card team in 1999,2000, and 2016. The Mets have appeared in five World Series, more than any other team in MLB history. Their two championships are the most titles among expansion teams, equal to the tallies of the Toronto Blue Jays, Miami Marlins, the Mets held the New York baseball single-season attendance record for 29 years. They broke the Yankees 1948 record by drawing nearly 2.7 million spectators in 1970, the Mets broke their own record five times before the record was regained by the Yankees in 1999. The 1962 Mets posted a 40–120 record, a record for the most losses in a season since 1899, in 1966, the Mets famously bypassed future Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson in the amateur draft, instead selecting Steve Chilcott, who never played in the majors. But the following year, they acquired future Hall of Famer Tom Seaver in a lottery, in 1973, the Mets rallied from 5th place to win the division, despite a record of only 82–79
3.
Boston Red Sox
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The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball as a club of the American League East division. The Red Sox have won eight World Series championships and have played in 13, founded in 1901 as one of the American Leagues eight charter franchises, the Red Sox home ballpark has been Fenway Park since 1912. The Red Sox name was chosen by the owner, John I. Taylor, around 1908, following the lead of previous teams that had known as the Boston Red Stockings. Boston was a dominant team in the new league, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first World Series in 1903 and winning four more championships by 1918. Following their victory in the 2013 World Series, they became the first team to win three World Series trophies in the 21st century, including championships in 2004 and 2007. Red Sox history has also marked by the teams intense rivalry with the Yankees. The Boston Red Sox are owned by Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Liverpool F. C. of the Premier League in England. The Red Sox are consistently one of the top MLB teams in road attendance. From May 15,2003 to April 10,2013, the Red Sox sold out every home game—a total of 820 games for a professional sports record. Neil Diamonds Sweet Caroline has become an anthem for the Red Sox, the name Red Sox, chosen by owner John I. Taylor after the 1907 season, refers to the red hose in the team uniform beginning 1908. Sox had been adopted for the Chicago White Sox by newspapers needing a headline-friendly form of Stockings. The team name Red Sox had previously used as early as 1888 by a colored team from Norfolk. The Spanish language media sometimes refers to the team as Medias Rojas, the official Spanish site uses the variant Los Red Sox. The Red Stockings nickname was first used by a team by the Cincinnati Red Stockings. Managed by Harry Wright, Cincinnati adopted a uniform with white knickers and red stockings and earned the famous nickname, the Boston Red Stockings won four championships in the five seasons of the new National Association, the first professional league. Other names were used before Boston officially adopted the nickname Braves in 1912
4.
American Broadcasting Company
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The network is headquartered on Columbus Avenue and West 66th Street in Manhattan, New York City. There are additional offices and production facilities elsewhere in New York City, as well as in Los Angeles and Burbank. Since 2007, when ABC Radio was sold to Citadel Broadcasting, ABC originally launched on October 12,1943, as a radio network, separated from and serving as the successor to the NBC Blue Network, which had been purchased by Edward J. Noble. It extended its operations to television in 1948, following in the footsteps of established broadcast networks CBS, in the mid-1950s, ABC merged with United Paramount Theatres, a chain of movie theaters that formerly operated as a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. Leonard Goldenson, who had been the head of UPT, made the new television network profitable by helping develop, in 1996, most of Capital Cities/ABCs assets were purchased by The Walt Disney Company. The television network has eight owned-and-operated and over 232 affiliated television stations throughout the United States, most Canadians have access to at least one U. S. ABC News provides news and features content for radio stations owned by Citadel Broadcasting. In the 1930s, radio in the United States was dominated by three companies, the Columbia Broadcasting System, the Mutual Broadcasting System and the National Broadcasting Company. The last was owned by electronics manufacturer Radio Corporation of America, in 1938, the FCC began a series of investigations into the practices of radio networks and published its report on the broadcasting of network radio programs in 1940. The report recommended that RCA give up control of either NBC Red or NBC Blue, at that time, the NBC Red Network was the principal radio network in the United States and, according to the FCC, RCA was using NBC Blue to eliminate any hint of competition. Once Mutuals appeals against the FCC were rejected, RCA decided to sell NBC Blue in 1941, the newly separated NBC Red and NBC Blue divided their respective corporate assets. Investment firm Dillon, Read & Co. offered $7.5 million to purchase the network, Edward John Noble, the owner of Life Savers candy, drugstore chain Rexall and New York City radio station WMCA, purchased the network for $8 million. Due to FCC ownership rules, the transaction, which was to include the purchase of three RCA stations by Noble, would require him to resell his station with the FCCs approval, the Commission authorized the transaction on October 12,1943. Soon afterward, the Blue Network was purchased by the new company Noble founded, Noble subsequently acquired the rights to the American Broadcasting Company name from George B. Meanwhile, in August 1944, the West Coast division of the Blue Network, both stations were then managed by Don Searle, the vice-president of the Blue Networks West Coast division. The ABC Radio Network created its audience slowly, the network also became known for such suspenseful dramas as Sherlock Holmes, Gang Busters and Counterspy, as well as several mid-afternoon youth-oriented programs. S. From Nazi Germany after its conquest, to pre-record its programming, while its radio network was undergoing reconstruction, ABC found it difficult to avoid falling behind on the new medium of television. To ensure a space, in 1947, ABC submitted five applications for television station licenses, the ABC television network made its debut on April 19,1948, with WFIL-TV in Philadelphia becoming its first primary affiliate
5.
NBC
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The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcast television network that is the flagship property of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The network is part of the Big Three television networks, founded in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America, NBC is the oldest major broadcast network in the United States. Following the acquisition by GE, Bob Wright served as executive officer of NBC, remaining in that position until his retirement in 2007. In 2003, French media company Vivendi merged its entertainment assets with GE, Comcast purchased a controlling interest in the company in 2011, and acquired General Electrics remaining stake in 2013. Following the Comcast merger, Zucker left NBC Universal and was replaced as CEO by Comcast executive Steve Burke, during a period of early broadcast business consolidation, radio manufacturer Radio Corporation of America acquired New York City radio station WEAF from American Telephone & Telegraph. Westinghouse, a shareholder in RCA, had an outlet in Newark, New Jersey pioneer station WJZ. This station was transferred from Westinghouse to RCA in 1923, WEAF acted as a laboratory for AT&Ts manufacturing and supply outlet Western Electric, whose products included transmitters and antennas. The Bell System, AT&Ts telephone utility, was developing technologies to transmit voice- and music-grade audio over short and long distances, the 1922 creation of WEAF offered a research-and-development center for those activities. WEAF maintained a schedule of radio programs, including some of the first commercially sponsored programs. In an early example of chain or networking broadcasting, the station linked with Outlet Company-owned WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, AT&T refused outside companies access to its high-quality phone lines. The early effort fared poorly, since the telegraph lines were susceptible to atmospheric. In 1925, AT&T decided that WEAF and its network were incompatible with the companys primary goal of providing a telephone service. AT&T offered to sell the station to RCA in a deal that included the right to lease AT&Ts phone lines for network transmission, the divisions ownership was split among RCA, its founding corporate parent General Electric and Westinghouse. NBC officially started broadcasting on November 15,1926, WEAF and WJZ, the flagships of the two earlier networks, were operated side-by-side for about a year as part of the new NBC. On April 5,1927, NBC expanded to the West Coast with the launch of the NBC Orange Network and this was followed by the debut of the NBC Gold Network, also known as the Pacific Gold Network, on October 18,1931. The Orange Network carried Red Network programming, and the Gold Network carried programming from the Blue Network, initially, the Orange Network recreated Eastern Red Network programming for West Coast stations at KPO in San Francisco. The Orange Network name was removed from use in 1936, at the same time, the Gold Network became part of the Blue Network. In the 1930s, NBC also developed a network for shortwave radio stations, in 1927, NBC moved its operations to 711 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, occupying the upper floors of a building designed by architect Floyd Brown
6.
Houston Astros
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The Houston Astros are an American professional baseball team based in Houston, Texas. The Astros are members of the American League West division in Major League Baseball, the Astros have played their home games at Minute Maid Park since 2000. The Astros were established as the Houston Colt. 45s and entered the National League in 1962 with the expansion New York Mets. The current name—reflecting Houstons role as the center of the U. S. space program—was adopted three years later, when they moved into the Astrodome, the worlds first domed sports stadium. The Astros played in the NL from 1962 to 2012 and they played in the West division from 1969 to 1993, and the Central division from 1994 to 2012. The Astros have played in one World Series in 2005 against the Chicago White Sox, from 1888 until 1961, Houstons professional baseball club was the minor league Houston Buffaloes. Although expansion from the National League eventually brought an MLB team to Texas in 1962, Houston officials had been making efforts to do so for years prior. There were four men responsible for bringing Major League Baseball to Houston, George Kirksey and Craig Cullinan. They formed the Houston Sports Association as their vehicle for attaining a big league franchise for the city of Houston and they called the new league the Continental League. Wanting to protect potential new markets, both existing leagues chose to expand from eight teams to ten, however, plans eventually fell through for the Houston franchise after the Houston Buffaloes owner, Marty Marion, could not come to an agreement with the HSA to sell the team. To make matters worse, the Continental League as a whole folded in August 1960, however, on October 17,1960, the National League granted an expansion franchise to the Houston Sports Association in which their team could begin play in the 1962 season. Eventually, the Houston Sports Association succeeded in purchasing the Houston Buffaloes, at this point majority-owned by William Hopkins, the Buffs played one last minor league season as the top farm team of the Chicago Cubs in 1961 before being succeeded by the citys NL club. The new Houston team was named the Colt. 45s after a Name The Team contest was won by William Irving Neder, the Colt.45 was well known as the gun that won the west. The colors selected were blue and orange. The first team was formed mostly through a draft after the 1961 season. The Colt. 45s and their cousins, the New York Mets. Many of those associated with the Houston Buffaloes organization were allowed by the ownership to continue in the major league, Manager Harry Craft, who had joined Houston in 1961, remained in the same position for the team until the end of the 1964 season. General manager Spec Richardson also continued with the organization as business manager, similarly, the radio broadcasting team remained with the new Houston major league franchise
7.
Astrodome
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The NRG Astrodome, also known as the Houston Astrodome or simply The Astrodome, is the worlds first multi-purpose, domed sports stadium, located in Houston, Texas. Construction on the began in 1962, and it officially opened in 1965. Additionally, the Astrodome was the venue of the Houston Livestock Show. When opened, it was named the Harris County Domed Stadium and was nicknamed the Eighth Wonder of the World, while originally utilizing a natural grass playing surface, the Astrodome became the first major sports venue to feature artificial turf, which became known as AstroTurf. In another technological first, the Astrodome featured the Astrolite, which was the first animated scoreboard, the Astrodome received considerable renovations in 1988 that significantly expanded seating, and altered many original features. By the 1990s, the Astrodome was becoming obsolete, unable to secure a new stadium, Oilers owner Bud Adams moved the team to Tennessee after the 1996 season, where they eventually became the Tennessee Titans. Although it no longer had any primary tenants, the venue regularly hosted events during the 2000s, the Astrodome was declared non-compliant with fire code by the Houston Fire Department in 2008 and parts of it were demolished in 2013 after several years of disuse. In 2014 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 2017, the Texas Historical Commission designated the Astrodome a State Antiquities Landmark. Major League Baseball expanded to Houston in 1960 when the National League agreed to add two teams, the Houston Colt. 45s were to begin play in 1962, along with their expansion brethren New York Mets. Roy Hofheinz, a mayor of Houston, and his group were granted the franchise after they promised to build a covered stadium. It was thought a covered stadium was a must for a league team to be viable in Houston due to the areas subtropical climate. Game-time temperatures are usually above 97 °F in July and August, with high humidity, Hofheinz abandoned his interest in the worlds first air-conditioned shopping mall, The Galleria, and set his sights on bringing major league baseball to Houston. The Astrodome was designed by architects Hermon Lloyd & W. B, morgan, and Wilson, Morris, Crain and Anderson. Structural engineering and structural design was performed by Walter P Moore Engineers and it was constructed by H. A. Lott, Inc. for Harris County, Texas. It stands 18 stories tall, covering 9.5 acres, the dome is 710 feet in diameter and the ceiling is 208 feet above the playing surface, which itself sits 25 feet below street level. The scoreboard, eventually known as the Astrolite, was designed by Fair Play Scoreboards of Des Moines, having designed the scoreboard for Dodger Stadium several years prior, team owner Roy Hofheinz was not impressed with the initial proposal for a much more generic type of scoreboard. Project designer Jack Foster teamed up with a creative professional based in Kansas City to create the first animated scoreboard and its reported cost was $2.1 million. The Dome was completed in November 1964, six ahead of schedule
8.
Roger Clemens
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William Roger Clemens, nicknamed Rocket, is a retired American baseball pitcher who played 24 seasons in Major League Baseball for four teams. Clemens was one of the most dominant pitchers in major league history, tallying 354 wins, a 3.12 earned run average, and 4,672 strikeouts, the third-most all time. An 11-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion, he won seven Cy Young Awards during his career, Clemens was known for his fierce competitive nature and hard-throwing pitching style, which he used to intimidate batters. Clemens debuted in the leagues in 1984 with the Boston Red Sox. In 1986, he won the American League Cy Young Award, the AL Most Valuable Player Award, and the All-Star Game MVP Award, after the 1996 season, Clemens left Boston via free agency and joined the Toronto Blue Jays. In each of his two seasons with Toronto, Clemens won a Cy Young Award, as well as the triple crown by leading the league in wins, ERA. Prior to the 1999 season, Clemens was traded to the New York Yankees where he won his two World Series titles, in 2003, he reached his 300th win and 4, 000th strikeout in the same game. Clemens left for the Houston Astros in 2004, where he spent three seasons and won his seventh Cy Young Award and he rejoined the Yankees in 2007 for one last season before retiring. Clemens was alleged by the Mitchell Report to have used steroids during his late career. Clemens firmly denied these allegations under oath before the United States Congress, leading congressional leaders to refer his case to the Justice Department on suspicions of perjury. On August 19,2010, a grand jury at the U. S. District Court in Washington, D. C. indicted Clemens on six felony counts involving perjury, false statements. Clemens pleaded not guilty, but proceedings were complicated by prosecutorial misconduct, the verdict from his second trial came in June 2012. Clemens was found not guilty on all six counts of lying to Congress in 2008, Clemens was born in Dayton, Ohio, the fifth child of Bill and Bess Clemens. He is of German descent, his great-grandfather Joseph Clemens having immigrated in the 1880s, Clemens parents separated when he was an infant. His mother soon married Woody Booher, whom Clemens considers his father, Booher died when Clemens was nine years old, and Clemens has said that the only time he ever felt envious of other players was when he saw them in the clubhouse with their fathers. Clemens lived in Vandalia, Ohio, until 1977, and then spent most of his school years in Houston. At Spring Woods High School, Clemens played baseball for head coach Charles Maiorana. He was scouted by the Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins during his senior year and he began his college career pitching for San Jacinto College North in 1981, where he was 9–2
9.
University of Arizona
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The University of Arizona is a public research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885, the UA was the first university in the Arizona Territory, the university operates two medical schools and is affiliated with the regions only academic medical centers. The university is home to the James E. Rogers College of Law and numerous other nationally ranked graduate. During the 2015-2016 academic year, there was an enrollment of 43,088 students. The University of Arizona is governed by the Arizona Board of Regents, the University of Arizona is one of the elected members of the Association of American Universities and is the only representative from the state of Arizona to this group. Known as the Arizona Wildcats, the teams are members of the Pac-12 Conference of the NCAA. UA athletes have won titles in several sports, most notably mens basketball, baseball. The official colors of the university and its teams are UA Red. After the passage of the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862, the push for a university in Arizona grew, the University of Arizona was approved by the Arizona Territorys Thieving Thirteenth Legislature in 1885, which also selected the city of Tucson to receive the appropriation to build the university. Tucson had hoped to receive the appropriation for the mental hospital. Tucson was largely disappointed with receiving what was viewed as an inferior prize. Construction of Old Main, the first building on campus, began on October 27,1887, and classes met for the first time in 1891 with 32 students in Old Main, which is still in use today. Because there were no schools in Arizona Territory, the university maintained separate preparatory classes for the first 23 years of operation. The University of Arizona offers 334 fields of study leading to bachelors, masters, doctoral, academic departments and programs are organized into colleges and schools. Currently, grades are given on a strict 4-point scale with A worth 4, B worth 3, C worth 2, D worth 1 and E worth zero points. In 2004, there were discussions with students and faculty that may lead the UA towards eventual usage of the grading system in future years. As of December 2015, the university uses the 4-points scale. The Center for World University Rankings in 2015 ranked Arizona 68th in the world, the 2015–16 Times Higher Education World University Rankings rated University of Arizona 163rd in the world and the 2016/17 QS World University Rankings ranked it 233rd
10.
World Series
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The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball in North America, contested since 1903 between the American League champion team and the National League champion team. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a playoff. As the series is played in October, during the season in North America. As of 2016, the World Series has been contested 112 times, with the AL winning 64, the 2016 World Series took place between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs. Seven games were played, with the Cubs victorious after game seven, the final score was 8–7, the game went into extra innings after a tied score of 6–6. This was the third World Series won by the Cubs, as well as their first title since 1908, in the National League, the St. As of 2016, no team has won consecutive World Series championships since the New York Yankees in 1998,1999, all championships were awarded to the team with the best record at the end of the season, without a postseason series being played. From 1884 to 1890, the National League and the American Association faced each other in a series of games at the end of the season to determine an overall champion. These series were disorganized in comparison to the modern World Series, the number of games played ranged from as few as three in 1884, to a high of fifteen in 1887. Both the 1885 and 1890 Series ended in ties, each team having won three games with one tie game, the series was promoted and referred to as The Championship of the United States, Worlds Championship Series, or Worlds Series for short. In his book Krakatoa, The Day the World Exploded, August 27,1883, Simon Winchester mentions in passing that the World Series was named for the New York World newspaper, but this view is disputed. Until about 1960, some sources treated the 19th-century Series on a basis with the post-19th-century series. After about 1930, however, many authorities list the start of the World Series in 1903, following the collapse of the American Association after the 1891 season, the National League was again the only major league. The league championship was awarded in 1892 by a playoff between half-season champions and this scheme was abandoned after one season. Beginning in 1893—and continuing until divisional play was introduced in 1969—the pennant was awarded to the club in the standings at the end of the season. For four seasons, 1894–1897, the league played the runners-up in the post season championship series called the Temple Cup. A second attempt at this format was the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup series, in 1901, the American League was formed as a second major league. No championship series were played in 1901 or 1902 as the National and these series were arranged by the participating clubs, as the 1880s Worlds Series matches had been
