Baseball For Dummies

History Of Baseball In The United States ... In "A Village Sketch," author Miss Mitford wrote: "Then comes a sun-burnt gipsy of six, beginning to grow tall and thin and to find the cares of the world gathering about her; with a pitcher in one hand, a mop in the other, an old straw bonnet of ambiguous shape, half hiding her tangled hair; a tattered stuff petticoat once green, hanging below an equally tattered cotton frock, once purple; her longing eyes fixed on a game of baseball at the corner of the green till she reaches the cottage door, flings down the mop and pitcher and darts off to her companions quite regardless of the storm of scolding with which the mother follows her runaway steps." The first team to play baseball under modern rules were the New York Knickerbockers...

Japanese Baseball League ... Teams Dai Tokyo (1936) → Lion Baseball Club (1937–1940) → Asahi Baseball Club (1941–1944) → Pacific Baseball Club (1946) → Taiyō Robins (1947–1949) → To the Central League (later renamed the Shochiku Robins; present: Yokohama DeNA BayStars, relocated) Korakuen Eagles (1937s) → Eagles Baseball Club (1938–1939) → Kurowashi Baseball Club (1940–1941) → Yamato Baseball Club (1942–1943) → Broken up Nagoya Baseball Club (1936–1943) → Sangyo Baseball Club (1944) → Chubu Nippon (1946) → Chubu Nippon Dragons (1947) → Chunichi Dragons (1948–1949) → To the Central League Nagoya Kinko (1936–1940) → Merged into the Tsubasa Baseball Club Osaka Tigers (1936–September 24, 1940, Nicknamed "Tigers") → Hanshin Baseball Club (September 25, 1940–1944) → Osaka Tigers (1946–1949, Nicknamed "Hanshin") → To the Central League (Present: Hanshin Tigers) Tokyo Kyojin (1936–1944; 1946) → Yomiuri Giants (1947–1949)...

Baseball In Venezuela ... The Luis Aparicio Award was established in 2004, in honor of Luis Aparicio, the only Venezuelan ballplayer to have been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York...

Professional Baseball In Japan ... Fumito "Jimmy" Horio became the first American to play professional baseball in Japan when he joined the Dai Nippon Tokyo Yakyu Kurabu (Tokyo Giants) in December 1934, touring with them in 1935... Jimmy Bonna, Kiyomi "Slim" Hirakawa, Fumito "Jimmy" Horio, Kazuyoshi "George" Matsuura, Andrew "Bucky" Harris McGalliard (Japan's "Bucky Harris"), Herbert "Buster" North, Yoshio "Sam" Takahashi, and Tadashi "Bozo" Wakabayashi became the first Americans to play in Japan's professional baseball league in 1936...

List Of People Banned From Major League Baseball ... Major League Baseball has maintained a list of "permanently ineligible" people since Kenesaw Mountain Landis was installed as the first Commissioner of Baseball in 1920...

High School Baseball In Japan ... These nationwide tournaments enjoy widespread popularity similar to that of NCAA March Madness in the United States, arguably equal to or greater than professional baseball... Several professional baseball players first made their mark at Kōshien, including Eiji Bandō, Sadaharu Oh, Koji Ota, Suguru Egawa, Masumi Kuwata, Kazuhiro Kiyohara, Hideki Matsui, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Yu Darvish and Masahiro Tanaka... Background There are two main tournaments: National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament ("Spring Kōshien") National High School Baseball Championship ("Summer Kōshien") In addition, there is a separate and less well-known Meiji Jingu Baseball Tournament held each year in November at Jingu Baseball Stadium in Tokyo...

Baseball In Cuba ... The reasons were because Cubans began to prefer baseball to viewing bullfights, which Cubans were expected to dutifully attend as homage to their Spanish rulers in an informal cultural mandate... Bellan started playing baseball for the Fordham Rose Hill Baseball Club, while attending Fordham University (1863–1868)... Cuban baseball is organized (1878 - 1898) In late 1878 the Cuban League was organized, consisting of three teams—Almendares, Habana, and Mantanzas—and playing four games per team...

Baseball In Australia ... In 1867, Victorian cricketers William Gaggin and Louis Goldsmith tried to set up a game of baseball at Yarra Park but were disrupted by fans arriving for a local Australian football match... The first competitive series was played between the Surry Baseball Club and members of the New South Wales Cricket Association over June/July 1878... The first interstate baseball games were played in 1890 when Victoria played South Australia at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground...

Baseball In Japan ... Corporations with interests outside baseball own the teams. Historically, teams have been identified with their owners, not where the team is based...

1919 World Series ... The 1919 World Series was the last World Series to take place without a Commissioner of Baseball in place... In 1920, the various franchise owners installed Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the first "Commissioner of Baseball." In 1921, eight players from the White Sox—including superstar Shoeless Joe Jackson—were banned from organized baseball for fixing the series (or having knowledge about the fix)...

History Of American Football ... American football resulted from several major divergences from rugby, most notably the rule changes instituted by Walter Camp, considered the "Father of American Football". Among these important changes were the introduction of the line of scrimmage and of down-and-distance rules...

Negro League Baseball ... History of the Negro leagues Amateur era Because blacks were not being accepted into the major and minor baseball leagues, they formed their own teams and had made professional teams by the 1880s... The first known baseball game between two named black teams was held on September 28, 1860, at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey... Immediately after the end of the American Civil War in 1865 and during the Reconstruction period that followed, a black baseball scene formed in the East and Mid-Atlantic states...

Baseball New Zealand ... Campbell was named to the 2006 New York Pennsylvania (NYP) League Mid-Season All-Star team. He finished in the top 10 for both batting average and on-base percentage...

History Of Sport ... Sports that are at least two and a half thousand years old include hurling (similar to field hockey) in Ireland, harpastum (similar to rugby) in Rome, cuju (similar to association football) in China, and polo in Persia. The Mesoamerican ballgame originated over three thousand years ago...

1995 Major League Baseball Season ... Despite the craziness, the 1995 season is now considered a financial success where the two best teams in baseball (in their leagues) met up in the World Series, the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves...

Baseball In Spain ... The Spanish league teams compete in Europe under CEB most notably in the Baseball Champions League and CEB cup...

1994–95 Major League Baseball Strike ... Background In response to a worsening financial situation in baseball, the owners of major league baseball teams collectively proposed a salary cap to their players...

Baseball In Canada ... Over the years at least 75 cities and towns have been home to minor league baseball teams. There is currently only one MLB-affiliated minor league team in the country: the Vancouver Canadians of the Class A Northwest League, an affiliate of the Blue Jays...