History of baseball in the United States

The history of baseball in the United States dates to the 19th century, when boys and amateur enthusiasts played a baseball-like game by their own informal rules using homemade equipment.

[17][18] William Humber argues that baseball was also able to grow because there was less of a social taboo against it than in England, where it was strongly perceived as a children's game, and because Americans preferred a sport where the teams alternated offense and defense more frequently.

Chicago finished the season in second place, but were ultimately forced to drop out of the league during the city's recovery period, finally returning to National Association play in 1874.

(for example, weaker teams with losing records or inadequate gate receipts would simply decline to play out the season), and thus spearheaded the movement to form a stronger organization.

Large, concentrated populations offered baseball teams national media distribution systems and fan bases that could generate sufficient revenues to afford the best players in the country.

The period 1901–1919 is commonly called the "Dead-ball era", with low-scoring games dominated by pitchers such as Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, and Grover Cleveland Alexander.

Despite this, there were also several superstar hitters, the most famous being Honus Wagner, held to be one of the greatest shortstops to ever play the game, and Detroit's Ty Cobb, the "Georgia Peach."

In his defense, some baseball historians have suggested that it was not customary for game-ending hits to be fully "run out", it was only Evers's insistence on following the rules strictly that resulted in this unusual play.

[32] Eight players (Charles "Swede" Risberg, Arnold "Chick" Gandil, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, Oscar "Happy" Felsch, Eddie Cicotte, George "Buck" Weaver, Fred McMullin, and Claude "Lefty" Williams) were indicted and tried for conspiracy.

This rule change was enforced all the more stringently following the death of Ray Chapman, who was struck in the temple by a pitched ball from Carl Mays in a game on August 16, 1920; he died the next day.

By the late 1920s and 1930s all the good teams had their home-run hitting "sluggers": the Yankees' Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx in Philadelphia, Hank Greenberg in Detroit and in Chicago Hack Wilson were the most storied.

At first wary of radio's potential to impact ticket sales at the park, owners began to make broadcast deals and by the late 1930s, all teams' games went out over the air.

In 1936 the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, was instituted and five players elected: Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner.

In 1941, a year which saw the premature death of Lou Gehrig, Boston's great left fielder Ted Williams had a batting average over .400—the last time anyone has achieved that feat.

Realizing that the first African-American signee would be a magnet for prejudiced sentiment, however, Rickey was intent on finding a player with the distinguished personality and character that would allow him to tolerate the inevitable abuse.

[39] According to some baseball historians, Jackie Robinson and the other African-American players helped reestablish the importance of baserunning and similar elements of play that were previously de-emphasized by the predominance of power hitting.

Eager to bring these big names to the West, Los Angeles gave Walter O'Malley, owner of the Dodgers, a helicopter tour of the city and asked him to pick his spot.

In 2001, MLB took over the struggling Montreal Expos franchise and, after the 2004 season, moved it to Washington, DC, which had been clamoring for a team ever since the second Senators' departure in 1972; the club was renamed the Nationals.

Handcuffed by concessions made in the Flood case, the owners had no choice but to accept the collective bargaining package offered by the MLBPA, and the reserve clause was effectively ended, to be replaced by the current system of free-agency and arbitration.

The National League, on the other hand, belonged to the Big Red Machine in Cincinnati, where Sparky Anderson's team, which included Pete Rose as well as Hall of Famers Tony Pérez, Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan, succeeded the A's run in 1975.

These events lead to greater labor difficulties, fan disaffection, rapidly rising prices, changes in game-play, and problems with the use of performance-enhancing substances like steroids tainting the race for records.

The Atlanta Braves became a power contender with greater revenues generated by WTBS, Ted Turner's Atlanta-based Super-Station, broadcast as "America's Team" to cable households nationwide.

Following the exit of competitor Donruss from the baseball-card industry, former bubble-gum giants Topps and Fleer came to dominate that market through exclusive contracts with players and Major League Baseball.

[61] In deals with players, teams and Major League Baseball, large corporations like NIKE and Champion pay big money to make sure that their logos are seen on the clothing and shoes worn by athletes on the field.

With both rapidly approaching Roger Maris's record of 61 home runs (set in 1961), the entire nation watched as the two power hitters raced to be the first to break into uncharted territory.

In the early 2000s, as a safe and effective test for anabolic steroids came online and sanctions for their use began to be strictly enforced, some players adopted the use of harder-to-detect human growth hormone (HGH) to increase stamina and strength.

On November 1, the New York City Medical Examiners Office announced that Caminiti died from "acute intoxication due to the combined effects of cocaine and opiates", but possibly-steroid-induced coronary artery disease and cardiac hypertrophy (an enlarged heart) were also contributing factors.

Based on the testimony from many of the athletes, Conte and Anderson accepted plea agreements from the government in 2005, on charges they distributed steroids and laundered money, in order to avoid significant time in jail.

Since the 1990s, the changeup has made a resurgence, being thrown masterfully by pitchers such as Tim Lincecum, Pedro Martínez, Trevor Hoffman, Greg Maddux, Matt Cain, Tom Glavine, Johan Santana, Marco Estrada, Justin Verlander, and Cole Hamels.

[93] To combat this problem, in 2023, MLB instituted the pitch clock to make games end quicker, which forces pitchers to throw within a given time limit, with 62% of fans expressing support during that year's season.