Baseball Essay Research Paper Baseball is an

  • Просмотров 388
  • Скачиваний 9
  • Размер файла 19
    Кб

Baseball Essay, Research Paper Baseball is an immensely popular American game, known as the “national pastime,” played between two teams of nine players each. The basic implements used in the game are a leather-covered ball, wooden bats for hitting the ball, and gloves for catching it. Baseball is played on a large scale in Latin America, Japan, and other places besides the United States, but it is in the United States that it thrives most both as a participant’s and spectator’s sport. It is played at its highest level in the United States and two Canadian cities, where 26 teams make up the American and National Leagues (each with two divisions, East and West). Combined, these leagues are called major-league (professional) baseball. Most players who reach the major

leagues have worked their way up through Little League, scholastic, college, and minor-league (professional) ball. The vast majority of major-league players are American-reared, although since the 1960s the sport has seen an influx of Latin American players. Following a regular season of 162 games, the division winners vie for each league’s pennant; the American and National League champions then compete in the World Series. Both rounds of competition employ best-of-seven series of games. Baseball’s popularity is in part a result of the fact that almost every American boy plays the game at one time or another, and the lore of the game is intertwined with American life. Baseball has supplied the American culture with a wide range of legendary heroes, as well as books,

magazines, movies, and songs. The game has contributed hundreds of words and phrases to the American language. The History of Baseball The popular myth that Abner DOUBLEDAY invented baseball in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1839, is without foundation. Actually, baseball evolved from cricket and rounders, with town ball and the New York game, popular in the eastern United States by the 1820s, as intermediaries. On June 19, 1846, a New York team defeated the Knickerbocker Baseball Club of New York, which had drafted (1845) rules establishing the nine-player team and the four-base diamond. The score at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, N.J., that day was 23-1 in four innings. In 1857 a convention of baseball clubs established the length of a game as nine innings instead of 21 runs. One year later

the first organized league, the National Association of Base Ball Players, was formed. The first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, won 91 and tied 1 of their first 92 games in 1869-70. Their success helped spread professionalism, and the National Association of Professional Base-Ball Players operated a loose league for five years (1871-75) until the owners formed the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs in 1876 and made baseball a business. The independent American Association (1882-91) prospered by allowing Sunday games and the sale of beer in the stadium. Both leagues survived the rival Union Association’s challenge in 1884, but in 1890 the athletes formed the Players League, which financially pressed the National League and mortally wounded the

American Association. In 1892 the eight-team National League absorbed four American Association teams, but it reverted to eight teams after 1899. In 1901 the American League declared itself a major league, invaded National League cities, and raided the older league for players. The result of the eventual truce was the World Series, which has been played every year since 1903–except 1904, when the New York Giants refused to meet the American League champions (Boston). The major leagues successfully met the challenge of the Federal League (1914-15). But further problems arose with the revelation that eight members of the Chicago White Sox had conspired to throw the 1919 World Series to Cincinnati. Only the appointment of Judge Kenesaw Mountain LANDIS as commissioner and the