1.
AT&T Park
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AT&T Park is a baseball park located in the South Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Since 2000, it has served as the home of the San Francisco Giants, originally named Pacific Bell Park, then SBC Park in 2003 after SBC Communications acquired Pacific Bell, the stadium was ultimately christened AT&T Park in 2006 following SBCs buyout of AT&T. The park stands along the San Francisco Bay, a segment of which is named McCovey Cove in honor of former Giants player Willie McCovey, AT&T Park has also played host to both professional and collegiate American football games. Professionally, AT&T Park was the home of the San Francisco Demons of the XFL, the stadium can be reached via San Franciscos Muni Metro, the 2nd and King Station is directly outside the ballpark. Originally designed to be a 42, 000-seat stadium, there were slight modifications before the design was complete. When the ballpark was brought to the box in the fall of 1996 for voter approval. Also the center-field scoreboard was atop the wall and the Giants Pavilion Building were two separate buildings. Groundbreaking on the ballpark began on December 11,1997, in the waterfront area of San Francisco known as China Basin in the up-and-coming neighborhoods of South Beach. The stadium cost $357 million to build and supplanted the Giants former home, Candlestick Park, a team of engineers from UC Davis was consulted in the design process of the park resulting in wind levels that are approximately half those at Candlestick. Fans had shivered through 40 seasons at The Stick and looked forward to warmer temperatures at the new ballpark, when it opened on March 31,2000, the ballpark was the first Major League ballpark built without public funds since the completion of Dodger Stadium in 1962. However, the Giants did receive a $10 million tax abatement from the city, the Giants have a 66-year lease on the 12. 5-acre ballpark site, paying $1.2 million in rent annually to the San Francisco Port Commission. The park opened with a capacity of 40,800. In April 2010, the became the first MLB ballpark to receive LEED Silver Certification for Existing Buildings, Operations. The opening series took place April 11–13,2000 against the Los Angeles Dodgers, in the first game of that series, the Giants lost 6–5, highlighted by three home runs from the Dodgers Kevin Elster. On May 1,2000, Barry Bonds became the first player to hit a splash hit home run into McCovey Cove, in just its first few years of existence, the ballpark saw its share of historic events primarily due to veteran Giants outfielder Barry Bonds. On April 17,2001, Bonds hit his 500th career home run at then-Pacific Bell Park. Later that year, he set the season home run record when he hit home runs number 71,72. On August 9,2002, Bonds hit his 600th career home run at the park
2.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
3.
Dusty Baker
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Dusty Baker Jr. is an American Major League Baseball manager and a former player. He is currently the manager for the Washington Nationals and he enjoyed a 19-year career as a hard-hitting outfielder, primarily with the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers. He helped the Dodgers to pennants in 1977 and 1978 and to the World Series championship in 1981 and he then enjoyed a 20-year career as a manager with the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, and now the Washington Nationals. He led the Giants to the 2002 National League pennant and also reached the playoffs with the three teams. Baker was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 1967 amateur draft out of Del Campo High School near Sacramento, Baker was inducted into the Sac-Joaquin Sections Hall of Fame class in 2010 for his play at Del Campo. He began his major league career as an outfielder for the Braves in 1968. As a Brave, he earned a spot as a footnote in history, on April 8,1974, he was on deck when Hank Aaron hit home run 715 to pass Babe Ruth in career home runs. A few of Bakers accomplishments as a player playing for the National League All-Star team in 1981 and 1982. Baker ultimately won a World Series title in 1981 with the Dodgers, however, Baker played poorly during the series, batting.167 with an OBP of.192.278 batting average,242 home runs, and 1,013 runs batted in. He played his season in 1986. It was the last day of the season, and Dodgers leftfielder Dusty Baker had just gone deep off the Astros J. R. Richard. It was Bakers 30th home run, making the Dodgers the first team in history to have four sluggers – Baker, Ron Cey, Steve Garvey and it was a wild, triumphant moment and a good omen as the Dodgers headed to the playoffs. Burke, waiting on deck, thrust his hand enthusiastically over his head to greet his friend at the plate, Baker, not knowing what to do, smacked it. His hand was up in the air, and he was arching way back, says Baker, now 62, so I reached up and hit his hand. It seemed like the thing to do and he is noted for his love of toothpicks. He chews them every game and was quoted saying, Toothpicks are an excellent source of protein. His Giants went on to win titles in 1997 and again in 2000. It was during his San Francisco tenure that the term Dustiny was coined by former Giants pitcher Rod Beck, Baker is infamously known for removing Russ Ortiz during Game 6 of the 2002 World Series despite Ortiz allowing only four hits
4.
San Francisco Giants
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The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball franchise based in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1883 as the New York Gothams, and renamed three years later to the New York Giants, the team moved to San Francisco in 1958. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball as a club of the National League West division. As one of the longest-established and most successful baseball teams. The team was the first major team based in New York City. They have won 23 NL pennants and have played in 20 World Series competitions – both NL records, the Giants eight World Series championships rank second in the National League and are tied for fourth overall. The Giants have played in the World Series 20 times –14 times in New York, six in San Francisco –, the Giants franchise has the most Hall of Fame players in all of professional baseball. The Giants rivalry with the Dodgers is one of the longest-standing, the teams began their rivalry as the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers, respectively, before both franchises moved west for the 1958 season. The Giants have won six pennants and three World Series championships since arriving in San Francisco and those three championships have come in 2010,2012, and most recently in 2014, having defeated the Kansas City Royals four games to three during the 2014 World Series. The Giants began as the baseball club founded by millionaire tobacconist John B. Day and veteran amateur baseball player Jim Mutrie, the Gothams, as the Giants were originally known, entered the National League in 1883, while their other club, the Metropolitans played in the American Association. Nearly half of the original Gotham players were members of the disbanded Troy Trojans, Louis Browns in a pre-modern-era World Series. They repeated as champions the year with a pennant and Championship victory over the Brooklyn Bridegrooms. It is said that one particularly satisfying victory over the Philadelphia Phillies, Mutrie. From then on, the club was known as the Giants, the Giants original home stadium, the Polo Grounds, dates from this early era. It was originally located north of Central Park adjacent to 5th and 6th Avenues and 110th and 112th Streets, the Giants were a powerhouse in the late 1880s, winning their first two National League Pennants and World Championships in 1888 and 1889. But nearly all of the Giants stars jumped to the upstart Players League, whose New York franchise was named the Giants. The new team built a stadium next door to the Polo Grounds
5.
Major League Baseball
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Major League Baseball is a professional baseball organization, the oldest of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. A total of 30 teams now play in the National League and American League, the NL and AL operated as separate legal entities from 1876 and 1901 respectively. After cooperating but remaining legally separate entities since 1903, the merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball in 2000. The organization also oversees Minor League Baseball, which comprises about 240 teams affiliated with the Major League clubs, with the World Baseball Softball Confederation, MLB manages the international World Baseball Classic tournament. Baseballs first professional team was founded in Cincinnati in 1869,30 years after Abner Doubleday supposedly invented the game of baseball, the first few decades of professional baseball were characterized by rivalries between leagues and by players who often jumped from one team or league to another. The period before 1920 in baseball was known as the dead-ball era, Baseball survived a conspiracy to fix the 1919 World Series, which came to be known as the Black Sox Scandal. The sport rose in popularity in the 1920s, and survived potential downturns during the Great Depression, shortly after the war, baseballs color barrier was broken by Jackie Robinson. The 1950s and 1960s were a time of expansion for the AL and NL, then new stadiums, Home runs dominated the game during the 1990s, and media reports began to discuss the use of anabolic steroids among Major League players in the mid-2000s. In 2006, an investigation produced the Mitchell Report, which implicated many players in the use of performance-enhancing substances, today, MLB is composed of thirty teams, twenty-nine in the United States and one in Canada. Baseball broadcasts are aired on television, radio, and the Internet throughout North America, MLB has the highest season attendance of any sports league in the world with more than 73 million spectators in 2015. MLB is governed by the Major League Baseball Constitution and this document has undergone several incarnations since 1875, with the most recent revisions being made in 2012. Under the direction of the Commissioner of Baseball, MLB hires and maintains the sports umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, MLB maintains a unique, controlling relationship over the sport, including most aspects of Minor League Baseball. This ruling has been weakened only slightly in subsequent years, the weakened ruling granted more stability to the owners of teams and has resulted in values increasing at double-digit rates. There were several challenges to MLBs primacy in the sport between the 1870s and the Federal League in 1916, the last attempt at a new league was the aborted Continental League in 1960. The chief executive of MLB is the commissioner, Rob Manfred, the chief operating officer is Tony Petitti. There are five other executives, president, chief officer, chief legal officer, chief financial officer. The multimedia branch of MLB, which is based in Manhattan, is MLB Advanced Media and this branch oversees MLB. com and each of the 30 teams websites. Its charter states that MLB Advanced Media holds editorial independence from the league, MLB Productions is a similarly structured wing of the league, focusing on video and traditional broadcast media
6.
Fox Sports Networks
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At the dawn of the cable television era, many regional sports networks vied to compete with the largest national sports network, ESPN. That same year, Fox purchased SportSouth from Turner and rebranded that network as Fox Sports South, on July 11,2000, Comcast purchased a majority interest in the Minneapolis-based Midwest Sports Channel and Baltimore-based Home Team Sports from Viacom. News Corporation, a minority owner in both networks, wanted to acquire them outright and integrate the two networks into Fox Sports Net, the company filed a lawsuit against Comcast ten days later on July 21, in an attempt to block the sale. Fox Sports Chicago ceased operations in June 2006, after losing the cable television rights to local professional teams two years earlier to the newly launched Comcast SportsNet Chicago. On May 4,2009, DirecTV Group Inc, despite Cablevisions sale of the networks, the channels continued to use Fox Sports Net/National Sports Partners in its copyright tag until 2008. On April 1,2011, DirecTV Sports Networks rebranded its FSN regional affiliates under the Root Sports brand, in 2012, FSN/Fox Sports Local relocated its headquarters from the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California to Houston, Texas. It was also in 2012 when FSN/Fox Sports Local was re-branded to its current branding, the FSN owned-and-operated networks were spun off along with most of News Corporations U. S. entertainment properties into 21st Century Fox on July 1,2013. FSN has often served as the ground for innovations in sports broadcast graphics developed by Fox. The Fox Sports Networks were the first U. S. sports channels to introduce a graphic to display the games score. Since FSN implemented with the banner graphic, many other major networks have abandoned the corner box graphic in favor of the bar. FSN first used the banner for most of its broadcasts beginning in 2001. For baseball broadcasts, a baseball diamond graphic was placed on the far left with the pitch count/speed on the right side. In mid-July 2003, Fox Sports Net adopted new graphics for its baseball broadcasts, Fox Sports Net would formally become known as FSN in September 2004. In mid-June 2005, the banner was given a cosmetic upgrade, the FSN logo at far right was also rendered in a black ovular shape with the region name rendered in white. It also phased in a package designed by Troika Design Group – however, in-game graphics still used the previous. From September 2012 to September 2013, Fox syndicated select college football games produced by the Fox Sports regional networks to broadcast television stations in some of these markets. Comcast Sports Net Mid-Atlantic resumed airing select Fox Sports-produced ACC games in 2013, however, as of 2015, most of Fox Sports Networks other programming is presently carried in the Baltimore and Washington, D. C. Fox College Sports also broadcasts high school and Independent Womens Football League games, Fox College Sports formerly partnered with Big Ten Network to provide programming
7.
Mike Krukow
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Michael Edward Krukow is a former starting pitcher in Major League Baseball. He is currently a color commentator for the San Francisco Giants. Krukow attended San Gabriel High School in San Gabriel, California and he was drafted as a catcher by the California Angels in the 32nd round of the 1970 Major League Baseball Draft but did not sign. Krukow played college baseball for the Cal Poly Mustangs in San Luis Obispo, though his collegiate eligibility was cut short, he still holds the school record for career earned run average at 1.94 and is tied for most shutouts in a season with 5. Krukow was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 8th round of the 1973 draft, Krukow played Major League baseball for the Chicago Cubs, the Philadelphia Phillies and the San Francisco Giants. Krukow had a career in the major leagues. In 1982, after six years with the Cubs, he was dealt to Philadelphia for pitchers Dickie Noles and Dan Larson and outfielder Keith Moreland. The trade helped Philadelphia win the National League pennant in 1983, although known as a starter, Krukow earned his only career save on August 31,1984, pitching to just one batter, inducing a game-ending groundout, therefore preserving a 6–5 Giant victory. Krukows best season was in 1986, posting a record of 20-9 with a 3.05 ERA pitching for the San Francisco Giants, Krukow finished third in that years NL Cy Young Award voting behind Mike Scott and Fernando Valenzuela. Krukow was selected to the National League All-Star team that season and he was awarded the Willie Mac Award in both 1985 and 1986 honoring his spirit and leadership. In 1987, Krukow helped lead the Giants to their first division championship in 16 years, in his 14-season career, Krukow posted a 124-117 record with 1,478 strikeouts and a 3.90 ERA in 2190.1 innings pitched. After his playing career, Krukow became a radio and television sportscaster, Krukow began broadcasting as an occasional color analyst for KNBR radio in 1990 and became a full-time broadcaster in 1994. He is a seven-time Emmy award winner and he is known for his detailed scouting reports on umpires strike zones. He is often teased by his broadcasting colleagues throughout the leagues for having majestic hair. Part of the San Francisco Giants broadcasting team, Krukow is half of the duo dubbed Kruk and Kuip, along with partner Duane Kuiper, Krukow and Kuiper tape a game-day commentary for KNBR radio as part of the Giants pre-game radio coverage. Notably, although Krukow was a pitcher and Kuiper was a player, Krukow has five career home runs. Krukow has a few Kruktionary catchphrases, including, Grab some pine, meat, Just another, ha ha ha ha, the last of which is associated with a product endorsement. Krukow and Kuiper can be heard as the commentators in Electronic Arts video games MVP Baseball 2003,2004 and 2005 and they include Krukows familiar grab some pine, meat quote
8.
Road (sports)
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A road game or away game is a sports game where the specified team is not the host and must travel to another venue. Most professional teams represent cities or towns and amateur sports teams often represent academic institutions, each team has a location where it practices during the season and where it hosts games. When a team is not the host, it must travel to games. Thus, when a team is not hosting a game, the team is described as the team, the visiting team, or the away team. The venue in which the game is played is described as the stadium or the road. The host team is said to be the home team, major sporting events, if not held at a neutral venue, are often over several legs at each teams home ground, so that neither team has an advantage over the other. Occasionally, the team may not have to travel very far at all to a road game. These matches often become local derbies, a few times a year, a road team may even be lucky enough to have the road game played at their own home stadium or arena. This is prevalent in college athletics where many schools will play in regional leagues or groundshare. The related term true road game has seen increasing use in U. S. college sports in the 21st century, while regular-season tournaments and other special events have been part of college sports from their creation, the 21st century has seen a proliferation of such events. These are typically held at sites, with some of them taking place outside the contiguous U. S. or even outside the country entirely. In turn, this has led to the use of true road game to refer to contests played at one home venue. In some association football leagues, particularly in Europe, the teams fans sit in their own section. Depending on the stadium, they will either sit in a designated section or be separated from the home fans by a cordon of police officers. However, in the leagues in England, supporters may be free to mix. When games are played at a site, for instance the FA Cup final in England which is always played at Wembley Stadium. This results in each team occupying one half of the stadium and this is different from other sports, particularly in North America, where very few fans travel to games played away from their home stadium. Home and away fans are not separated at these games
9.
Boof Bonser
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Boof Bonser is a retired professional American baseball pitcher. Bonser attended Gibbs High School, compiling a record of 24-9, in his senior year, he went 7-3,1.88 and hit.523 with 11 home runs. He was named the 2000 Pinellas County High School Player of the Year, Bonser was selected out of high school by the San Francisco Giants in the first round of the 2000 amateur draft. Bonser made his professional debut at age 18 for the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes. After the season, he had his first name legally changed to his childhood nickname, from 2002 through 2003, Bonser progressed steadily through the Giants system, reaching the Triple-A level at the end of the 2003 season with the Fresno Grizzlies. On November 14,2003, Bonser was traded to the Minnesota Twins organization, along with pitchers Joe Nathan and Francisco Liriano, for catcher A. J. Pierzynski, and cash. Bonser was assigned to AA New Britain for 2004, and was promoted to the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings for a start at the end of the season. Bonser was inducted into the Hagerstown Suns Hall of Fame on May 14th,2016, in six innings, Bonser allowed one run and struck out eight. On May 27, his start, Bonser earned his first major league victory. Bonser pitched five innings, giving up eight hits and four runs and he pitched 6⅓ scoreless innings, allowing six hits and no walks, with one strikeout. After a disappointing start against the Kansas City Royals on July 4 and he had made seven MLB starts, going 2-2 with a 5.30 ERA. By August 12, Liriano had been placed on the DL, although he lost the game, allowing seven hits and three runs over 5⅔ innings, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire decided to keep him in the starting rotation. As the Twins pushed for a spot in 2006, Bonser solidified the fifth starters job. Then, a string of injuries and ineffective pitching by the other Twins pitchers and Bonsers commanding recent performances earned him the #2 spot in the Twins postseason rotation. In his postseason start, he pitched six innings, allowing two runs, to pick up a no-decision as the Twins lost to the Oakland Athletics, Bonser was named the AL Rookie of the Month for September,2006 for his performances in the final month of the season. Bonser began the 2007 season as the pitcher in the Twins rotation. Bonsers first two starts were dramatically different, as he followed his 6 IP,2 ER debut by allowing 6 ER in 4⅓ IP and he then responded with a string of quality starts, but was 2-9 after Memorial Day. He finished the season with an 8-12 record with a run average of 5.10 and had 136 strikeouts in 173 innings pitched
10.
Shawn Estes
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Aaron Shawn Estes is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. After he attended Douglas High School in Minden, Nevada, he was offered a scholarship by Stanford University. He turned it down, however, in favor of signing with the Seattle Mariners after he was selected by the Mariners in the 1st round of the 1991 MLB Draft out of Douglas High School and he began his career with the Bellingham Mariners in A ball in 1991. He then played with the Appleton Foxes, Arizona League Mariners, the Mariners traded Estes to the San Francisco Giants on May 21,1995 for Salomón Torres. The Giants moved him through their farm system rapidly during the 1995 season, sending him to the Burlington Bees, San Jose Giants and Shreveport Captains. Estes made his Major League debut with the Giants on September 16,1995 and he allowed five earned runs and collected the loss. He was 0-3 in three starts for the Giants that September, Estes returned to the minors to start the 1996 season with the Phoenix Firebirds, but was recalled to the Majors to start a game against the rival Los Angeles Dodgers on July 13. Estes worked seven innings to record his first career victory. Estes had his best season as a professional in 1997, when he went 19-5 with a 3.18 ERA for the San Francisco Giants and he was selected to the NL All-Star team during this season. He also has 4 career home runs and 28 RBIs, including a grand slam in 2000. Before Madison Bumgarner in 2014, Shawn Estes had the distinction of being the first pitcher in Giants franchise history to hit a grand slam, the Giants traded Estes to the New York Mets on December 16,2001 for Desi Relaford and Tsuyoshi Shinjo. The Mets signed him to a 6.2 million dollar contract, on June 15,2002, Estes found himself at the center of a controversy when he started against the New York Yankees against Roger Clemens. In 2000, Clemens had beaned Mets catcher Mike Piazza, followed by the incident in Game 2 of the 2000 World Series in which Clemens threw a bat at Piazza. With the fans standing in anticipation of the showdown, Estes first pitch was a fastball that was about a foot behind Clemens. Estes would hit a homer off Clemens in the fifth inning of the eventual 8-0 Mets win, setting off a loud roar from the sellout crowd of 54,347. He pitched in six games for the Reds, finishing 1-3 with a 7.71 ERA, Estes signed a 1-year deal with the Cubs in 2003. He was moved to the bullpen towards September due to his struggles on the mound, however, on September 24th with the Cubs holding a one game lead over the Houston Astros, Estes pitched a complete-game shutout en route to an 8-0 Cubs win at Cincinnati. Three days later, the Cubs wrapped up the division and he ultimately finished the season with a record of 8-11,5.73 ERA in 28 starts
11.
1969 Major League Baseball season
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The 1969 Major League Baseball season was celebrated as the 100th anniversary of professional baseball, honoring the first professional touring baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. It was the first season of what is now called the Divisional Era, the winners of each division would compete against each other in a League Championship Series, then best-of-five, to determine the pennant winners that would face each other in the World Series. In a year marked by the expansion of the decade, the New York Mets. East Division with a league-best 100–62 record, and sweeping the N. L, West Division Champion Atlanta Braves in three games in the first National League Championship Series, the Miracle Mets became the first expansion team to win a pennant. East Division Champion Orioles, holders of the best record in baseball, West Division Champion Minnesota Twins in three games in the first American League Championship Series. The upstart Mets upset the heavily favored Orioles and won the World Series title in five games, in an effort to counteract a trend of low-scoring games, Major League Baseball adopted two measures during the Baseball Winter Meetings held in December 1968. The strike zone was reduced to the area over home plate between the armpits and the top of the knees of a batter. Also, the height of the mound was reduced from 15 inches to 10 inches. A save became an official MLB statistic to reward relief pitchers who preserve a lead while finishing a game, MLB called for a four-team expansion to take place in 1971 at the 1967 Winter Meetings, the first expansion since 1962. However, there was a complication, influential U. S, the Leagues agreed and moved expansion up to 1969, with the AL putting one of its new franchises in Kansas City. Ewing Kauffman won the bidding for that franchise, naming it the Kansas City Royals, the other AL team was awarded to Seattle. A consortium led by Dewey Soriano and William Daley won the bidding for the Seattle franchise, and named it the Seattle Pilots, a salute to the harbor pilots of the Puget Sound maritime industry. In the NL, one franchise was awarded to San Diego, California, arnholdt Smith, former owner of the AAA Pacific Coast Leagues San Diego Padres, won the bidding for the San Diego franchise, also naming it the Padres. Charles Bronfman, owner of Seagram, won the bidding for the Montreal franchise, naming them the Expos and this was the last NL expansion until the 1993 season. As part of the 1969 expansion, each league was to be split into two divisions of six each, with each league holding a best-of-five League Championship Series to decide the pennant. The AL was divided purely along geographic lines, but when it came to assign divisions in the NL and this alignment also addressed concerns that putting the leagues three strongest clubs—St. Louis, San Francisco, and the Cubs—in the west would result in divisional unequity, the Padres and Expos each finished with 110 losses and at the bottom of their respective divisions. The Royals did better, finishing 69–93 and in fourth in the AL West, the legal fallout of the battle would lead eventually to the expansion for the 1977 season
12.
National League
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Both leagues currently have 15 teams. The two league champions of 1903 arranged to compete against each other in the inaugural World Series, after the 1904 champions failed to reach a similar agreement, the two leagues formalized the World Series as an arrangement between the leagues. National League teams have won 48 of the 112 World Series contested from 1903 to 2016, the 2016 National League champions are the Chicago Cubs. By 1875, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players was dangerously weak, additionally, Hulbert had a problem—five of his star players were threatened with expulsion from the NAPBBP because Hulbert had signed them to his club using what were considered questionable means. Hulbert had a vested interest in creating his own league. After recruiting St. Louis privately, four western clubs met in Louisville, Kentucky, Boston Red Stockings, the dominant team in the N. A. Hartford Dark Blues from the N. A. Mutual of New York from the N. A. St. Louis Brown Stockings from the N. A, the only strong club from 1875 excluded in 1876 was a second one in Philadelphia, often called the White Stockings or Phillies. The first game in National League history was played on April 22,1876, at Philadelphias Jefferson Street Grounds, 25th & Jefferson, the new leagues authority was tested after the first season. The National League operated with six clubs during 1877 and 1878, over the next several years, various teams joined and left the struggling league. By 1880, six of the eight members had folded. The two remaining original NL franchises, Boston and Chicago, remain in operation today as the Atlanta Braves, in 1883 the New York Gothams and Philadelphia Phillies began National League play. Both teams remain in the NL today, the Phillies in their original city, the NL encountered its first strong rival organization when the American Association began play in 1882. The A. A. played in cities where the NL did not have teams, offered Sunday games and alcoholic beverages in locales where permitted, the National League and the American Association participated in a version of the World Series seven times during their ten-year coexistence. These contests were less organized than the modern Series, lasting as few as three games and as many as fifteen, with two Series ending in disputed ties, the NL won four times and the A. A. only once, in 1886. Starting with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1887, the National League began to raid the American Association for franchises to replace NL teams that folded and this undercut the stability of the A. A. Other new leagues that rose to compete with the National League were the Union Association, the Union Association was established in 1884 and folded after playing only one season, its league champion St. Louis Maroons joining the NL. The NL suffered many defections of star players to the Players League, the Brooklyn, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and New York franchises of the NL absorbed their Players League counterparts. The labor strife of 1890 hastened the downfall of the American Association, after the 1891 season, the A. A. disbanded and merged with the NL, which became known legally for the next decade as the National League and American Association
