Rawlings Gold Glove Award
The Rawlings Gold Glove Award referred to as the Gold Glove, is the award given annually to the Major League Baseball players judged to have exhibited superior individual fielding performances at each fielding position in both the National League and the American League, as voted by the managers and coaches in each league. It is awarded to women fastpitch softball players in the National Pro Fastpitch as of 2016. Managers are not permitted to vote for their own players. Additionally, a sabermetric component provided by Society for American Baseball Research accounts for 25 percent of the vote. Eighteen Gold Gloves are awarded one at each of the nine positions in each league. In 1957, the baseball glove manufacturer Rawlings created the Gold Glove Award to commemorate the best fielding performance at each position; the award was created from a glove affixed to a walnut base. Only one Gold Glove per position was awarded to the top fielder at each position in Major League Baseball. For the first four seasons of the award, individual awards were presented to left fielders, center fielders, right fielders.
From 1961 through 2010, the phrase "at each position" was no longer accurate, since the prize was presented to three outfielders irrespective of their specific position. Any combination of outfielders three center fielders, could win the award in the same year. Critics called for awarding a single Gold Glove for each individual outfield position, arguing that the three outfield positions are not equivalent defensively. Starting in 2011, separate awards for each outfield position were once again presented. In the 1985 American League voting, a tie for third-place resulted in the presentation of Gold Glove Awards to four outfielders. Before SABR's involvement in the voting process, The Boston Globe writer Peter Abraham said the Fielding Bible Awards "are far more accurate" than the Gold Glove awards since statistics are used along with the opinions of an expert panel; the Gold Gloves are selected by managers and coaches that may have seen a player as few as six times during the season. Bill Chuck of Comcast SportsNet New England wrote that Gold Glove voters counted only errors to determine winners.
Geoff Baker of The Seattle Times said the votes for the Gold Gloves rely on a player's past reputation. The Associated Press wrote that "some fans have viewed the Gold Gloves as a popularity contest suggesting that a player's performance at the plate helped draw extra attention to his glove." After winning the AL Gold Glove at first base in both 1997 and 1998, Rafael Palmeiro won again in 1999 with the Texas Rangers while only appearing in 28 games as a first baseman. Derek Jeter, winner of five Gold Gloves, believes. In 2013, Rawlings collaborated on the Gold Glove Award with SABR, who provided the SABR Defensive Index to add a sabermetric component to the selection process; the index accounted for 25 percent of the vote, while managers and coaches continued to provide the majority. Afterwards, Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated wrote that the Gold Gloves "appear to have closed the gap on their more statistically-driven counterparts." SABR and FiveThirtyEight believed that the impact to the voting results by SDI, included on the voters' ballots, went beyond its 25 own percent weight and influenced the managers' and coaches' voting.
The most Gold Gloves won by one player is 18 by pitcher Greg Maddux. He won 13 consecutive awards from all in the National League. Brooks Robinson has the most wins as a third baseman, with 16 Gold Gloves, is tied for the second-highest total overall with pitcher Jim Kaat, who won his 16 awards consecutively. Iván Rodríguez has won the most Gold Gloves as a catcher, with 13 career awards in the American League. Ozzie Smith has 13 wins at shortstop. Among outfielders, Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays, who played right field and center field are tied for the lead with 12 Gold Gloves. Keith Hernandez, the leader at first base, has won 11 times, Roberto Alomar leads second basemen with 10 wins. Other players with 10 or more wins include shortstop Omar Vizquel, catcher Johnny Bench, third baseman Mike Schmidt, outfielders Ken Griffey Jr. Ichiro Suzuki, Andruw Jones, Al Kaline; the only player to win Gold Gloves as an infielder and outfielder is Darin Erstad, who won Gold Gloves as an outfielder in 2000 and 2002 and as a first baseman in 2004, all with the Anaheim Angels.
The only other player to win Gold Gloves at multiple positions is Plácido Polanco, who won at second base and third base. Family pairs to win Gold Gloves include brothers Ken and Clete Boyer, brothers Sandy Alomar, Jr. and Roberto Alomar and Yadier Molina and son Bobby and Barry Bonds, father and son Bob and Bret Boone. In 2016, Rawlings announced it would begin awarding a gold glove annually to a female fastpitch softball player in the National Pro Fastpitch league. NPF coaches and managers vote for a winner (excluding those on their respect
President of the United States
The president of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. In contemporary times, the president is looked upon as one of the world's most powerful political figures as the leader of the only remaining global superpower; the role includes responsibility for the world's most expensive military, which has the second largest nuclear arsenal. The president leads the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP; the president possesses international hard and soft power. Article II of the Constitution establishes the executive branch of the federal government, it vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The power includes the execution and enforcement of federal law, alongside the responsibility of appointing federal executive, diplomatic and judicial officers, concluding treaties with foreign powers with the advice and consent of the Senate.
The president is further empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves, to convene and adjourn either or both houses of Congress under extraordinary circumstances. The president directs the foreign and domestic policies of the United States, takes an active role in promoting his policy priorities to members of Congress. In addition, as part of the system of checks and balances, Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution gives the president the power to sign or veto federal legislation; the power of the presidency has grown since its formation, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. Through the Electoral College, registered voters indirectly elect the president and vice president to a four-year term; this is the only federal election in the United States, not decided by popular vote. Nine vice presidents became president by virtue of a president's intra-term resignation. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 sets three qualifications for holding the presidency: natural-born U. S. citizenship.
The Twenty-second Amendment precludes any person from being elected president to a third term. In all, 44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms, so he is counted twice, as both the 22nd and 24th president. Donald Trump of New York is the current president of the United States, he assumed office on January 20, 2017. In July 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, the Thirteen Colonies, acting jointly through the Second Continental Congress, declared themselves to be 13 independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. Recognizing the necessity of coordinating their efforts against the British, the Continental Congress began the process of drafting a constitution that would bind the states together. There were long debates on a number of issues, including representation and voting, the exact powers to be given the central government. Congress finished work on the Articles of Confederation to establish a perpetual union between the states in November 1777 and sent it to the states for ratification.
Under the Articles, which took effect on March 1, 1781, the Congress of the Confederation was a central political authority without any legislative power. It could make its own resolutions and regulations, but not any laws, could not impose any taxes or enforce local commercial regulations upon its citizens; this institutional design reflected how Americans believed the deposed British system of Crown and Parliament ought to have functioned with respect to the royal dominion: a superintending body for matters that concerned the entire empire. The states were out from under any monarchy and assigned some royal prerogatives to Congress; the members of Congress elected a President of the United States in Congress Assembled to preside over its deliberation as a neutral discussion moderator. Unrelated to and quite dissimilar from the office of President of the United States, it was a ceremonial position without much influence. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies.
With peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. By 1786, Americans found their continental borders besieged and weak and their respective economies in crises as neighboring states agitated trade rivalries with one another, they witnessed their hard currency pouring into foreign markets to pay for imports, their Mediterranean commerce preyed upon by North African pirates, their foreign-financed Revolutionary War debts unpaid and accruing interest. Civil and political unrest loomed. Following the successful resolution of commercial and fishing disputes between Virginia and Maryland at the Mount Vernon Conference in 1785, Virginia called for a trade conference between all the states, set for September 1786 in Annapolis, with an aim toward resolving further-reaching interstate commercial antagonisms; when the convention failed for lack of attendance due to suspicions among most of the other states, Alexander Hamilton led the Annapolis delegates in a call for a convention to offer revisions to the Articles, to be held the next spring in Philadelphia.
Prospects for the next convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washington's attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. When the Constitutional Convention convened in May 1787, the 12 state delegations in attendance (Rh
Closer (baseball)
In baseball, a closing pitcher, more referred to as a closer, is a relief pitcher who specializes in getting the final outs in a close game when his team is leading. The role is assigned to a team's best reliever. Before the 1990s, pitchers in similar roles were referred to as a fireman, short reliever, stopper. A small number of closers have won the Cy Young Award. Mariano Rivera, Dennis Eckersley, Trevor Hoffman, Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter and Hoyt Wilhelm are closers who have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. A closer is a team's best reliever and designated to pitch the last few outs of games when his team is leading by a margin of three runs or fewer. Does a closer enter with his team losing or in a tie game. A closer's effectiveness has traditionally been measured by the save, an official Major League Baseball statistic since 1969. Over time, closers have become one-inning specialists brought in at the beginning of the ninth inning in save situations; the pressure of the last three outs of the game is cited for the importance attributed to the ninth inning.
Closers are the highest paid relievers on their teams, making money on par with starting pitchers. In the rare cases where a team does not have one primary pitcher dedicated to this role, the team is said to have a closer by committee. New York Giants manager John McGraw in 1905 was one of the first to use a relief pitcher to save games, he pitched Claude Elliott in relief eight times in his ten appearances. Though saves were not an official statistic until 1969, Elliot was retroactively credited with six saves that season, a record at that time. In 1977, Chicago Cubs manager Herman Franks used Bruce Sutter exclusively in the eighth or ninth innings in save situations. While relievers such as Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage were being used in save situations, Franks's use of Sutter represented an incremental change. Sutter was the first pitcher to start the ninth inning in 20 percent of his career appearances. Clay Carroll in 1972 was the first pitcher to make a third of his season's appearances in the beginning of the ninth inning, which would not be repeated until Fingers in 1982.
John Franco in 1987 was the first to be used over 50 percent of the time in the beginning of the ninth in a season. Lee Smith in 1994 was the first to be used over 75 percent of the time in that situation. Using the save leader from each team in the league, the average closer made his appearances in the beginning of the ninth inning 10 percent of the time in the 1970s to 2⁄3 of the time by 2004. Tony La Russa while with the Oakland Athletics is named as the innovator of the position, making Dennis Eckersley the first player to be used exclusively in ninth inning situations. La Russa explained that " be ahead a large number of games every week... That's a lot of work for somebody throwing more than one inning... There was the added advantage of not getting overexposed. We tried to get to only face three or four batters an outing." Baseball teams copy one another, following a strategy based on one team's success. In 1990, Bobby Thigpen set a record with 57 saves while breaking Franco's one-inning saves record with 41.
Francisco Rodríguez set the current record with 54 one-inning saves in 2008. As late as 1989, a team's ace reliever was called a fireman, coming to the rescue to "put out the fire", baseball terminology for stopping an offensive rally with runners on base, they were referred to as short relievers and closers. By the early 1990s, the top late-inning reliever was called a closer; the firemen came in whenever leads were in jeopardy with men on base, regardless of the inning and pitching two or three innings while finishing the game. An example of this is that Goose Gossage had 17 games where he recorded at least 10 outs in his first season as a closer, including three games where he went seven innings, he pitched over 130 innings as a reliever in three different seasons. For their careers and Gossage had more saves of at least two innings than saves where they pitched one inning or less. Fingers was the only pitcher who pitched at least three innings in more than 10 percent of his saves; the game evolved to where the best reliever was reserved for games where the team had a lead of three runs or less in the ninth inning.
Mariano Rivera, considered one of the greatest closers of all time, earned only one save of seven-plus outs in his career, while Gossage logged 53. "Don't tell me the best relief pitcher of all-time until he can do the same job I did. He may be the best modern closer. Do what we did", said Gossage. ESPN.com writer Jim Caple wrote that closers' saves in the ninth "merely conclude what is a foregone conclusion." Dave Smith of Retrosheet researched the seasons 1930–2003 and found that the winning percentage for teams who enter the ninth inning with a lead has remained unchanged over the decades. One-run leads after eight innings have been won 85 percent of the time, two-run leads 94 percent of the time, three-run leads about 96 percent of the time. Baseball Prospectus projects that teams could gain as much as four extra wins a year by focusing on bringing their ace reliever into the game earlier in more critical situations with runners on base instead of holding them out to accumulate easier ninth inning saves.
In The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball, Tom Tango et al. wrote that there was more value to having the ace reliever enter in the eighth inning with a one- or a two-run lead instead of the ninth with a three-run lead. "Managers fee
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He had served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. Bush was born in New Haven and grew up in Texas. After graduating from Yale University in 1968 and Harvard Business School in 1975, he worked in the oil industry. Bush married Laura Welch in 1977 and unsuccessfully ran for the U. S. House of Representatives shortly thereafter, he co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election. Bush was elected President of the United States in 2000 when he defeated Democratic incumbent Vice President Al Gore after a close and controversial win that involved a stopped recount in Florida, he became the fourth person to be elected president while receiving fewer popular votes than his opponent. Bush is a member of a prominent political family and is the eldest son of Barbara and George H. W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States.
He is only the second president to assume the nation's highest office after his father, following the footsteps of John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams. His brother Jeb Bush, a former Governor of Florida, was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 presidential election, his paternal grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a U. S. Senator from Connecticut; the September 11 terrorist attacks occurred eight months into Bush's first term. Bush responded with what became known as the Bush Doctrine: launching a "War on Terror", an international military campaign that included the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and the Iraq War in 2003, he signed into law broad tax cuts, the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, Medicare prescription drug benefits for seniors, funding for the AIDS relief program known as PEPFAR. His tenure included national debates on immigration, Social Security, electronic surveillance, torture. In the 2004 presidential race, Bush defeated Democratic Senator John Kerry in another close election.
After his re-election, Bush received heated criticism from across the political spectrum for his handling of the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, other challenges. Amid this criticism, the Democratic Party regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections. In December 2007, the United States entered its longest post-World War II recession referred to as the "Great Recession", prompting the Bush administration to obtain congressional passage of multiple economic programs intended to preserve the country's financial system. Nationally, Bush was both one of the most popular and unpopular U. S. presidents in history, having received the highest recorded presidential approval ratings in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, as well as one of the lowest approval ratings during the 2008 financial crisis. Bush finished his term in office in 2009 and returned to Texas, where he had purchased a home in Dallas. In 2010, he published Decision Points, his presidential library was opened in 2013. His presidency has been ranked among the worst in historians' polls that were published in the late 2000s and 2010s.
However, his favorability ratings with the public have improved after leaving office. George Walker Bush was born on July 6, 1946, at Yale–New Haven Hospital in New Haven, while his father was a student at Yale, he was his wife, Barbara Pierce. He was raised in Midland and Houston, with four siblings, Neil and Dorothy. Another younger sister, died from leukemia at the age of three in 1953, his grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a U. S. Senator from Connecticut, his father was Ronald Reagan's vice president from 1981 to 1989 and the 41st U. S. president from 1989 to 1993. Bush has English and some German ancestry, along with more distant Dutch, Irish and Scottish roots. Bush attended public schools in Midland, until the family moved to Houston after he had completed seventh grade, he spent two years at The Kinkaid School, a prep school in Piney Point Village in the Houston area. Bush attended high school at Phillips Academy, a boarding school in Andover, where he played baseball and was the head cheerleader during his senior year.
He attended Yale University from 1964 to 1968. During this time, he was a cheerleader and a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon, serving as the president of the fraternity during his senior year. Bush became a member of the Skull and Bones society as a senior. Bush was a rugby union player and was on Yale's 1st XV, he characterized himself as an average student. His GPA during his first three years at Yale was 77, he had a similar average under a nonnumeric rating system in his final year. In the fall of 1973, Bush entered Harvard Business School, he graduated in 1975 with an MBA degree. He is the only U. S. president to have earned an MBA. Bush was engaged to Cathryn Lee Wolfman in 1967, but the engagement fizzled out. Bush and Wolfman remained on good terms after the end of the relationship. While Bush was at a backyard barbecue in 1977, friends introduced him to Laura Welch, a schoolteacher and librarian. After a three-month courtship, she accepted his marriage proposal and they wed on November 5 of that year.
The couple settled in Texas. Bush left his family's Episcopal Church to join his wife's United Methodist Church. On November 25, 1981, Laura Bush gave birth to fraternal twin daughters and Jenna. Prior to getting married, Bush struggled with multiple episodes of alcohol abuse. In one instance on September 4, 1976, he was pulled over near his fami
Run batted in
A run batted in, plural runs batted in, is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored. For example, if the batter bats a base hit another player on a higher base can head home to score a run, the batter gets credited with batting in that run. Before the 1920 Major League Baseball season, runs batted in were not an official baseball statistic; the RBI statistic was tabulated—unofficially—from 1907 through 1919 by baseball writer Ernie Lanigan, according to the Society for American Baseball Research. Common nicknames for an RBI include "ribby", "rib", "ribeye"; the plural of RBI is "RBIs", although some commentators use "RBI" as both singular and plural, as it can stand for "runs batted in". The 2018 edition of the Official Baseball Rules of Major League Baseball, Rule 9.04 Runs Batted In, reads A run batted in is a statistic credited to a batter whose action at bat causes one or more runs to score, as set forth in this Rule 9.04.
The official scorer shall credit the batter with a run batted in for every run that scores unaided by an error and as part of a play begun by the batter's safe hit, sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly, infield out or fielder's choice, unless Rule 9.04 applies. The official scorer shall not credit a run batted in when the batter grounds into a force double play or a reverse-force double play; the official scorer's judgment must determine whether a run batted in shall be credited for a run that scores when a fielder holds the ball or throws to a wrong base. Ordinarily, if the runner keeps going, the official scorer should credit a run batted in; the perceived significance of the RBI is displayed by the fact that it is one of the three categories that compose the triple crown. In addition, career RBIs are cited in debates over who should be elected to the Hall of Fame. However, critics within the field of sabermetrics, argue that RBIs measure the quality of the lineup more than it does the player himself since an RBI can only be credited to a player if one or more batters preceding him in the batting order reached base.
This implies that better offensive teams—and therefore, the teams in which the most players get on base—tend to produce hitters with higher RBI totals than equivalent hitters on lesser-hitting teams. Totals are current through June 24, 2018. Active players are in bold. Hank Aaron – 2,297 Babe Ruth – 2,214 Cap Anson - 2,075 Alex Rodríguez – 2,055 Barry Bonds – 1,996 Lou Gehrig – 1,993 Albert Pujols – 1,981 Stan Musial – 1,951 Ty Cobb – 1,944 Jimmie Foxx – 1,922 Eddie Murray – 1,917 Willie Mays - 1,903 Hack Wilson – 191 Lou Gehrig – 185 Hank Greenberg – 183 Jimmie Foxx – 175 Lou Gehrig – 173 12 RBIsJim Bottomley Mark Whiten 11 RBIsWilbert Robinson Tony Lazzeri Phil Weintraub 10 RBIsBy 11 MLB players, most Mark Reynolds on July 7, 2018 Fernando Tatís – 8 Ed Cartwright – 7 Alex Rodriguez – 7 David Freese – 21 Scott Spiezio – 19 Sandy Alomar – 19 David Ortiz – 19 List of Major League Baseball runs batted in records
Houston Astros
The Houston Astros are an American professional baseball team based in Houston, Texas. The Astros compete in Major League Baseball as a member club of the American League West division, having moved to the division in 2013 after spending their first 51 seasons in the National League; 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 as an expansion team in 1962 along with the New York Mets. The current name—reflecting Houston's role as the control center of the U. S. crewed space program—was adopted three years when they moved into the Astrodome, the first domed sports stadium. The Astros played in the NL from 1962 to 2012, first in the West Division from 1969 to 1993, followed by the Central Division from 1994 to 2012; the team was reclassified to the AL West from 2013 onward. While a member of the NL, the Astros played in one World Series in 2005, losing in four games to the Chicago White Sox.
In 2017, they became the first franchise in MLB history to have won a pennant in both the NL and the AL, when they defeated the New York Yankees in the ALCS. They won the 2017 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, winning four games to three, earning the team, the state of Texas, its first World Series title. From 1888 until 1961, Houston's professional baseball club was the minor league Houston Buffaloes. Although expansion from the National League brought an MLB team to Texas in 1962, Houston officials had been making efforts to do so for years prior. There were four men chiefly responsible for bringing Major League Baseball to Houston: George Kirksey and Craig Cullinan, who had led a futile attempt to purchase the St. Louis Cardinals in 1952. E. "Bob" Smith, a prominent oilman and real estate magnate in Houston, brought in for his financial resources. They formed the Houston Sports Association as their vehicle for attaining a big league franchise for the city of Houston. Given MLB's refusal to consider expansion, Cullinan and Hofheinz joined forces with would-be owners from other cities and announced the formation of a new league to compete with the established National and American Leagues.
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 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. According to the Major League Baseball Constitution, the Houston Sports Association was required to obtain territorial rights from the Houston Buffaloes in order to play in the Houston area, again negotiations began to purchase the team; the Houston Sports Association succeeded in purchasing the Houston Buffaloes, at this point majority-owned by William Hopkins, on January 17, 1961. The Buffs played one last minor league season as the top farm team of the Chicago Cubs in 1961 before being succeeded by the city's 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 orange. The first team was formed through an expansion draft after the 1961 season; the Colt.45s and their expansion cousins, the New York Mets, took turns choosing players left unprotected by the other National League franchises. 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 continued with the organization as business manager, but was promoted again to the same position with the Astros from 1967 until 1975. Although most players for the major league franchise were obtained through the 1961 Major League Baseball expansion draft, Buffs players J. C. Hartman, Pidge Browne, Jim Campbell, Ron Davis, Dave Giusti, Dave Roberts were chosen to continue as major league ball players.
The radio broadcasting team remained with the new Houston major league franchise. Loel Passe worked alongside Gene Elston as a color commentator until he retired from broadcasting in 1976. Elston continued with the Astros until 1986; the Colt.45s began their existence playing at Colt Stadium, a temporary venue built just north of the construction site of the indoor stadium. The Colt.45s started their inaugural season on April 10, 1962, against the Chicago Cubs with Harry Craft as the Colt.45s' manager. Bob Aspromonte scored, they started the season with a three-game sweep of the Cubs but finished eighth among the National League's ten teams. The team's best pitcher, Richard "Turk" Farrell, lost 20 games despite an ERA of 3.02. A starter for the Colt.45s, Farrell was a relief pitcher prior to playing for Houston. He was selected to both All-Star Games in 1962; the 1963 season saw more young talent mixed with seasoned veterans. Jimmy Wynn, Rusty Staub, Joe Morgan all made their major league debuts in the 1963 season.
However, Houston's position in the standings did not improve, as the Colt.45s finished in ninth place with a 66–96 record. The t
Major League Baseball
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 play with 15 teams in each league; the NL and AL were formed as separate legal entities in 1901 respectively. After cooperating but remaining separate entities beginning in 1903, the leagues merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball in 2000; the organization oversees Minor League Baseball, which comprises 256 teams affiliated with the Major League clubs. With the World Baseball Softball Confederation, MLB manages the international World Baseball Classic tournament. Baseball's first all-professional team was founded in Cincinnati in 1869; the first few decades of professional baseball were characterized by rivalries between leagues and by players who 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, survived potential downturns during the Great Depression and World War II. Shortly after the war, Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier; the 1950s and 1960s were a time of expansion for the AL and NL new stadiums and artificial turf surfaces began to change the game in the 1970s and 1980s. Home runs dominated the game during the 1990s, 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, including at least one player from each team. Today, MLB is composed of 1 in Canada. Teams play 162 games each season and five teams in each league advance to a four-round postseason tournament that culminates in the World Series, a best-of-seven championship series between the two league champions that dates to 1903. Baseball broadcasts are aired on television and the Internet throughout North America and in several other countries throughout the world.
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; this document has undergone several incarnations since its creation in 1876. Under the direction of the Commissioner of Baseball, MLB hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, negotiates marketing and television contracts. MLB maintains a unique, controlling relationship over the sport, including most aspects of Minor League Baseball; this is due in large part to the 1922 U. S. Supreme Court ruling in Federal Baseball Club v. National League, which held that baseball is not interstate commerce and therefore not subject to federal antitrust law; this ruling has been weakened only 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 MLB's primacy in the sport between the 1870s and the Federal League in 1916.
The chief executive of MLB is the commissioner Rob Manfred. The chief operating officer is Tony Petitti. There are five other executives: president, chief communications officer, chief legal officer, chief financial officer, chief baseball officer; the multimedia branch of MLB, based in Manhattan, is MLB Advanced Media. This branch oversees each of the 30 teams' websites, its charter states that MLB Advanced Media holds editorial independence from the league, but it is under the same ownership group and revenue-sharing plan. MLB Productions is a structured wing of the league, focusing on video and traditional broadcast media. MLB owns 67 percent of MLB Network, with the other 33 percent split between several cable operators and satellite provider DirecTV, it operates out of studios in Secaucus, New Jersey, has editorial independence from the league. In 1920, the weak National Commission, created to manage relationships between the two leagues, was replaced with the much more powerful Commissioner of Baseball, who had the power to make decisions for all of professional baseball unilaterally.
From 1901 to 1960, the American and National Leagues fielded eight teams apiece. In the 1960s, MLB expansion added eight teams, including the first non-U. S. Team. Two teams were added in the 1970s. From 1969 through 1993, each league consisted of an West Division. A third division, the Central Division, was formed in each league in 1994; until 1996, the two leagues met on the field only during the All-Star Game. Regular-season interleague play was introduced in 1997. In March 1995 two new franchises, the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays, were awarded by MLB, to begin play in 1998; this addition brought the total number of franchises to 30. In early 1997, MLB decided to assign one new team to each league: Tampa Bay joined the AL and Arizona joined the NL; the original plan was to have an odd number of teams in each league, but in order for every team to be able to play daily, this would have required interleague play to be scheduled throughout the entire season. However, it
