Download Origins and Birth of Major League Baseball

The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings: baseball’s first professional team.
Salt print of the 1848–1850
New York Knickerbockers.
Taken December 1862.
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We will discuss baseball’s origins and its journey from
an amateur’s game to a professional business.
Along the way we will meet key figures and discuss the
events that led to this transformation.
Ultimately, control over the game shifted from players to
owners and by the early 1900s the owners had
established a collusive monopoly which would last for
the next 100 years.
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A 1744 publication in England by John
Newbery called A Little Pretty Pocket-Book
includes a woodcut of stoolball and a
rhyme entitled "Base-ball." This is the first
known instance of the word baseball in print.
The book was very popular in England, and
was later published in Colonial America in
1762.
People have been pitching balls,
hitting them with bats, and running
for as long as there have been
people. Early forms of baseball
included the English folk games
“stoolball” in the 11th century, forms
of “cricket” in the 13th century, and
perhaps “rounders” in the 18th
century.
The American game evolved from
amateur urban clubs in the 1840s
and 1850s to the modern
professional major leagues that
began in the 1870s
The first published rules of baseball
were written in 1845 for a New York
(Manhattan) base ball club called the
Knickerbockers. The author,
Alexander Joy Cartwright, is often
credited with inventing the modern
game, though he likely wrote down
rules that had been in existence for
years.
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In 1857, sixteen clubs from New
York City sought to gain control
of the game. They standardized
the rules and formed the
National Association of Base
Ball Players (NABBP).
By 1862 some NABBP member
clubs offered games to the
general public in enclosed
ballparks with admission fees.
But players were never to be
paid. It was an amateur’s game.
During and after the American
Civil War (1860-1865), the
movements of soldiers and
exchanges of prisoners helped
spread the game.
1861–1865
There were many causes for the outbreak of the Civil War. Many people agree
slavery was the main cause for the war. In addition, sectional differences led to
conflicts. Northern and Southern states were developing different lifestyles and
cultures. Differences in the economic life of the North and the South also
contributed to the conflict. The North’s economy focused on finance and
manufacturing, and the South specialized in crops and agricultural trade. Southern
states also began to question the extent of the federal government’s power.
The Abolitionist Movement was active
in Northern and Western states before
the Civil War. Abolitionists wanted
slaves to be freed. Some abolitionists
favored relocating them in Africa.
Many, but not all, abolitionists believed
African-American slaves should have
the same freedoms as their owners.
Southern states opposed the abolition of
slavery; it was a financial necessity and
part of their social structure. The
South’s agricultural trade depended on
crops produced with slave labor.
The North’s population was three
times that of the South. Most other
countries recognized the Union as
the government in America.
However, Britain and France had
friendly relations with the
Confederacy and considered aiding
the South. The North also was more
affluent.
The South had about nine million
people, including about three million
slaves. The average Southerner was not
as wealthy as the average person living
in the North. About 90 percent of
American industry and railroads were
in the North. Reliance on slave labor
discouraged the creation of new jobs in
the South. This discouraged
immigration, and most immigrants
settled in the North.
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth
President of the United States. He
opposed the expansion of slavery. A
Republican, Lincoln led the Union
during the Civil War. John Wilkes Booth
assassinated Lincoln in Washington,
D.C., on April 14, 1865.
Jefferson Davis was President of the
Confederate States of America. During the
Mexican War, he had been an officer in
the United States Army. Davis also had
served as the United States Secretary of
War. When the South surrendered, he was
charged with treason and prohibited from
running for public office again.
At the beginning of the Civil War, states provided uniforms to soldiers; and the
uniforms were in a variety of colors. This led to massive confusion on the battlefield,
and often soldiers fired on their own men. As the war continued, both sides chose a
single color for their uniforms. The United States of America chose blue, and the
Confederate States of America chose gray.
President Abraham Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation. It was part
of a two-part plan that guaranteed
freedom to slaves in the Union and some
Confederate states. The Confederate
government claimed Lincoln could not
issue laws over states in which he had no
political control. The first plan, enacted
on September 22, 1862, freed slaves in
Confederate states that had not yet
rejoined the Union. The second part took
effect on January 1, 1863, applying to
specific states, but not to the border
states such as Maryland and West
Virginia.
President Abraham Lincoln was
assassinated at the end of the Civil
War. He was killed on April 14, 1865,
while attending a play at Ford’s
Theatre in Washington, D.C., with his
wife and two other people. Lincoln
was watching Our American Cousin
when John Wilkes Booth shot him in
the back of the head.
Booth was a loyal Confederate, and
he thought the Confederacy could
triumph if Lincoln were dead. Booth
jumped off the balcony and broke his
ankle, but managed to escape the
theater. Lincoln died of his fatal
wound the next morning.
The Civil War was the bloodiest war in American history. It has been referred to as
“The War Between the States,” “The Brother’s War,” and the “War of Northern
Aggression.” More than 600,000 Americans lost their lives, and countless others
were wounded severely. The Civil War led to passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth ,
and Fifteen Amendments to the United States Constitution. These amendments
outlawed slavery, granted African Americans United States citizenship, and granted
African-American males the right to vote. Although equal treatment under the law
for African Americans would not be enforced until almost a hundred years later, the
Civil War abolished slavery and established the supremacy of the federal
government.
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In 1869, Harry Wright formed the first openly
professional baseball team: The Cincinnati Red
Stockings.
Prior to this, players were amateurs and were not
paid to play.
But Cincinnati recruited nationally and effectively
by offering salaries (highest paid player receiving
$1,400—seven-times the average working man’s
wage), toured the country, were undefeated until
June 1870, and demonstrated that professional
baseball was a viable business enterprise.
The Chicago White Stockings (now the Cubs)
joined the NABBP in 1870 and one year later broke
away with several other clubs, including Harry
Wright’s new Boston Red Stockings to found the
first professional league, the National Association
of Professional Base Ball Players (NA).
But the NA was weak. Without an overall
organization or structure, schedules and
competition were chaotic. Players moved from
team to team depending on the salary offered.
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In 1876, William Hulbert, a Chicago coal
magnate and the owner of the White
Stockings, initiated the establishment of
the National League of Professional Base
Ball Clubs (NL).
The NA disappeared and the new National
League has been in existence ever since.
Indeed it is the world's oldest continuously
existing professional team-sports league.
The NL had strong central authority,
exclusive territories in large cities only, a
regular schedule of games, set uniform
ticket prices at 50 cents, and banned
gambling, drinking, and games on
Sunday.
But most importantly, the NL sought to
reduce player salaries—a considerable
expense—, increase fan interest by
keeping players from switching from team
to team, and impose discipline on unruly
players.
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The solution: in 1879 the owners added a reserve
clause to the contracts of the five best players on
each team, later the best eleven, and by 1890 all
players.
It required that they play only for their present
employer and “reserve” their services for the
following year. At first, few complained. To be
reserved was to be assured of a job for the next
season. But some likened it to slavery. Those who
complained were fired then blacklisted.
For the first time in the history of the game the
players would serve the interest of the owners.
For the next 100 years the game was controlled by
those who owned the field and supplied the ball.
Players were merely employees.
St. Louis Browns: AA Champions 1885-88.
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In 1882, a rival league, the American Association (AA)
started play. The AA offered Sunday games, alcoholic
beverages, and sold cheaper tickets everywhere (25 cents
versus the NL's standard 50 cents).
The new AA—commonly known as the “beer and
whiskey” league—drew huge, lively crowds of mostly
lower-class and immigrant fans. It co-existed with the
more sedate, established, upper-class NL for ten years
and the best team in each league often played an end-ofthe-season exhibition, a kind of precursor to the World
Series.
But the AA disappeared after the 1891 season and many
of its teams were absorbed by the NL.
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A third league born out of the Brotherhood of
Professional Base-Ball Players, the sport’s first
union.
Lasting only one year—1890—the Players League
was organized by star player (and Columbia
Law School graduate) John Montgomery Ward
who was disenchanted with the heavy-handed
tactics of the owners.
The Players League included a profit sharing
system for the players and their investors. Each
club was governed by an 8-man board of both
players and investors. The league was governed
by a senate of 16-members split evenly between
players and investors. Most importantly, player
contracts had no reserve clause.
80% of NL players flocked to the new league
Monte Ward
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But the NL owners undermined the Players
League at every turn. The owners turned to
coercion and bribery to thwart the new league.
Outdrawn by the Players League, the NL
distributed free passes to fans around town, used
propaganda, threats, personal intimidation, and
financial offers to induce the Players League’s
relatively naïve and inexperienced financial
backers to desert the players.
While Ward failed in his bid against the owners, he
continued playing; finishing his career as the only
player in history to win over 100 games as a
pitcher and collect over 2,000 hits.
Where there had been three top-level leagues in
1890, by the start of the 1892 season there was
only one.
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The NL operated as a monopoly for the rest of the
decade setting maximum salaries at $2,400 .
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But when the NL contracted to 8 teams in 1900,
there was an opening for new competition.
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He was the finest pitcher of the 1870s. Harry Wright
paid him $1,500 per year to pitch for the Boston Red
Stockings.
But he stopped pitching entirely at age 27 finishing
with a record of 253-65 for a winning percentage of
.796 – the best in baseball history.
He became a full-time promoter. He opened a
sporting goods business and began manufacturing
all the baseballs in the league as well as bats and
uniforms. Spaulding crushed or bought out his
competitors and Spaulding became the largest
sporting good manufacturer in the country.
After the death of William Hulbert in 1882,
Spalding became the principle owner of the White
Stockings. He built a private box in the stadium
fitted out with a new invention: the telephone to
keep track of all his enterprises while he watched
the game.
In 1888-89 he even took a team of players on a
global tour to promote the game. Newspapers
called him the baseball messiah.
He led other NL owners in their war against the
Players League and ultimately won the battle—
thereby shutting the players out of team ownership
forever.
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Following the NL’s contraction, a magnate
called Ban Johnson created the American
League,.
In 1900, NL players created their second
union: the Players Protective Association.
While it was as ineffectual as Ward’s earlier
union, it highlighted the players’
dissatisfaction with the owners.
Ban Johnson seized on this disaffection by
persuading players to join his new American
League. Of the 182 players on AL rosters in
1901, 111 were former NL players.
The 1901 and 1902 AL seasons were
unqualified successes. In 1900 Johnson had
started raiding NL rosters by paying higher
salaries, enticing more than 100 NL players
to join his league and fans packed AL
ballparks to see the stars who had switched
to the AL including Cy Young, and John
McGraw.
Ban Johnson
Cy Young
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As the bidding war between the two leagues grew fiercer and player salaries
continued to escalate, the AL grew in popularity. By 1902 the AL outdrew the NL,
2.2 million to 1.7 million attendees.
By 1903, the two leagues realized it was in their economic interest to compromise.
The leagues signed “The National Agreement”—the “constitution” of the sport.
The leagues pledged “to perpetuate baseball as the national game of America, and to
surround it with such safeguards as to warrant absolute public confidence in its
integrity and methods.” The two league presidents and a third person selected by
the two made up the National Commission which would govern the business of
baseball. The owners gave the three-person Commission the power to control
baseball “by its own decrees.”
The National Agreement ushered in an era of hegemony for organized baseball.
The two leagues settled into a peaceful and collusive co-existence with eight
teams in each league, an end-of-the-season World Series between each league
champion, and most importantly no more bidding wars for players.
Salaries became artificially depressed.
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Baseball was initially a game played by
amateurs for amusement.
As it grew in popularity, private
entrepreneurs built enclosed parks and
charged admission to see games.
To gain control of the game, rules were
standardized and leagues were formed.
In 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings
began paying players to play baseball.
Born from the ashes of the first
professional league—the National
Association—the National League was
formed by the owners and the reserve
clause was invented, binding players to
their teams for life and shifting power
from the players to the owners, a
situation that lasted for the next 100
years.
Although able to quash competition from
the upstart “beer and whiskey” and
Players leagues, the American League
was able to become a successful
competitor the NL. But they soon settled
their differences and entered into a
collusive agreement of peaceful
coexistence that lasts to this day.
Major League Baseball’s monopoly over
the game was in place.
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African Americans were not permitted to play on professional
white baseball teams.
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Therefore in the late 1800s, Professional African-American
teams and "negro leagues" were established.
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Interracial games occurred when major league white teams
played black teams in exhibition games.
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In 1942, Dodger’s
manager and owner
began plans to bring
black players to the team.
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Jackie Robinson officially
broke the color
boundary in the major
league when he put on a
Dodgers uniform in
April 1947.
 Babe Ruth
 Nickname: Great
Bambino
 Dominant hitter and
pitcher
 In 1919 hit 29
homeruns shattering
records
 Hit homerun in every
park in his league
 In the Hall of Fame
 Nolan Ryan
 Most dominating and
intimidating pitcher of
the game
 Enjoyed longest career
of any player in major
league history
 Won his 300th game in
1990
 Achieved his 5,000th
career strikeout in1989
 Made it on the All
Century Team in 1999
 Hank Aaron
 Baseball’s home run king
 Received the Medal of
Freedom George W. Bush
to honor the achievements
despite poverty and racism
 From 1954 to 1976, Aaron
hit 20 or more HRs in 20
seasons and hit 30 or more
in 15 seasons. Those two
feats have never been
equaled .
 Hall of Fame