The History Of Major League Baseball

Alexander Cartwright developed the rules used in the first "official" baseball game, played by the Knickerbocker Club of New York in 1846, with the first diamond shaped field and permanent foul lines. In 1856, the "New York Mercury" identified baseball as "the national pastime" and a few years later, Walt Whitman wrote of it as "the American game."

Early Professional Teams

In 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first professional baseball team. A few years later, in 1871, nine other teams joined them to form the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players. The Association folded in 1876 for economic reasons according to David Nemec and Saul Wisnia, authors of "100 Years of Major League Baseball."

The National League

Baseball Almanac notes that in 1876, the remaining National Association teams from Boston, Chicago, Hartford, Louisville, Philadelphia, Brooklyn and St. Louis joined together to form the National League, playing seventy games the first year. The Chicago White Stockings pitched the first shutout that year and went on to win the pennant, finishing the season 52 and 14.

The American League

Nemec and Wisnia explain that baseball grew so fast after the National League formed that in 1901, a group formerly called the Western League renamed themselves as the American League. The league included teams from Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington D.C., Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee and Chicago.

The foul-strike rule was adopted, and the so-called "dead ball" era of singles, base-stealing and dominant pitching lasted until a number of years later, when, as Nemec and Wisnia put it, Babe Ruth "swept it away forever."

The 1920s

When the New York Yankees acquired Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox in 1920, his .376 batting average and 54 home runs gave fans something to cheer about, especially after Chicago fans and the baseball world were disheartened with the 1919 World Series cheating scandal. Yankee hitters, including Ruth and Lou Gehrig dominated the game for the next twenty years according to Nemec and Wisnia.

The Negro Major Leagues

Yankee domination did not extend to the Negro National League, which began in Kansas City in 1920. A number of different leagues came and went before they all folded in 1948, after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier when he joined the Dodgers in 1947. One of the most famous players, according to Nemec and Wisnia was Cool Papa Bell who was said to be "so fast he could turn off the lights and be under the covers before the room got dark."

The 1950s and 1960s

Televised baseball dampened attendance at ballparks in the 1950's, and teams began moving to different cities in attempts to gain more fans. Eight additional teams joined the expanded leagues in the 1960s.

The 1970s

The free-agency rulings caused baseball salaries to soar, as did attendance at ballparks. Many new stadiums were built, and artificial turf made speed the hallmark of the era according to Nemec and Wisnia.

The Modern Era

The popularity of baseball remained strong, coming back after a players strike in 1994. Famous players, home runs and retro-stadiums with real grass and open air kept fans coming to ballparks in the 1990s and into the 2000s.