Irish immigrants, mostly. At the same time there was considerable — and quite accurate — sentiment that baseball had evolved from the English game rounders, which is primarily played by school-aged children. Then, as now, there was a large segment of the population who simply could not tolerate the idea that something they considered truly American to be tainted by the influence of [shudder] foreigners, so they did what people who think that way do, then as now: they simply lied about it.
The first widely-accepted lie about baseball being a truly American sport revolved around Alexander Cartwright, who helped found and led the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club in New York and who, in , was credited with writing down the first rules of baseball.
Cartwright was certainly a baseball pioneer, but what he and his club were doing was not novel and did not come from some single, American-born game.
Many people involved with baseball would cite Cartwright as its inventor, but the notion that it truly evolved from rounders and some other bat-and-ball games from the British Isles continued to hold currency. Especially after prominent sportswriter Henry Chadwick — a native of England — cited rounders as the progenitor of baseball.
For ideological reasons they truly wanted — truly needed — baseball to be an American game. No rounders! The dispute would continue to boil for some time. In Spalding called for an official investigation into how the sport was invented and he totally rigged the investigation in his own favor. Though formal rules for "Base ball" can be found as far back as in Philadelphia, the first set of rules which resemble the game today come from the New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, a group of about thirty young men who regularly played the game.
The rules they established which are still used today include a diamond-shaped field, making the "balk" illegal, introducing foul lines, three strikes-and-out for a batter and that runners must be tagged or thrown out. Because cricket required finely cut grounds, it was harder to play the game during the war.
Baseball, on the other hand, could be played almost anywhere. Additionally, though the majority of clubs belonged to middle-class merchants, the s and 60s saw the rise of working-class teams, which became the most popular among the fans of the game, most of whom were working-class people themselves.
The National Pastime The first reference to baseball as "the National Pastime" came from the New York Mercury newspaper in , though the title then was a bit premature. Baseball in that time emerged as a New York game played primarily by immigrants. Newcomers to America took to the game by scores, forming their own clubs, while the Knickerbockers continued to refine the game. However, in , the manager of the team moved it to Boston.
National League After only five years in existence, the National Association was struggling, and in the winter of , William A.
Hulbert, the owner of the Chicago White Stockings, poached five of the best players in the league from two of the other teams, and formed the National League, along with teams from Boston, Cincinnati, St.
Owners ruled the league with an iron fist; players who complained about salaries were fired, and often blacklisted. One of the first documented cases of gambling in the game occurred only a year later, when, in , four members of the Louisville Grays were found to have thrown games on purpose, paid by gamblers to do so. The players said it was because their owners had not paid them. Spalding, his second-in-command, became president of the White Stockings, and ushered in what could arguably be called the true beginning of the game.
Spalding insisted the players be paid like entertainers; he created Spalding Sporting Goods, manufacturing balls, caps, uniforms and gloves. Spalding whose brand is still used to this day , it is said, created the business of baseball.
Major League Baseball Born Though two other leagues, the American Association and Player's League, tried to challenge the National League for dominance, the NL largely kept baseball a monopoly - that is, until the turn of the century.
In , Byron "Ban" Johnson created the American League out of four teams, picking up unemployed ballplayers and raiding National League rosters. As more and more players moved to the American League including Cy Young, the winningest pitcher of all time , the National League owners were forced to submit. In , a National Agreement was set up, creating a National Baseball Commission - made up of the president of each league and a permanent chairman - that would govern the game.
Major League Baseball was born. That fall, in October of , the game's first "World's Series" was played, with Boston from the American League beating Pittsburgh, their National League counterparts. Visit our 's Section. Cy Young Between the National League and the emergence of the American League, baseball's growing popularity helped introduce some of the game's first stars, names that live on in baseball lore. One of the star pitchers in the first "World's Series" in was a man named Denton True Young, though his nickname, "Cy," is more commonly known to fans today.
Baseball's all-time leader in wins, losses, games started, innings pitched and complete games has the annual award given to the best pitcher in each league named for him, the Cy Young award.
It's important to note, however, that when Young was pitching, the notion of relief pitchers hadn't really been introduced. Of the games he started in his career, Young finished ; compare that to the most recent player on the all-time games started list, Greg Maddux: he started games in his career fourth all-time , but pitched only complete games.
It's assumed no one will ever beat Young's records. In the series, Wagner outhit Cobb, in addition to compiling more stolen bases and winning the title.
Many of their contemporaries later said Wagner was the best they'd ever seen, better than Cobb; Ty's drawback was his personality and playing style - one of the most hated men on or off the field in baseball history, Cobb was regularly referred to as "the dirtiest player in baseball. He's second all-time in runs, hits and triples, and fourth in stolen bases and doubles. Wagner's only top-five finish in the major hitting categories all-time is fourth in triples.
Spaulding's ascension to ownership, owners still controlled the game with an iron fist in its early history, giving players few rights. Ban Johnson, president of the American League, dictated players' actions regardless of their protests, rarely bending to their requests or pleas. Star players were sometimes coddled, but more often than not, the only thing that could sway a Johnson decision was overwhelming public outrage. However, initially, the owners simply ignored the Fraternity.
This disregard for players' voices helped lead to the foundation of the Federal League in , formed by a group of businessmen hoping to get in on the success of the game.
The Federal League sought to poach players from the majors by promising them bigger money and the chance to become free agents. The Federal League, made up of eight teams, lasted for two seasons. In order to help drive out the Federal League, owners agreed to recognize the Fraternity of Professional Base Ball Players and agreed to a few demands: owners now paid for uniforms, the outfield fences were painted green so batters could see the ball better and not get hit as often, and salaries were raised, at first for star players, and later for all players.
However, once the Federal League died out, owners began to ignore the players again, in many cases reverting their salaries back to pre-Federal League levels, and in some cases lowering them even further. The Federal League and the Fraternity flared out, and poor conditions continued, which many believe helped lead to the game's first true black mark.
Black Sox Gambling Scandal There has never been a more famous case of gambling in baseball than the "Black Sox" scandal though Pete Rose would come close in later years. Gambling in the game was not new by the time the game reached ; players and gamblers commonly associated, and even single games had been "thrown," lost intentionally by players to help them and gamblers make money. However, the White Sox did something considered far worse at the time: they threw the World Series.
Gandil got seven of his teammates to go along with the plan, though convincing them wasn't difficult; their owner, Charles Comiskey, was one of the most tightfisted owners in the league, even refusing to pay to have the team's uniforms washed which led to the nickname "Black Sox". Gandil did not have to work hard. Shoeless Joe Jackson One of the players who went along with the plan was Joseph Jefferson Jackson, known as Shoeless Joe because he once, in a minor league game in the beginning of his career, wore only socks due to the tightness of his new shoes.
Joe Jackson was one of the biggest stars of the day, a hitter almost beyond compare. His lifetime average of. Even in the World Series, Jackson hit.
Still, he took the money, and was thought by many to fail to catch balls he should have had, and make poor throws in from the outfield. As the series went on, and the money stopped coming, the eight players decided to go ahead and try to win the series; however, after New York gambler Arnold Rothstein, known as Mr. Bankroll, sent a goon to threaten pitcher Lefty Williams and his wife, Williams lost the deciding game in the series.
However, Ban Johnson and the owners publicly denounced the claims, dismissing them out of hand, though in private they were concerned about the merits of the accusation. When the season began, other teams began to get closer and closer to gamblers, with widespread rumors of thrown games by players on at least six teams. A Cook County grand jury was impaneled in September of that year to look into reports the Chicago Cubs had thrown a three-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies.
That probe was widened to include the White Sox World Series. Eddie Cicotte was the first of the Black Sox to admit to the grand jury what they had done; Joe Jackson did the same. Chick Gandil, the orchestrator, never admitted to anything. However, the prosecutors could not produce enough evidence, and all men were acquitted. They scrapped the old system of a three-person commission running baseball in favor of a single commissioner.
Though many people were considered - including former president William Howard Taft, a great fan of the game - the owners went with Kennesaw Mountain Landis, a federal judge. One of Landis' first acts as commissioner was to ban all eight men from the game for life, a ban which holds to this day meaning Jackson cannot enter the Hall of Fame.
First Fatality saw the game's first fatality; Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians was hit in the head by a pitch, and died the next day. This tragedy spurred baseball to outlaw the doctoring of its balls. Prior to the rule, baseballs were scuffed, spit on, blackened with tar and licorice, sandpapered and scarred. Now, as soon as ball got dirty, the umpire had to replace it with a new one - a practice that continues today.
The balance of power in baseball shifted from the pitcher's mound to the batter's box. With this shift arose a new star in baseball, one whose fame would eclipse all others to that point in history.
The man they called "Babe" was the best in the league, winning 89 games over six seasons. In , the Sox shifted him to center field so he could hit more often, as he was a home run hitter the likes of which the game had never seen. And then, "The Trade. The price wasn't nearly high enough - the trade helped cripple Boston and elevate the Yankees, and Ruth began slugging home runs in record numbers. In , his first season with the Yankees, Ruth hit 54 home runs, more than all but one team in the entire league.
Ruth's star burned brighter than any of his predecessors, largely because home runs drew crowds and still do. Ruth had become the game's first megastar, making more money than any player before him, primarily through endorsements; Babe pitched everything from breakfast cereal to soap to Girl Scout cookies. In , the Yankees opened a new ballpark, Yankee Stadium, and Ruth, coming back from a disappointing season marred by numerous suspensions for his conduct on and off the field, hit a home run in his first at-bat.
Major League Teams Buy Up Minor League Teams For Cheap Though the revolution of power hitting in baseball shook the game to its core, changing it forever, it was quite possibly not the most monumental change the game saw in the s. An executive with the St. Louis Cardinals organization was struggling to put together a decent team; because the club was strapped for cash, they couldn't sign players out of the minor leagues, and often had to trade multiple players in return for just one, as a way to make some cash.
In order to try and solve this problem, the executive began buying up minor league teams and funneling the most promising players to his major league squad, baseball's first farm system. Many of baseball's leaders thought the practice a disgrace - Kennesaw Mountain Landis declared it "un-American. By the mids, three out of ten major leaguers came up through the farm system. The Game had been changed forever. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
Saigon, South Vietnam was a chaotic and bloody place in the winter of On January 30, North Vietnamese forces struck suddenly and with shocking force at targets throughout the South, taking the South Vietnamese and their American allies by surprise and turning the tide of a The transportation hub as we know it today began construction in , but before that 89 E 42nd was home to an older steam train station built in Even though the station had been updated On February 2, , Philip Seymour Hoffman, considered one of the most talented and versatile actors of his generation, dies of an accidental drug overdose at age 46 in New York City.
One week after toppling the regime of Ugandan leader Milton Obote, Major General Idi Amin declares himself president of Uganda and chief of the armed forces. Amin, head of the Ugandan army and air force since , seized power while Obote was out of the country. Ruling directly, Aided by its Thirty-one public officials were targeted for investigation, including Representative John Murphy of New York, five other representatives, and It's also worth noting that the spitball was legal in those days, and it's fair to conclude that many pitchers were gleefully partaking.
Whatever it was, the calming of the offensive numbers didn't last for long. Changes were made to the ball on the eve of the '20s, and that's when the Dead-Ball Era turned into the Live-Ball Era. According to a New York Times article, a bit of Australia started going into baseballs in when Spalding started using Australian wool on the insides. After averaging 3. By , the league was averaging 5. The National League's owners sought to quell the unrest in According to The New York Times , they decided in a midsummer meeting that the Senior Circuit would continue to use the rabbit ball, in large part due to the testimony of Professor Harold A.
Fales of Columbia University. The ball is larger in size, weighs more, and gives the pitcher much less control in that the seam of the ball is much smoother and the thread of same almost completely countersunk so as to be flush with the leather of the seam.
The elasticity of the ball for small heights of fall, namely It may indeed have been harder for pitchers to grip the rabbit ball. Walks experienced an uptick in the s, going from an average of 2. Also working against pitchers were new rules put in place in that outlawed spitballs and regulated intentional walks, and Professor Fales also highlighted another newer rule as a factor.
Before the s, the baseballs in play in a given game were rarely changed and the balls were thus allowed to become dirtier and softer throughout the course of a game. Balls were exchanged much more frequently starting in , and that benefited the hitters. They did, but the punishment they were forced to endure in and proved to be too much even for the owners. Offense exploded in those two seasons to the tune of 5. The season was particularly ridiculous, as Hack Wilson, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Chuck Klein all topped 40 home runs and the league's batting line was an absurd.
Per an essay by Jay Jaffe that was excerpted on Deadspin last year, was the year when the cork center was replaced by a "cushion cork" pill that was a mixture of cork and ground rubber. Scoring and home runs promptly went down to 4. There continued to be slight differences between the balls being used in the American and National League for the next couple years, but the two leagues agreed to a standardized ball in And for the first time ever, the specific ingredients of a Major League Baseball ball were revealed.
From The New York Times :. A coat of special rubber cement is applied. The writer of that article said it best: "The specifications You'd be surprised how little the exact specs have changed since , but baseball did experience a slight complication a few years later when the peoples of the earth got into a worldwide disagreement.
Of course they do, but one of the lesser known impacts of the war on baseball had to do with the ball. Noel Hynd of Sports Illustrated wrote all about it back in Rubber is an essential ingredient of a baseball's core, and it always has been
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