Scarce Banned From Baseball Lee Magee Autograph Card Fantastic Gambling
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SCARCE BANNED FROM BASEBALL LEE MAGEE AUTOGRAPH CARD FANTASTIC GAMBLING. LEE MAGEE SIGNED INDEX CARD Lee Magee of the Chicago Cubs was released just before the season began. Magee sued the Cubs for his 1920 salary and lost; after court testimony proved he had been involved in throwing games and collecting on bets, Landis banned him for life in 1921.
The cover photo on the Sunday magazine insert of the June 29, 1958, edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Citizen was of a young boy wearing a Little League baseball uniform gazing admiringly at an older, bespectacled gentleman who was squatting, a baseball bat in hand. As the accompanying article explained, the man in the photo was the boy’s grandfather, former major leaguer Lee Magee, a veteran of nine big-league seasons and now a Columbus resident and business owner with a large family. The article, written by veteran sports reporter Tom Keys, fairly accurately described Magee’s playing career, portraying a man who valued family above all else.1 However Keys’ article completely failed to tell readers the rest of the Lee Magee “story,” omitting any mention of a career that did not end voluntarily, but rather in controversy and litigation that barred the player for life from the game he loved. Any discussion of the enigmatic Magee is incomplete without it. That Magee should reside in Columbus in later years is not all that surprising. He was born to Joseph and Mary Hoernschemeyer on June 4, 1889, in Cincinnati, just a couple of hours away. His parents were of German ancestry; his father was a grocer. Birth records list Leo F. as their son’s given name and middle initial at birth,2 but at some point thereafter he became known as Leopold Christopher. A 14-letter surname was unwieldy, particularly for someone whose name began regularly appearing in baseball box scores. Leo thus mercifully adopted the last name “Magee.” In January 1917, after many years of unofficial use, he legally changed his name to Leo C. Magee.3 By then he was known in baseball circles as Lee Magee. Magee cut his baseball teeth on the sandlots of Cincinnati, particularly the diamond at the Liberty St. Bottoms. “Our team would show up at the Bottoms at 10 o’clock in the morning to hold the diamond for the game scheduled for 2 o’clock,” he told the writer of the Columbus Citizen article.4 For a time he was a batboy for the Cincinnati Reds. He graduated to professional baseball in June 1906 at the age of 17 when he signed a contract with the Meridian (Mississippi) White Ribbons of the Class D Cotton States League.5 Shortly thereafter he was granted his unconditional release due to a dispute over wages, the first of many such clashes during his career. In 1907 he began the year with Springfield (Illinois) of the Class B Three-I League. However he was soon either sold or transferred to Burlington of the Class D Iowa State League. In midseason he was released and subsequently signed by the Waterloo Cubs of the same league.6 Despite the turmoil Waterloo’s new second baseman was not bashful. “I figured I was a pretty hot player.”7 During the remainder of 1907 and through 1908, the popular Magee remained with Waterloo, raising his paltry .193 average 26 points in season two as his team finished first for the second straight time.8 Magee, a “star find,” according to one local paper,9 was deemed the fastest Waterloo player ever. The speedy Magee played for the Class B (Northwestern League) Seattle Turks in 1909. While there he began to show his versatility by trying his hand at first base and becoming a switch-hitter. His .264 batting average in 150 games for the pennant-winning Turks was 12th in the league, his 48 stolen bases sixth.10 During the 1909 season his rights were sold to the St. Louis Cardinals. He reported to them in 1910, but was optioned to the Louisville Colonels of the Class A American Association in May. The Cardinals reportedly had concerns about the youngster’s hitting and fielding ability, particularly at shortstop, where he was tried and beaten out by another rookie, Arnold Hauser.11 “I was riding the bench so they sent me to Louisville,” he told Tom Keys.12 Magee played in 132 games for the last-place Colonels, batting only .215 to justify the Cardinals’ hitting concerns. Mediocre numbers at Louisville aside, Magee debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals on July 4, 1911. In game two of a doubleheader he was inserted at second base for veteran Miller Huggins by manager Roger Bresnahan in an 11-1 loss to the Pirates at Pittsburgh. He singled off pitcher Claude Hendrix in two at-bats. A week later Magee and his new teammates were spared injury when their two Pullman cars remained on track during a serious train wreck near Bridgeport, Connecticut, in which 14 people died. The Cardinals were deemed heroes for their efforts in assisting the 47 other injured passengers.13 For his first season in the majors Magee appeared in 26 games, mostly at second base with a few at shortstop. At 5-feet-11 and 165 pounds, Magee hit .261 with 8 RBIs. The Cardinals liked what they saw. In early 1912 the veteran Huggins was injured. Magee, who was a typesetter for a Cincinnati newspaper during the offseason, took his place at second and played well, so well that when Huggins returned Magee was moved to left field, where he became a regular. Along the way he picked up the nickname “Flash.”14 In 128 games – 85 in the outfield – he batted .290. Only Huggins and Ed Konetchy were better for the sixth-place team. Magee also stole 16 bases and knocked in 40 runs. As the season wound down, he fashioned an 18-game hitting streak. Magee’s career was marred by frequent run-ins with umpires and opponents. In the October 1912 St. Louis city series against the crosstown Browns, Magee charged and shoved umpire Joe O’Brien. Many more such incidents would follow.15 In 1913 the task of reining in Magee fell to new Cardinals manager Miller Huggins. The pair clashed early on when Magee held out for a boost in salary promised him by former skipper Bresnahan. On March 24 reports indicated that the Cardinals’ offer of $3,200 left the parties $400 apart.16 By the 29th Magee was signed and sealed for an undisclosed sum. Early in the season he showed some rare firepower, hitting the first two home runs of his career, the latter a grand slam off Pittsburgh’s Marty O’Toole on April 20 at Robison Field in St. Louis. A bizarre incident occurred at the Polo Grounds in New York on July 17. Magee and teammate Ted Cather, a reserve outfielder, were ejected from a game with the Giants for fighting – with each other.17 On the whole, however, Magee continued to solidify his career in 1913, batting .267 in 137 games, mostly in left field. While he stole 23 bases, he was thrown out 26 times. After the season Magee and teammate Ivey Wingo were part of a group of National League players assembled by New York Giants manager John McGraw to play a series of exhibition games stateside, then embark on a world tour playing games along the way against a squad of American Leaguers chosen by Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey. During one of the exhibition games, played in a pouring rain in Medford, Oregon, on November 17, Magee, playing left field, made news when “on the dead run [he] picked a ball out of the atmosphere with one hand while holding an umbrella over his head with the other.”18 The tour left North America from Vancouver by ship and included stops in Japan, mainland Asia, and Australia before sailing through the Suez Canal to Cairo. The final portion of the journey included games in Europe and ended in England. Magee kept a journal of the tour.19 He was “an ardent shutterbug,” taking a series of photographs at the numerous tour stops.20 The weary ballplayers headed home in early March 1914 on the soon-to-be infamous Lusitania. As they neared New York a number of the players, including Magee, learned via telegrams that they were now the subject of a fierce battle between the existing major leagues and the Federal League, a fledgling minor league in 1913 with wealthy owners who sought to move up to equal status with the AL and NL in 1914. Juicy contracts were in the offing for players who would jump. Magee and others met with Mordecai Brown, the former pitching star of the Chicago Cubs, now the manager of the FL’s St. Louis entry. Brown had the league’s signing rights for Magee, and made a lucrative offer. However Magee had been given the impression that John McGraw and his pennant-winning Giants were interested in making a strong bid for his services. As it turned out, McGraw was merely acting as a caretaker for the Cardinals.21 Magee ended up signing a two-year deal with the Cardinals.22 The salary was variously reported. It seems likely that the amount was $6,000 per year with a bonus incentive,23 a significant sum given Magee’s record to date but far less than the amount an angry Brown claimed to have offered him. Said Brown, who had also tried and failed to sign Ivey Wingo, “They’ll rot in their boots in organized baseball before I ever offer either one of them another contract.”24 The Cardinals’ investment in Magee proved wise, at least in 1914. Not only did the team improve to third, but Magee had one of his best seasons, playing in 142 games, primarily in center field or first base, while garnering 150 hits, both figures career highs. He batted .284 with 36 steals, also a career high and fifth best in the league. His 35 sacrifice hits led the league. Meanwhile he drew reprimands, fines, and/or suspensions at least three times. None of this curbed his increasing popularity, particularly with the St. Louis sporting press, one of whom, W.J. O’Connor, wrote, “Magee is the sort of player who looks better in a slump than most players do on the stride.”25 The love affair ended abruptly in late 1914. Magee, sensing there was still money to be made, was once again dickering with a Federal League no longer as concerned with preserving territorial rights. In November reports surfaced that Magee was meeting with the president of the Chicago Federals. Magee announced that Chicago’s offer was “almost double what I am getting here.” Cardinals president Schuyler Britton’s response: “Lee Magee can jump into the lake or the Federal League for all I care.”26 It turned out that Britton did care. Magee did not sign with the Chifeds. Instead, in mid-November he signed with the FL’s Brooklyn entry for 1915 – not only to play but also to manage. At 25 he would be one of the youngest to ever manage a major-league team.27 The managerial appointment was met with skepticism. It was also met with a lawsuit. On January 2, 1915, the Cardinals in the name of their manager, Miller Huggins, filed a petition in Cincinnati seeking a temporary injunction restraining Magee, a player they deemed still under contract for 1915, from playing in the FL.28 The petition was part of a series of similar legal maneuvers against individual players filed by the AL and NL to protect against raids on players under reserve to its member teams. The judge in Cincinnati refused to issue the injunctive relief sought by the Cardinals, indefinitely postponing the matter pending resolution of an antitrust action filed in the federal courts in Chicago in January 1915 by the Federal League against the AL and NL. The Feds sought to restrain the two leagues from enforcing contracts like the one at issue in Magee’s case. Magee quickly filed a petition to intervene in this new case.29 Meanwhile Magee was free to manage in Brooklyn. The Tip-Tops had finished fifth out of eight teams in the first season of the league’s existence as a major-league circuit in 1914. The new manager of the Tip-Tops took his job very seriously. From the start, perhaps to allay concerns that his youth would hinder his ability to handle the veteran players on the squad, Magee took a rigid disciplinarian stance. In addition, he appeared determined to send a message to not only his players, but opponents and umpires as well, that he was a fighter who would back down from no one. As a result Magee was in constant hot water with one faction or the other from the start. In Jackson, Mississippi, during a spring-training game with the local Millsaps College squad, he engaged the college team’s catcher in a fight. That quickly involved both teams. The Tip-Tops required a police escort to exit the grounds.30 It was only the start. During his time as manager Magee was ejected on five occasions, including the first inning of the team’s home opener in April. He was thrown out an additional three times as a player.31 The Tip-Top players reacted with derision to the strict stance taken by their new manager. Before the season even started, Magee clashed with veteran outfielder Artie Hofman. When Hofman failed to follow an instruction from Magee during a spring-training game, the rookie manager retaliated by fining Hofman $10 for breaking the manager’s rule against smoking. Hofman refused to play and eventually landed in Buffalo. He was not the only unhappy Tip-Top, according to another veteran, Jim Delahanty. He predicted that a blowup was in the offing.32 Delahanty soon was gone, too. Before long even outfielder Benny Kauff, who defended Magee and was one of the league’s legitimate stars, attempted without success to jump to the New York Giants.33 The effect of Magee’s actions on his team’s performance was not immediately felt. The Tip-Tops won six of their first seven games. The success was fleeting. By the end of July the Tip-Tops were in sixth place, 10 games below .500. Manager Magee was publicly threatening to quit.34 The team’s lackluster play was not due to his on-the-field performance. Magee feasted on the league’s watered-down pitching. He finished third in the league in batting at a career-high .323. His season totals over 121 games included 34 stolen bases and a career-high 49 RBIs. In the end it all proved too much for Magee. In mid-August, his team still mired in sixth at 53-64 and attendance suffering, the club announced Magee’s resignation as manager. According to a club spokesman, he “is young and has a fiery temper and the job has had its bad effects upon him.”35 He would continue to play second base for new manager John Ganzel, a former manager (1908) of the Cincinnati Reds. Ganzel fared only a little better (17-18) as the Tip-Tops ended the season in seventh place. It proved the last season for the Tip-Tops and the FL. In mid-December a settlement was reached with the American and National Leagues. The contracts of Magee and several other Federal League stars were taken over by oilman Harry Sinclair, until the settlement the owner of the Newark Peppers FL franchise. A number of teams sought Magee’s services for 1916, due to his improved hitting and his versatility. In the end the New York Yankees purchased his contract from Sinclair for somewhere between $20,000 and $25,000. Magee’s pay would be in the neighborhood of $8,500, about what he was paid by the Tip-Tops.36 His old Cardinals manager Miller Huggins would be his new manager. “Well, he’s the prize of the Federal League collection,” said Huggins. “His value to a club is great when you stop to consider that he can play five positions on any club very capably.”37 Magee did shine on June 28 when he accumulated a record-tying four assists in the outfield. By season’s end, however, Huggins’ words rang hollow. Although Magee drove in 45 runs, just four fewer than in 1915, his average in 131 games fell to .257. He stole 29 bases, but he was caught 25 times. Only four AL players were caught more times. To his credit, Magee didn’t shy away when he was called upon to offer an explanation of his woes at the plate, telling a reporter, “(t)he pitching in the American league was so much better than what I faced in the Federal league that it soon convinced me that I had spent the season of 1915 in a minor league circuit.”38 In addition to his playing duties in 1916, Magee took an active role in the Baseball Players’ Fraternity, a short-lived players union. By the fall he was listed as one of six vice presidents. He also served the organization as a director and a member of its advisory board.39 After the 1916 season Magee returned to Ohio to take care of two very important personal matters. In early December the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Magee was to marry Beatrice Albina Rodgers, described as a “popular Price Hill beauty.”40 The couple would have three children during a long marriage. And on January 8, 1917, a local judge signed an entry legally changing the ballplayer’s name to Leo C. Magee.41 The 1917 season started with Magee still a Yankee, but it was no secret they were seeking a trade. On July 15 Magee returned to St. Louis, this time to the Browns, in exchange for outfielder Armando Marsans, the Yankees agreeing to pick up the difference in salary of the higher-paid Magee. At the time of the trade Magee was batting only .220 in 51 games. Things were even worse in St. Louis. In 36 games he could muster only 19 hits and a .170 average. Given his hefty salary, more change was in order. The Browns headed in that direction in early 1918 when they reportedly offered Magee a contract for $3,500, less than half of his previous amount.42 He refused to accept the offer, claiming he had played through an injury that affected his 1917 results.43 The Browns had seen and heard enough. On March 18 they were part of a three-team deal that sent Magee to his hometown Reds. The Yankees sent outfielder Tim Hendryx to the Browns. The Reds sent the Yankees catcher Tommy Clarke. Magee was thrilled to finally get to play in Cincinnati. His manager would be the legendary Christy Mathewson, who had sought Magee for several months prior to the trade.44 All should have gone well. It did not. One of Magee’s teammates on the Reds was Hal Chase, the first baseman known as much for his shady play as his matchless fielding prowess. It was not a good mix. While Magee’s batting average improved to .290, his fielding did not. He made a league-leading 29 errors at second base. (His 40 had led the Federal League at that position in 1915.) Moreover there were off-field problems. One on public display occurred during the Reds’ batting practice before a game with the Brooklyn Robins at Ebbets Field. One report had Magee firing a ball “with force” at outfield teammate Earle “Greasy” Neale.45 When Neale returned to the dugout, a fight broke out that left Magee bloodied. He did not return to the lineup for several games, indicating that perhaps there was more afoot than just the fight.46 As the 1918 season wound down, the nation’s war effort and not baseball was on the players’ minds. The New York Times reported that Magee had joined the war effort by way of the YMCA as “an overseas physical recreation director.”47 By the spring of 1919, the war was over and as usual Magee was battling his club over salary. When the Reds refused to increase it, he did not travel to spring training. On April 18 his contract was purchased by Brooklyn. By now many were getting fed up with Magee’s actions, but not all. Noted sports journalist Hugh Fullerton wrote, “Magee is a smart, rather brilliant fellow, whose trouble has been largely because he was accused by fellow-players of being a ‘swelled-head.’ I never have found him that way.”48 Apparently the Robins did not share Hugh Fullerton’s enthusiasm. On June 2, after 45 games and a .238 average, they shipped Magee to the Chicago Cubs for infielder Pete Kilduff. The sudden change seemed to energize Magee. Less than a month after the trade, he hit his 12th and final career home run off Wilbur Cooper of the Pirates. Playing mostly in the Cubs outfield, he batted .292 in 79 games and stole 14 bases. On August 1 he paid back the Robins with a triple and a pair of doubles in a 9-2 Cubs win. The Cubs seemed satisfied. When the Cubs released a list of players they planned to reserve for 1920, Magee was on the list. Thus it was with no little surprise that a St. Louis newspaper reported on February 12, 1920, that Magee had been waived out of both major leagues.49 The Cubs issued his unconditional release nine days later.50 The word on the street was that Magee was accused of betting on baseball games. The Cubs chose to release the player without comment rather than air the issue in public.51 Magee chose not to go quietly. On March 6 he forwarded a telegram to the sports editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch claiming that he had been unlawfully blacklisted from baseball. He threatened to file a lawsuit to test the right of the Cubs to exercise its option for his services as they did in December and then release him a month or so later. The article accompanying the text of Magee’s letter mentioned that he “was reported to have been involved in the discussion surrounding [his Reds teammate] Hal Chase, who was tried and acquitted of betting against the Cincinnati club. …”52 Those charges were heard after the 1918 season by John Heydler, the president of the NL. Attorney Robert S. Alcorn represented Chase. Magee now retained Alcorn in late March 1920 to represent him. The pair awaited a response from Heydler to a written complaint Magee sent him. If none was forthcoming, Magee threatened to publicly air the charges against him as well as “burn my bridges and then jump off the ruins.” If no longer permitted to play, “I’ll take quite a few noted people with me. I’ll show up some people for tricks turned ever since 1906. …”53 President Heydler quickly responded to this latest salvo. He told reporters that no charges were pending against Magee and challenged him to produce his evidence of wrongdoing in the sport.54 Alcorn later claimed he gave Heydler the names of four active players who bet on baseball. Heydler categorically denied that the letter he had received from Alcorn contained the names of any such players.55 (Correspondence between the two indicates that Alcorn’s letter referred only to those players previously implicated during the Chase hearing in 1918.56) When it became clear the Cubs and the NL would not budge, Magee filed a lawsuit against them in the state court in Cincinnati claiming $9,500 damages for breach of contract. The defendants successfully petitioned to remove the case to the federal court system on the basis that Magee resided in Ohio and the Cubs were an Illinois resident. Murray Seasongood, a Cincinnati trial attorney who later became the city’s mayor, represented the Cubs. During the pretrial phase it became clear that at trial the Cubs would claim that on February 10, 1920, Magee confessed to Cubs president William L. Veeck and to Heydler that while members of the Reds on July 25, 1918, he and Hal Chase each bet $500 against their team in the first game of a doubleheader against the Boston Braves.57 The Reds won the game, played in Boston, 4-2 in 13 innings. Magee was 1-for-6. He scored a run and made two fielding errors. Magee’s lawsuit was tried over three days beginning on June 7, 1920, in the US District Court in Cincinnati before Judge John W. Peck. A key witness for the Cubs was James Costello, a Boston billiards-hall owner. He testified that in July 1918 Magee, and not Chase, came to him with a proposition to throw the first game of the next day’s doubleheader with Boston. The next morning Magee and Hal Chase visited Costello and renewed Magee’s offer. Costello told the pair the gamblers would not bite unless each of them had money on the game as well. Since they claimed they had no money with them, Costello agreed to take checks from each in the amount of $500. The players assured Costello that the Reds’ pitcher, Pete Schneider, was in on the fix. (As it turned out Schneider, who denied that he was part of the plot, asked to pitch the second game and not the first that day.) The players were to get even money and their checks returned if Boston won, as well as one-third of all bets collected for that game. When the Reds won the game, Costello went to cash the player’s checks. Chase’s check went through. However Magee had canceled his check.58 In June 1919 Costello brought charges against Magee in Boston Municipal Court for nonpayment. Magee was arrested but released when a settlement was reached to repay the debt. However, Magee’s connection to gambler Costello was now public knowledge.59 Both league President Heydler and Cubs president Veeck confirmed Veeck’s earlier version of events culminating in Magee’s confession of his role in the matter, although Magee had told them Chase was the instigator and not Magee. Magee, who had testified in his portion of the case, countered this strong testimony against him by taking the witness stand again, this time in rebuttal. He admitted making the bet. He denied that he and Chase planned to bet against the Reds, claiming that he was double-crossed by Chase, who bet their money against the Reds. That is why he canceled the check. Magee claimed that it was his strong play that won the game for the Reds in the top of the 13th inning. He pointed to his base hit that allowed him to score the lead run when he came home on teammate Edd Roush’s inside-the-park home run.60 That testimony had already been blunted by the earlier testimony of his manager, Christy Mathewson, who told jurors that in the ninth inning with the Reds ahead by one run, a Magee throwing error permitted Boston to tie the game. Furthermore, Magee reached first base safely in the 13th only because his easy grounder hit a stone, bounced up and struck the shortstop in the face, breaking his nose. Magee then proceeded to ignore Mathewson’s steal signal, scoring only because of the home run. Finally, he recalled that Magee threw wildly again in the bottom of the 13th inning, the Reds holding on to win in spite of the muff.61 It took the jury only 44 minutes to render a verdict in favor of the defendant Cubs. An elated John Heydler told reporters, “I consider this verdict the greatest verdict in the history of the national game in behalf of clean baseball.”62 It was only the start. A few months later, in September, a Chicago grand jury issued indictments in what is now known as the Black Sox Scandal. The decision to try Magee’s case rather than reach a settlement was but the first shot by baseball’s establishment to rid the game of its gambling problems. Emboldened by the result, the leagues took the next step. While under cross-examination during his trial, Magee had testified, “(A) man ought to be put out of the league who would bet against his own team.”63 That became Magee’s fate, as well as Chase’s.64 Considered permanently ineligible, Magee never played a major-league game after September 28, 1919. He was 30 years old at the time. Over nine seasons he played in 1,015 games. His lifetime batting average of .276 and 1,031 hits included 12 home runs, 277 runs batted in, and 199 extra-base hits. He stole 186 bases. He played every position but catcher and pitcher. Magee spent his post-baseball years in Columbus. He seemingly kept his baseball career, particularly the way it ended, under wraps, as evidenced by his daughter’s comments to sportswriter Tom Keys in the summer of 1958 that until recently she was unaware he had ever played major-league baseball.65 He initially worked for a finance company and played some semipro ball. Later he earned his living as the proprietor of the Commerce Coal Co., delivering coal to customers in the Columbus area. He served as a member of the Board of Trustees of Rosemont School. He died of a “coronary occlusion” on March 14, 1966, at St. Anthony Hospital, Columbus. He was 76.66 He was survived by his wife, Beatrice; a son, James Rodgers Magee; a daughter, Mrs. Joseph (Janet) M. Gallen Jr.; seven grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Another son, Leo C. Magee Jr., died while serving in the military. Lee Magee is buried at St. Joseph Cemetery, just south of Columbus in Lockbourne, Ohio.67 Leo Christopher "Lee" Magee (born Leopold Christopher Hoernschemeyer; June 4, 1889 – March 14, 1966) was an American Major League Baseball player and manager between 1911 and 1919. While he played the majority of his professional games in the outfield, he also played the infield frequently. In 1915, he was a player/manager for the Brooklyn Tip-Tops of the Federal League for most of the season. The team was 53–64 under his management. Magee was later banned from baseball for his ties to gamblers and match fixing. Professional career Magee signed with the Seattle Turks of the Northwestern League for the 1909 season. The Oregonian noted "To provide against a possible loss of [Pug] Bennett, [Dan] Dugdale signed Lee Magee, a fast youngster, who so far has justified the advance press dope of his touters that he handles himself in the field like Johnny Evers."[1] On August 19, 1909, Magee was sold to the St. Louis Cardinals by the Seattle Turks of the Northwestern League.[2] In 1915, Magee was sued by the St. Louis Cardinals after he jumped to the Brooklyn Tip-Tops in the Federal League. James A. Gilmore, president of the Federal League, instructed Magee to ignore the suit.[3] In 1015 games over nine seasons, Magee posted a .276 batting average (1031-for-3741) with 467 runs, 133 doubles, 54 triples, 12 home runs, 277 RBI, 186 stolen bases and 265 bases on balls. Defensively, he finished his career with an overall .962 fielding percentage. Banishment As a ballplayer with the Chicago Cubs, Magee and Hal Chase of the Philadelphia Phillies were accused of fixing a game on August 31, 1919, by the Cook County, Illinois grand jury investigating the Black Sox scandal. In response Cubs president Bill Veeck released Magee.[4] Magee filed suit against the Cubs for $9,500 in lost wages and bonuses in 1920. He claimed to have damning evidence which would be the "biggest bomb in baseball history".[5][6] The jury ruled in favor of the Cubs on June 9, 1920.[7] Personal life Magee was accused by Fred W. Kleine of St. Louis, Missouri in a reply to his wife Harriet Kleine's petition for divorce, with a charge that Harriet would meet Magee and other baseball players at Robison Field and bring them home. In one instance in May 1910, Fred W. Kleine claimed he found his wife drinking beer with Magee, Jack Bliss and Kitty Knight. Another instance, according to Fred W. Kleine, his wife had to assist an inebriated Magee down their stairs. All of the players denied wrongdoing, but said they had been guests at the Kleine's house, which was across the street from the ballpark. Magee responded that it was a leg injury that made him require assistance down the Kleine's stairs.[8] The Oregonian noted that "Magee's name in a divorce suit along with other ball players, is not much of a surprise. Lee was a handsome boy and women admired him. He had an escapade on a sleeping car when he was playing first [base] for Seattle, that took diplomacy on the part of president Dugdale to smooth over."[9] Magee married Beatrice Rogers in 1917 and during this time Magee petitioned the court in Cincinnati to legally change his name from Leopold Christopher Hoernschemeyer to Lee Magee. According to The Oregonian this was done so his wife would be known as Mrs. Magee following their marriage.[10] See also List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders List of Major League Baseball player-managers Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league and the highest level of organized baseball in the United States and Canada. One of the big four major leagues, MLB comprises 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. Formed in 1876 and 1901, respectively, the NL and AL cemented their cooperation with the National Agreement in 1903, making MLB the oldest major professional sports league in the world. They remained legally separate entities until 2000, when they merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball.[3][7][17][18] MLB is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.[7] Baseball's first all-professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was founded in 1869. The first few decades of professional baseball saw rivalries between leagues, and players often jumped from one team or league to another. The period before 1920 was the dead-ball era, when home runs were rarely hit. Professional baseball survived the Black Sox Scandal, a conspiracy to fix the 1919 World Series, then rose in popularity in the following decade. It survived the Great Depression and World War II. Shortly after the war, Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier. The 1950s and 1960s saw the AL and NL add clubs; some moved around the country. Modern stadiums with artificial turf surfaces began to change the game in the 1970s and 1980s. Home runs dominated the game during the 1990s. In the mid-2000s, media reports disclosed the use of anabolic steroids among MLB players; a 2006–07 investigation produced the Mitchell Report, which found that many players had used steroids and other performance-enhancing substances, including at least one player from each team. Each team plays 162 games per season, with Opening Day traditionally held during the first week of April. Six teams in each league then advance to a four-round postseason tournament in October, culminating in the World Series, a best-of-seven championship series between the two league champions first played in 1903. The New York Yankees have the most championships with 27. The reigning champions are the Texas Rangers, who defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2023 World Series. MLB is the second-wealthiest professional sport league by revenue after the National Football League (NFL).[19][20][21] Baseball games are broadcast on television, radio, and the internet throughout North America and in several other countries. MLB has the highest total season attendance of any sports league in the world; in 2018, it drew more than 69.6 million spectators.[22] MLB also oversees Minor League Baseball, which comprises lower-tier teams affiliated with the major league clubs. MLB and the World Baseball Softball Confederation jointly manage the international World Baseball Classic tournament. Organizational structure MLB is governed by the Major League Baseball Constitution. This document has undergone several incarnations since its creation in 1876.[23] Under the direction of the Commissioner of Baseball, MLB hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts. MLB maintains a unique, controlling relationship over the sport, including most aspects of Minor League Baseball. This is due in large part to the 1922 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Federal Baseball Club v. National League, which held that baseball is not interstate commerce and therefore not subject to federal antitrust law; MLB is the only league that has such a status, and has not faced any competition since this case.[24][25] This ruling has been weakened only slightly in subsequent years.[26] The weakened ruling granted more stability to the owners of teams and has resulted in values increasing at double-digit rates.[26][27] There were several challenges to MLB's primacy in the sport, with notable attempts to establish competing leagues occurring during the late 1800s, from 1913 to 1915 with the short-lived Federal League, and in 1960 with the aborted Continental League.[26] The chief executive of MLB is the commissioner, Rob Manfred. The deputy commissioner of baseball administration and chief legal officer is Dan Halem. There are seven other executives: executive vice president and general counsel, chief operations and strategy officer, chief communications officer, chief financial officer and senior advisor, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, chief revenue officer, and chief baseball development officer.[28][29] The multimedia branch of MLB is MLB Advanced Media, which is based in New York City. This branch oversees MLB.com and each of the 30 teams' websites. Its charter states that MLB Advanced Media holds editorial independence from the league, but it is under the same ownership group and revenue-sharing plan. MLB Productions is a similarly structured wing of the league, focusing on video and traditional broadcast media. MLB also owns 67 percent of MLB Network, with the other 33 percent split between several cable operators and satellite provider DirecTV.[30] It operates out of studios in Secaucus, New Jersey, and also has editorial independence from the league.[31] League organization In 1920, the weak National Commission, created to manage relationships between the two leagues, was replaced with the much more powerful Commissioner of Baseball, who had the power to make decisions for all of professional baseball unilaterally.[3] From 1901 to 1960, the American and National Leagues fielded eight teams apiece. In the 1960s, MLB expansion added eight teams, including the first non-U.S. team (the Montreal Expos). Two teams (the Seattle Mariners and the Toronto Blue Jays) were also added in the 1970s. From 1969 through 1993, each league consisted of an East and West Division. In 1993, the National League expanded with two teams, the Florida Marlins and the Colorado Rockies, to even up the number of teams in both leagues. A third division, the Central Division, was formed in each league in 1994. Until 1996, the two leagues met on the field only during the World Series and the All-Star Game. Regular-season interleague play was introduced in 1997.[32] In March 1995, two new franchises, the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now known as the Tampa Bay Rays), were awarded by MLB, which began play in 1998. This addition brought the total number of franchises to 30. In early 1997, MLB decided to assign one new team to each league: Tampa Bay joined the AL and Arizona joined the NL. The original plan was to have an odd number of teams in each league (15 per league, with five in each division), but in order for every team to be able to play daily, this would have required interleague play to be scheduled throughout the entire season. However, it was unclear at the time if the interleague play would continue after the 1998 season, as it had to be approved by the players' union. For this and other reasons, it was decided that both leagues should continue to have an even number of teams, and therefore, one existing club would have to switch leagues. The Milwaukee Brewers agreed in November 1997 to move from the AL to the NL, thereby making the NL a 16-team league. At the same time, the Detroit Tigers agreed to move from the AL East to the AL Central (to replace Milwaukee), with the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays joining the AL East.[33] Later, when the Houston Astros changed ownership prior to the 2013 season, the team moved from the NL Central to the AL West,[34][35] resulting in both leagues having three divisions of five teams each and allowing all teams to have a more balanced schedule.[35] Interleague play is now held throughout the season.[35] In 2000, the AL and NL were dissolved as legal entities, and MLB became a single, overall league de jure, similar to the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Hockey League (NHL)—albeit with two components called "leagues" instead of "conferences". The same rules and regulations are used in both leagues, with one former exception: the AL operated under the designated hitter (DH) rule, while the NL did not.[36][37] This difference in rules between leagues was unique to MLB, as the other major professional sports leagues in the U.S. and Canada have one set of rules for all teams.[citation needed] In 2020, the National League (NL) used the designated hitter (DH) rule for the first time.[38] As part of the settlement of the 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout, this change was made permanent thus making the rules in the two leagues identical.[36][39] Teams See also: Timeline of Major League Baseball BravesMarlinsMetsPhilliesNationalsCubsRedsBrewersPiratesCardinalsDiamondbacksRockiesDodgersPadresGiantsOriolesRed SoxYankeesRaysBlue JaysWhite SoxGuardiansTigersRoyalsTwinsAstrosAngelsAthleticsMarinersRangers Map all coordinates using OpenStreetMap Download coordinates as: An asterisk (*) denotes a relocation of a franchise. See respective team articles for more information. Overview of MLB teams League Division Team City Stadium Capacity Coordinates Founded Joined American League East Baltimore Orioles[40] Baltimore, Maryland Oriole Park at Camden Yards 45,971 39°17′2″N 76°37′18″W 1901* Boston Red Sox[41] Boston, Massachusetts Fenway Park 37,949 42°20′47″N 71°5′51″W 1901 New York Yankees[42] New York, New York Yankee Stadium 47,309 40°49′45″N 73°55′35″W 1903 Tampa Bay Rays[43] St. Petersburg, Florida Tropicana Field 31,042 27°46′6″N 82°39′12″W 1998 Toronto Blue Jays[44] Toronto, Ontario Rogers Centre 41,500 43°38′29″N 79°23′21″W 1977 Central Chicago White Sox[45] Chicago, Illinois Guaranteed Rate Field 40,615 41°49′48″N 87°38′2″W 1901 Cleveland Guardians[46] Cleveland, Ohio Progressive Field 34,830 41°29′45″N 81°41′7″W 1901 Detroit Tigers[47] Detroit, Michigan Comerica Park 41,297 42°20′21″N 83°2′55″W 1901 Kansas City Royals[48] Kansas City, Missouri Kauffman Stadium 37,903 39°3′5″N 94°28′50″W 1969 Minnesota Twins[49] Minneapolis, Minnesota Target Field 38,871 44°58′54″N 93°16′42″W 1901* West Houston Astros[50] Houston, Texas Minute Maid Park 41,676 29°45′25″N 95°21′20″W 1962 (NL) 2013 (AL) Los Angeles Angels[51] Anaheim, California Angel Stadium 45,957 33°48′1″N 117°52′58″W 1961 Oakland Athletics[52] Oakland, California[B] Oakland Coliseum[B] 46,847 37°45′6″N 122°12′2″W 1901* Seattle Mariners[54] Seattle, Washington T-Mobile Park 47,943 47°35′29″N 122°19′57″W 1977 Texas Rangers[55] Arlington, Texas Globe Life Field 40,300 32°45′5″N 97°4′58″W 1961* National League East Atlanta Braves[56] Cumberland, Georgia Truist Park 41,500 33°53′24″N 84°28′4″W 1871* (NA) 1876 (NL) Miami Marlins[57] Miami, Florida LoanDepot Park 36,742 25°46′41″N 80°13′11″W 1993 New York Mets[58] New York, New York Citi Field 41,922 40°45′25″N 73°50′45″W 1962 Philadelphia Phillies[59] Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Citizens Bank Park 43,651 39°54′21″N 75°9′59″W 1883 Washington Nationals[60] Washington, D.C. Nationals Park 41,313 38°52′22″N 77°0′27″W 1969* Central Chicago Cubs[61] Chicago, Illinois Wrigley Field 41,268 41°56′54″N 87°39′20″W 1870 (NA) 1876 (NL) Cincinnati Reds[62] Cincinnati, Ohio Great American Ball Park 42,319 39°5′51″N 84°30′24″W 1882 (AA) 1890 (NL) Milwaukee Brewers[63] Milwaukee, Wisconsin American Family Field 41,900 43°1′42″N 87°58′16″W 1969* (AL) 1998 (NL) Pittsburgh Pirates[64] Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania PNC Park 38,362 40°26′49″N 80°0′21″W 1882 (AA) 1887 (NL) St. Louis Cardinals[65] St. Louis, Missouri Busch Stadium 44,383 38°37′21″N 90°11′35″W 1882 (AA) 1892 (NL) West Arizona Diamondbacks[66] Phoenix, Arizona Chase Field 48,519 33°26′43″N 112°4′1″W 1998 Colorado Rockies[67] Denver, Colorado Coors Field 46,897 39°45′22″N 104°59′39″W 1993 Los Angeles Dodgers[68] Los Angeles, California Dodger Stadium 56,000 34°4′25″N 118°14′24″W 1884* (AA) 1890 (NL) San Diego Padres[69] San Diego, California Petco Park 42,445 32°42′26″N 117°9′24″W 1969 San Francisco Giants[70] San Francisco, California Oracle Park 41,915 37°46′43″N 122°23′21″W 1883* History Main article: History of baseball in the United States Founding In the 1860s, aided by soldiers playing the game in camp during the Civil War, "New York"-style baseball expanded into a national game and spawned baseball's first governing body, the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP). The NABBP existed as an amateur league for 12 years. By 1867, more than 400 clubs were members. Most of the strongest clubs remained those based in the Northeastern United States. For professional baseball's founding year, MLB uses the year 1869—when the first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was established.[71] A schism developed between professional and amateur ballplayers after the founding of the Cincinnati club. The NABBP split into an amateur organization and a professional organization. The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, often known as the National Association (NA), was formed in 1871.[72] Its amateur counterpart disappeared after only a few years.[73] The modern Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves franchises trace their histories back to the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players in the 1870s.[74] In 1876, the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs (later known as the National League or NL) was established after the NA proved ineffective. The league placed its emphasis on clubs rather than on players. Clubs could now enforce player contracts, preventing players from jumping to higher-paying clubs. Clubs were required to play the full schedule of games instead of forfeiting scheduled games when the club was no longer in the running for the league championship, which happened frequently under the NA. A concerted effort was made to curb gambling on games, which was leaving the validity of results in doubt. The first game in the NL—on Saturday, April 22, 1876 (at Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia)—is often pointed to as the beginning of MLB.[75] National League Baltimore Orioles, 1896 The early years of the NL were tumultuous, with threats from rival leagues and a rebellion by players against the hated "reserve clause," which restricted the free movement of players between clubs. Teams came and went; 1882 was the first season where the league's membership was the same as the preceding season's, and only four franchises survived to see 1900. Competitor leagues formed regularly and also disbanded regularly. The most successful was the American Association (1882–1891), sometimes called the "beer and whiskey league" for its tolerance of the sale of alcoholic beverages to spectators. For several years, the NL and American Association champions met in a postseason championship series—the first attempt at a World Series. The two leagues merged in 1892 as a single 12-team NL, but the NL dropped four teams after the 1899 season. This led to the formation of the American League in 1901 under AL president Ban Johnson, and the resulting bidding war for players led to widespread contract-breaking and legal disputes.[citation needed] The war between the AL and NL caused shock waves throughout the baseball world. At a meeting at the Leland Hotel in Chicago in 1901, the other baseball leagues negotiated a plan to maintain their independence. A new National Association was formed to oversee these minor leagues.[76] After 1902, the NL, AL, and NA signed a new National Agreement which tied independent contracts to the reserve-clause contracts. The agreement also set up a formal classification system for minor leagues, the forerunner of today's system that was refined by Branch Rickey.[77] Other recognized leagues Several other early defunct baseball leagues are considered major leagues, and their statistics and records are included with those of the two modern major leagues. In 1969, the Special Baseball Records Committee of Major League Baseball officially recognized six major leagues: the National League, American League, American Association, Union Association (1884), Players' League (1890), and Federal League (1914–1915).[78] The status of the National Association as a major league has been a point of dispute among baseball researchers; while its statistics are not recognized by Major League Baseball, its statistics are included with those of other major leagues by some baseball reference websites, such as Retrosheet.[79] Some researchers, including Nate Silver, dispute the major-league status of the Union Association by pointing out that franchises came and went and that the St. Louis club was deliberately "stacked"; the St. Louis club was owned by the league's president and it was the only club that was close to major-league caliber.[80] In December 2020, Major League Baseball announced its recognition of seven leagues within Negro league baseball as major leagues: the first and second Negro National Leagues (1920–1931 and 1933–1948), the Eastern Colored League (1923–1928), the American Negro League (1929), the East–West League (1932), the Negro Southern League (1932), and the Negro American League (1937–1948).[81] In 2021, baseball reference website Baseball-Reference.com began to include statistics from those seven leagues into their major-league statistics.[82] Dead-ball era Main article: Dead-ball era Cy Young, 1911 baseball card The period between 1900 and 1919 is commonly referred to as the "dead-ball era". Games of this era tended to be low-scoring and were often dominated by pitchers, such as Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Mordecai Brown, and Grover Cleveland Alexander. The term also accurately describes the condition of the baseball itself. The baseball used American rather than the modern Australian wool yarn and was not wound as tightly, affecting the distance that it would travel.[83] More significantly, balls were kept in play until they were mangled, soft and sometimes lopsided. During this era, a baseball cost three dollars, equal to $50.64 today (in inflation-adjusted USD), and owners were reluctant to purchase new balls. Fans were expected to throw back fouls and (rare) home runs. Baseballs also became stained with tobacco juice, grass, and mud, and sometimes the juice of licorice, which some players would chew for the purpose of discoloring the ball.[84] Also, pitchers could manipulate the ball through the use of the spitball (In 1921, use of this pitch was restricted to a few pitchers with a grandfather clause). Additionally, many ballparks had large dimensions, such as the West Side Grounds of the Chicago Cubs, which was 560 feet (170 m) to the center field fence, and the Huntington Avenue Grounds of the Boston Red Sox, which was 635 feet (194 m) to the center field fence, thus home runs were rare, and "small ball" tactics such as singles, bunts, stolen bases, and the hit-and-run play dominated the strategies of the time.[85] Hitting methods like the Baltimore chop were used to increase the number of infield singles.[86] On a successful Baltimore chop, the batter hits the ball forcefully into the ground, causing it to bounce so high that the batter reaches first base before the ball can be fielded and thrown to the first baseman.[87] The adoption of the foul strike rule—in the NL in 1901, in the AL two years later—quickly sent baseball from a high-scoring game to one where scoring runs became a struggle. Before this rule, foul balls were not counted as strikes: a batter could foul off any number of pitches with no strikes counted against him; this gave an enormous advantage to the batter.[88] After the 1919 World Series between the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds, baseball was rocked by allegations of a game-fixing scheme known as the Black Sox Scandal. Eight players—"Shoeless" Joe Jackson, Eddie Cicotte, Claude "Lefty" Williams, George "Buck" Weaver, Arnold "Chick" Gandil, Fred McMullin, Charles "Swede" Risberg, and Oscar "Happy" Felsch—intentionally lost the World Series in exchange for a ring worth $100,000 ($1,712,780.35 in 2022 dollars).[89] Despite being acquitted, all were permanently banned from Major League Baseball.[90] Rise in popularity Baseball's popularity increased in the 1920s and 1930s. The 1920 season was notable for the death of Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians. Chapman, who was struck in the head by a pitch and died a few hours later, became the only MLB player to die of an on-field injury.[91] Both leagues quickly began to require the use of new, white baseballs whenever a ball became scuffed or dirty, helping bring the "dead-ball" era to an end. The following year, the New York Yankees made their first World Series appearance.[92] By the end of the 1930s, the team had appeared in 11 World Series, winning eight of them.[93] Yankees slugger Babe Ruth had set the single-season home run record in 1927, hitting 60 home runs; breaking his own record of 29 home runs.[94] Afflicted by the Great Depression, baseball's popularity had begun a downward turn in the early 1930s. By 1932, only two MLB teams turned a profit. Attendance had fallen, due at least in part to a 10% federal amusement tax added to baseball ticket prices. Baseball owners cut their rosters from 25 men to 23, and even the best players took pay cuts. Team executives were innovative in their attempts to survive, creating night games, broadcasting games live by radio, and rolling out promotions such as free admission for women. Throughout the Great Depression, no MLB teams moved or folded.[95] World War II era The onset of World War II created a shortage of professional baseball players, as more than 500 men left MLB teams to serve in the military. Many of them played on service baseball teams that entertained military personnel in the US or in the Pacific. MLB teams of this time largely consisted of young men, older players, and those with a military classification of 4F, indicating mental, physical, or moral unsuitability for service. Men like Pete Gray, a one-armed outfielder, got the chance to advance to the major leagues. However, MLB rosters did not include any black players through the end of the war.[96] Black players, many of whom served in the war, were still restricted to playing Negro league baseball.[97] Wartime blackout restrictions, designed to keep outdoor lighting at low levels, caused another problem for baseball. These rules limited traveling and night games to the point that the 1942 season was nearly canceled.[97] On January 14, 1942, MLB Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis wrote to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, pleading for the continuation of baseball during the war. Roosevelt responded, "I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before. And that means that they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before."[98] With the approval of President Roosevelt, spring training began in 1942 with few repercussions. The war interrupted the careers of stars including Stan Musial, Bob Feller, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio, but baseball clubs continued to field their teams.[99] Breaking the color barrier Main article: Baseball color line Jackie Robinson comic book, 1951 Branch Rickey, president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, began making efforts to introduce a black baseball player to the previously all-white professional baseball leagues in the mid-1940s. He selected Jackie Robinson from a list of promising Negro league players. After obtaining a commitment from Robinson to "turn the other cheek" to any racial antagonism directed at him, Rickey agreed to sign him to a contract for $600 a month. In what was later referred to as "The Noble Experiment", Robinson was the first black baseball player in the International League since the 1880s, joining the Dodgers' farm club, the Montreal Royals, for the 1946 season.[100] The following year, the Dodgers called up Robinson to the major leagues. On April 15, 1947, Robinson made his major league debut at Ebbets Field before a crowd of 26,623 spectators, including more than 14,000 black patrons. Black baseball fans began flocking to see the Dodgers when they came to town, abandoning the Negro league teams that they had followed exclusively. Robinson's promotion met a generally positive, although mixed, reception among newspaper writers and white major league players. Manager Leo Durocher informed his team, "I don't care if he is yellow or black or has stripes like a fucking zebra. I'm his manager and I say he plays."[101] After a strike threat by some players, NL President Ford Frick and Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler let it be known that any striking players would be suspended. Robinson received significant encouragement from several major-league players, including Dodgers teammate Pee Wee Reese who said, "You can hate a man for many reasons. Color is not one of them."[102] That year, Robinson won the inaugural Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award (separate NL and AL Rookie of the Year honors were not awarded until 1949).[103] Less than three months later, Larry Doby became the first African-American to break the color barrier in the American League with the Cleveland Indians.[104] The next year, a number of other black players entered the major leagues. Satchel Paige was signed by the Indians and the Dodgers added star catcher Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe, who was later the first winner of the Cy Young Award for his outstanding pitching.[105] Women in baseball Main article: Women in baseball MLB banned the signing of women to contracts in 1952, but that ban was lifted in 1992.[106] There have been no female MLB players. Relocation and expansion Main article: Major League Baseball relocation of 1950s–1960s 1959 World Series action at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum From 1903 to 1952, the major leagues consisted of two eight-team leagues[a] whose 16 teams were located in ten cities, all in the northeastern and midwestern United States: New York City had three teams and Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis each had two teams. St. Louis was the southernmost and westernmost city with a major league team. The longest possible road trip, from Boston to St. Louis, took about 24 hours by railroad. After a half-century of stability, starting in the 1950s, teams began to move out of cities with multiple teams into cities that had not had them before. From 1953 to 1955, three teams moved to new cities: the Boston Braves became the Milwaukee Braves, the St. Louis Browns became the Baltimore Orioles, and the Philadelphia Athletics became the Kansas City Athletics. The 1958 Major League Baseball season began to turn Major League Baseball into a nationwide league. Walter O'Malley, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers and "perhaps the most influential owner of baseball's early expansion era,"[107] moved his team to Los Angeles, marking the first major league franchise on the West Coast.[108] O'Malley also helped persuade the rival New York Giants to move west to become the San Francisco Giants. Giants owner Horace Stoneham had been contemplating a move to Minnesota amid slumping attendance at the aging Polo Grounds ballpark[109] when O'Malley invited him to meet San Francisco Mayor George Christopher in New York.[110] After Stoneham was persuaded to move to California, Time magazine put O'Malley on its cover.[111] MLB Commissioner Ford Frick had opposed the meeting,[112] but the dual moves proved successful for both franchises—and for MLB.[108] Had the Dodgers moved out west alone, the St. Louis Cardinals—1,600 mi (2,575 km) away[113][114]—would have been the closest NL team. Instead, the joint move made West Coast road trips economical for visiting teams.[110] The Dodgers set a single-game MLB attendance record in their first home appearance with 78,672 fans.[110] In 1961, the first Washington Senators franchise moved to Minneapolis–St. Paul to become the Minnesota Twins. Two new teams were added to the American League at the same time: the Los Angeles Angels (who soon moved from downtown L.A. to nearby Anaheim) and a new Washington Senators franchise. The NL added the Houston Astros and the New York Mets in 1962. The Astros (known as the "Colt .45s" during their first three seasons) became the first southern major league franchise since the Louisville Colonels folded in 1899 and the first franchise to be located along the Gulf Coast. The Mets established a reputation for futility by going 40–120 during their first season of play in the nation's media capital—and by playing only a little better in subsequent campaigns—but in their eighth season (1969) the Mets became the first of the 1960s expansion teams to play in the postseason, culminating in a World Series title over the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles. In 1966, the major leagues moved to the "Deep South" when the Braves moved to Atlanta. In 1968, the Kansas City Athletics moved west to become the Oakland Athletics. In 1969, the American and National Leagues both added two expansion franchises. The American League added the Seattle Pilots (who became the Milwaukee Brewers after one disastrous season in Seattle) and the Kansas City Royals. The NL added the first Canadian franchise, the Montreal Expos, as well as the San Diego Padres. In 1972, the second Washington Senators moved to the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex to become the Texas Rangers. In 1977, baseball expanded again, adding a second Canadian team, the Toronto Blue Jays, as well as the Seattle Mariners. Subsequently, no new teams were added until the 1990s and no teams moved until 2005. Pitching dominance and rule changes Graph showing, by year, the average number of runs per MLB game By the late 1960s, the balance between pitching and hitting had swung in favor of the pitchers. In 1968—later nicknamed "the year of the pitcher"[115]—Boston Red Sox player Carl Yastrzemski won the American League batting title with an average of just .301, the lowest in the history of Major League Baseball.[116] Detroit Tigers pitcher Denny McLain won 31 games, making him the only pitcher to win 30 games in a season since Dizzy Dean in 1934.[117] St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Bob Gibson achieved an equally remarkable feat by allowing an ERA of just 1.12.[118] Following these pitching performances, in December 1968 the MLB Playing Rules Committee voted to reduce the strike zone from knees to shoulders to top of knees to armpits and lower the pitcher's mound from 15 to 10 inches, beginning in the 1969 season.[119] In 1973, the American League, which had been suffering from much lower attendance than the National League, sought to increase scoring even further by initiating the designated hitter (DH) rule.[120] New stadiums and artificial surfaces Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, as baseball expanded, NFL football had been surging in popularity, making it economical for many of these cities to build multi-purpose stadiums instead of single-purpose baseball fields. Because of climate and economic issues, many of these facilities had playing surfaces made from artificial turf, as well as the oval designs characteristic of stadiums designed to house both baseball and football.[121] This often resulted in baseball fields with relatively more foul territory than older stadiums. These characteristics changed the nature of professional baseball, putting a higher premium on speed and defense over home-run hitting power since the fields were often too big for teams to expect to hit many home runs and foul balls hit in the air could more easily be caught for outs.[citation needed] Teams began to be built around pitching—particularly their bullpens—and speed on the basepaths. Artificial surfaces meant balls traveled quicker and bounced higher, so it became easier to hit ground balls "in the hole" between the corner and middle infielders. Starting pitchers were no longer expected to throw complete games; it was enough for a starter to pitch 6–7 innings and turn the game over to the team's closer, a position which grew in importance over these decades. As stolen bases increased, home run totals dropped. After Willie Mays hit 52 home runs in 1965, only one player (George Foster) reached that mark until the 1990s.[citation needed] Scandals and a changing game During the 1980s, baseball experienced a number of significant changes the game had not seen in years. Home runs were on the decline throughout the decade, with players hitting only 40 home runs just 13 times and no one hitting more than 50 home runs in a season for the first time since the Dead-ball era (1900–1919).[122][123] The 1981 Major League Baseball strike from June 12 until July 31 forced the cancellation of 713 total games and resulted in a split-season format. In 1985, Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's all-time hits record with his 4,192nd hit, and in 1989 Rose received a lifetime ban from baseball as a result of betting on baseball games while manager of the Cincinnati Reds. Rose was the first person to receive a lifetime ban from baseball since 1943.[122][124] 1985 also saw the Pittsburgh drug trials which involved players who were called to testify before a grand jury in Pittsburgh related to cocaine trafficking. The 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike from August 12, 1994, to April 25, 1995, caused the cancellation of over 900 games and the forfeit of the entire 1994 postseason.[125] Steroid era, further expansion and near contraction Mark McGwire was one of several central figures in baseball's steroids scandal Routinely in the late 1990s and early 2000s, baseball players hit 40 or 50 home runs in a season, a feat that was considered rare even in the 1980s. It later became apparent that at least some of this power surge was a result of players using steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. In 1993, the NL added the Florida Marlins in Miami and the Colorado Rockies in Denver. In 1998, the Brewers switched leagues by joining the National League, and two new teams were added: the NL's Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix and the AL's Tampa Bay Devil Rays in Tampa Bay. After the 2001 season, the team owners voted in favor of contraction. Several MLB teams had been considered for elimination in early talks about contraction, but the Montreal Expos and the Minnesota Twins were the two teams that came closest to folding under the plan. Plans for MLB contraction were halted when the Twins landlord was awarded a court injunction that required the team to play its 2002 home games at their stadium. MLB owners agreed to hold off on reducing the league's size until at least 2006.[126] The Montreal Expos became the first franchise in over three decades to move when they became the Washington Nationals in 2005. This move left Canada with just one team, but it also returned baseball to Washington after a 33-year absence. This franchise shift, like many previous ones, involved baseball's return to a city that had been previously abandoned. Not counting the short-lived Federal League, Montreal is the only city to host an MLB franchise since 1901 that, as of December 2023, does not have a team. The modern game In recent years, with the advent of technologies such as Statcast and its use of Hawk-Eye starting in 2020[127] as well as with advanced statistics as provided by sites such as FanGraphs and Baseball Savant, MLB has evolved. With the ability to see precise movements of pitchers and batters, teams can assess the mechanics of a player and help them improve. Statcast also provides some features such as tracking the paths of most batted balls, tracking the speed of most batted balls, and tracking the exit velocity of most batted balls. Statcast has allowed for advanced defensive analytics that have not been possible before tracking of players due to how subjective fielding can be. The rate of teams using a defensive shift has gone up from 13.7% in 2016 to 33.6% in 2022 because advanced statistics support this as an effective way to stop hitters from getting hits.[128] Because the shift reduces the amount of balls in play that result in hits and MLB wishes to increase interest in baseball, MLB announced in September 2022 that extreme infield defensive shifts would be banned starting in 2023. In order to be compliant, there must be two fielders on each side of second base, and those fielders must have both of their feet on the infield dirt at the time the pitch is thrown. If this rule is not followed, the choice of an automatic ball or the outcome of the play is given to the batting team.[129] The game of baseball has also slowed down significantly due to an increased number of strikeouts and walks—two outcomes that generally take many pitches to complete—and an increased amount of time taken for a pitcher to pitch. In 2020, it took an average of three hours and six minutes to complete a 9 inning game, a number which has steadily ticked up for years.[130] Along with the restrictions on defensive shifts, MLB announced the introduction of a pitch clock for the 2023 season and beyond, which is something that has been an experiment in MiLB for a few years. The pitch clock starts at 15 seconds. By the time the clock reaches 10 seconds, the catcher must be in their crouch behind home plate. When the clock reaches 8 seconds, the batter must be in the batter's box and be "alert". Before the 15 second timer reaches 0 seconds, the pitcher must have started their "motion to pitch". If any of these deadlines are violated, the count of the batter will be increased by one ball if the defending team violated the pitch clock or one strike if it is the offensive team who violated the pitch clock. Additionally, in order to prevent circumventing these rules pickoffs and step-offs which reset the pitch clock are only allowed two times total per plate appearance and, if a pitcher attempts a third pickoff and fails to get the runner out, a balk will be called. Similarly, a batter is restricted to calling a timeout (an action which resets the pitch clock) just once per plate appearance.[129] In 2019, Major League Baseball opened an investigation into allegations that members of the 2017 World Series champion Houston Astros stole signs from opposing teams using technology during the 2017 and 2018 seasons. The Astros were found guilty in January 2020 and while no active players faced any repercussions due to an immunity agreement in exchange for testimony, Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and field manager A. J. Hinch were suspended for the entire 2020 season. The Astros were fined the maximum allowable $5 million and forfeited their first- and second-round picks in the 2020 and 2021 drafts.[131] The Boston Red Sox were also found guilty of stealing signs during the 2017 and 2018 seasons, with the latter season ending in a World Series victory.[132] Red Sox manager Alex Cora was suspended for a year and the team was fined with the loss of a second round draft pick in the 2020 draft as a result.[133] 21st-century relocation and potential expansion In November 2023, the Oakland Athletics relocation to Las Vegas was approved by MLB owners.[134] As of early 2024, MLB has discussed preparations for another round of expansion, and several investment groups are vying for an MLB franchise. Main article: Potential Major League Baseball expansion Uniforms Cleveland Indians throwback uniform Main articles: Major League Baseball uniforms and Baseball uniform A baseball uniform is a type of uniform worn by baseball players, and by some non-playing personnel, such as field managers and coaches. It is worn to indicate the person's role in the game and—through the use of logos, colors, and numbers—to identify the teams and their players, managers, and coaches.[135] Traditionally, home uniforms display the team name on the front, while away uniforms display the team's home location. In modern times, however, exceptions to this pattern have become common, with teams using their team name on both uniforms.[136] Most teams also have one or more alternate uniforms, usually consisting of the primary or secondary team color on the vest instead of the usual white or gray.[136] In the past few decades throwback uniforms have become popular.[137] The New York Knickerbockers were the first baseball team to use uniforms, taking the field on April 4, 1849, in pants made of blue wool, white flannel shirts (jerseys) and straw hats.[138][139][140] Caps and other types of headgear have been a part of baseball uniforms from the beginning.[141][142] Baseball teams often wore full-brimmed straw hats or no cap at all since there was no official rule regarding headgear.[143] Under the 1882 uniform rules, players on the same team wore uniforms of different colors and patterns that indicated which position they played. This rule was soon abandoned as impractical.[144] In the late 1880s, Detroit and Washington of the National League and Brooklyn of the American Association were the first to wear striped uniforms.[145] By the end of the 19th century, teams began the practice of having two different uniforms, one for when they played at home in their own baseball stadium and a different one for when they played away (on the road) at the other team's ballpark.[136] It became common to wear white pants with a white color vest at home and gray pants with a gray or solid (dark) colored vest when away.[136] By 1900, both home and away uniforms were standard across the major leagues.[146] In June 2021, MLB announced a long-term deal with cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which includes the FTX logo appearing on umpire uniforms during all games.[147] FTX is MLB's first-ever umpire uniform patch partner.[148] On November 11, 2022, FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. MLB removed the FTX patches from umpires' uniforms before the 2023 season.[149] Season structure Main articles: Major League Baseball schedule and List of Major League Baseball seasons Spring training Main article: Spring training A Grapefruit League game at the former Los Angeles Dodgers camp in Vero Beach, Florida Spring training is a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Teams hold training camps in the states of Arizona and Florida, where the early warm weather allows teams to practice and play without worrying about the late winter cold. Spring training allows new players to compete for roster and position spots and gives existing team players practice time prior to competitive play. The teams that hold spring training in Arizona are grouped into the Cactus League,[150] while teams that hold camp in Florida are known as the Grapefruit League.[151] Spring training has always attracted fan attention, drawing crowds who travel to the warmer climates to enjoy the weather and watch their favorite teams play, and spring training usually coincides with spring break for many students. Autograph seekers also find greater access to players during spring training.[citation needed] Spring training typically lasts almost two months, starting in mid-February and running until just before the season-opening day, traditionally the first week of April. As pitchers benefit from a longer training period, pitchers and catchers begin spring training several days before the rest of the team.[152] Regular season Each team plays 162 games per season. A team's schedule is typically organized into three-game series, sets of consecutive games against the same opponent, with occasional two- or four-game series.[153] Postponed games or continuations of suspended games can result in an ad hoc one-game or five-game series. All games of a series are usually hosted by the same team and multiple series are typically grouped together. I.e, a team usually hosts several series in a row, called a homestand, and follows that by going on several road series in a row. Teams generally play games five to seven days per week. Most games are scheduled at night, although teams will often play day games on Opening Day, holidays, and for the last game of a series to allow teams extra time to travel to their next opponent. Sunday games are generally played during the afternoon, allowing teams to travel to their next destination prior to a Monday night game. In the current three-division structure, each team plays 19 games against each of its four divisional opponents. It plays one home series and one away series, amounting to six or seven games, against the 10 other teams in its league. A team also plays one of the divisions in the other league, rotating each year, with two opponents in a three-game home series, two in a three-game away series, and one with four games split between home and away. Furthermore, each team has an interleague "natural rival" (in many cases its counterpart in the same metro area) with which it plays two home games and two away games each year. With an odd number of teams in each league (15), it is necessary to have two teams participate in interleague play for most days in the season, except when two or more teams have a day off. Each team plays 20 interleague games throughout the season, usually with just one interleague game per day, but for one weekend in late May, all teams will participate in an interleague series. Before 2013, interleague play was structured differently: there would be one weekend in mid-May and another period consisting typically of the last two-thirds of June in which all teams played interleague games (save for two NL teams each day), and no interleague games were scheduled outside those dates. (Before 2013, season-long interleague play was not necessary, because each league had an even number of teams. In 2013, the Houston Astros moved to the American League, so that each league would have 15 teams.) Prior to the adoption of the universal designated hitter in 2022, whether the DH was in use depended on whether the home team was from the AL, where the DH was used, or the NL, where it was not. Starting with the 2023 season, the scheduling formula is set to change, with each team playing at least one series against every other team every year. Each team will play 14 games against teams in the same division, with one 3-game and one 4-game series at each park, six games against teams within the same league but in other divisions, with one 3-game series at each park, and one 3-game series against teams in the other league, alternating home teams each year, except for each team's designated interleague rival, which will continue to consist of two 2-game series at each of the teams' home parks. Beginning with the 2022 season, teams compete for the six playoff berths in their respective leagues. To secure a berth, a team must either win its division or capture a wild card spot by having one of the three best records among the non-winners in its entire league.[154] With the adoption of a third wild card, the former practice of breaking ties with an additional regular-season game, known as game 163, was dropped in favor of a tie-breaker formula. All-Star Game Main article: Major League Baseball All-Star Game President John F. Kennedy throwing out the first pitch at the 1962 All-Star Game at DC Stadium In early-to-mid July, just after the midway point of the season, the Major League Baseball All-Star Game is held during a four-day break from the regular-season schedule. The All-Star Game features a team of players from the American League (AL)—led by the manager of the previous AL World Series team—and a team of players from the National League (NL), similarly managed, in an exhibition game. From 1959 to 1962, two games were held each season, one was held in July and one was held in August. The designated-hitter rule was used in the All-Star Game for the first time in 1989. Following games used a DH when the game was played in an AL ballpark. Since 2010, the DH rule has been in effect regardless of venue.[155] The first official All-Star Game was held as part of the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois, and was the idea of Arch Ward, then sports editor for The Chicago Tribune.[156] Initially intended to be a one-time event, its great success resulted in making the game an annual one. Ward's contribution was recognized by Major League Baseball in 1962 with the creation of the "Arch Ward Trophy", given to the All-Star Game's Most Valuable Player each year.[157] (In 1970, it was renamed the Commissioner's Trophy, until 1985, when the name change was reversed. In 2002, it was renamed the Ted Williams Most Valuable Player Award.)[citation needed] Beginning in 1947, the eight position players in each team's starting lineup have been voted into the game by fans.[156] The fan voting was discontinued after a 1957 ballot-box-stuffing scandal in Cincinnati: seven of the eight slots originally went to Reds players, two of whom were subsequently removed from the lineup to make room for Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. Fan voting was reinstated in 1970 and has continued ever since, including Internet voting in recent years.[citation needed] The 2002 contest in Milwaukee controversially ended in an 11-inning tie when both managers ran out of pitchers. In response, starting in 2003 the league which wins the All-Star game received home-field advantage in the World Series: the league champion hosted the first two games at its own ballpark as well as the last two (if necessary). The National League did not win an All-Star game and thus gain a home-field advantage until 2010; it was able to overcome this disadvantage and win in three of the seven World Series from 2003 to 2009.[158][159] This was discontinued after the 2016 season.[citation needed] MLB All-Stars from both leagues have worn uniforms from their respective teams at the game with one exception. In the 1933 All-Star Game, the National League All-Star Team members wore special gray uniforms with "National League" written in navy blue letters across the front of the jersey.[160][161] On July 3, 2020, it was announced that the 2020 Major League Baseball All-Star Game scheduled to be held in Los Angeles would not be played due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[162] As compensation, Los Angeles was awarded the next available All-Star Game in 2022.[163] Postseason Main article: Major League Baseball postseason See also: World Series and List of World Series champions World Series Records Team Series won Last Series won Series played New York Yankees (AL) 27 2009 40 St. Louis Cardinals (NL) 11 2011 19 Oakland Athletics (AL) 9 1989 14 Boston Red Sox (AL) 9 2018 13 San Francisco Giants (NL) 8 2014 20 Los Angeles Dodgers (NL) 7 2020 21 Cincinnati Reds (NL) 5 1990 9 Pittsburgh Pirates (NL) 5 1979 7 Detroit Tigers (AL) 4 1984 11 Atlanta Braves (NL) 4 2021 10 Chicago Cubs (NL) 3 2016 11 Baltimore Orioles (AL) 3 1983 7 Minnesota Twins (AL) 3 1991 6 Chicago White Sox (AL) 3 2005 5 Philadelphia Phillies (NL) 2 2008 8 Cleveland Guardians (AL) 2 1948 6 Houston Astros (NL to AL, 2013) 2 [AL] 2022 5 (4 [AL], 1 [NL]) New York Mets (NL) 2 1986 5 Kansas City Royals (AL) 2 2015 4 Miami Marlins (NL) 2 2003 2 Toronto Blue Jays (AL) 2 1993 2 Texas Rangers (AL) 1 2023 3 Arizona Diamondbacks (NL) 1 2001 2 Washington Nationals (NL) 1 2019 1 Los Angeles Angels (AL) 1 2002 1 Tampa Bay Rays (AL) 0 2 San Diego Padres (NL) 0 2 Colorado Rockies (NL) 0 1 Milwaukee Brewers (AL to NL, 1998) 0 1 [AL] Seattle Mariners (AL) 0 0 The regular season ends after the first Sunday in October (or the last Sunday in September), after which twelve teams enter the postseason playoffs. These twelve teams consist of the six division champions and six "wild-card" teams: the team with the best overall win–loss record in each of the six divisions, and the three teams in each league with the best records other than the division champions. Four rounds of series of games are played to determine the champion:[citation needed] Wild Card Series, a best of three games playoff between the lowest seeded division champion and three "wild-card teams", the higher seeds will host all three games American League Division Series and National League Division Series, each a best-of-five-games series. American League Championship Series and National League Championship Series, each a best-of-seven-games series played between the winning teams from the Division Series. The league champions are referred to as the pennant winners. World Series, a best-of-seven-games series played between the pennant winners of each league. Within each league, the division winners are the 1, 2, and 3-seeds, based on win–loss records. The teams with the first, second, and third best records among non-division winners will be seeded 4, 5, and 6 respectively. Throughout the postseason, home-field advantage is awarded to the team with the higher win-loss record, with tiebreakers being applied if necessary. In the Wild Card Series, the 3-seed will host the 6-seed, and the 4-seed will host the 5-seed, with the winners advancing to the Division Series. Unlike the NFL, there is no reseeding between each series. In the Division Series, the 1-seed goes up against the 3/6-seed and the 2-seed goes up against the 4/5-seed. The winners of those matches will compete in their respective League Championship Series for their League Pennant, and the Pennant winners will advance to the World Series.[164] Since 2017, home-field advantage in the World Series is determined by regular-season records of the two league champions, replacing a system used for the prior 14 seasons where the champion of the league that won the All-Star Game would receive home-field advantage.[citation needed] The team with home-field advantage in the Wild Card Series will host all three games, and subsequent series' will split home fields between the two teams in a 2-3-2 format, with the advantaged team hosting games 1 and 2, as well as 6 and 7 (if necessary). With this format, the home-field advantage does not usually play a large role in the postseason unless the series goes to its maximum number of games. However, because the first two games of a postseason series are hosted by the same team, a team starting with two wins will likely have momentum heading into the venue switch.[165][166] International play See also: List of Major League Baseball games played outside the United States and Canada, MLB Japan All-Star Series, MLB Taiwan All-Star Series, and 2019 MLB London Series Since 1986 an All-Star team from MLB is sent to a biennial end-of-the-season tour of Japan, dubbed as MLB Japan All-Star Series, playing exhibition games in a best-of format against the All-Stars from Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) or recently as of 2014 their national team Samurai Japan. In 2008, MLB played the MLB China Series in the People's Republic of China. It was a series of two spring-training games between the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers. The games were an effort to popularize baseball in China.[167] MLB played the MLB Taiwan All-Star Series in Taiwan in November 2011. It was a series of five exhibition games played by a team made up of MLB players called the MLB All-Stars and the Chinese Taipei national baseball team. The MLB All-Stars swept the series, five games to zero.[168] At the end of the 2011 season, it was announced that the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics would play their season openers in Japan.[169] In October 2013, Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune wrote that MLB was considering postseason all-star tours in Taiwan and Korea; baseball is increasing in popularity in both countries.[170] The Arizona Diamondbacks opened the 2014 season against Los Angeles Dodgers on March 22–23 in Australia.[171] The teams played each other at the historic Sydney Cricket Ground, which has a seating capacity of 46,000. The two games represented the first MLB regular-season play held in that country. The games counted as home games for the Diamondbacks, so they played 79 home games at Chase Field.[172] In 2019, the Red Sox were the home team in a regular-season two-game series against the Yankees. The games, which were the first regular-season MLB games held in Europe, were played on June 29–30 at London Stadium with the Yankees winning both games.[173] Together with the World Baseball Softball Confederation, MLB sponsors the World Baseball Classic, an international baseball tournament contested by national teams.[citation needed] Performance-enhancing drugs See also: Doping in baseball and List of Major League Baseball players suspended for performance-enhancing drugs Rafael Palmeiro (batter), one of the MLB players suspended for steroid use[174] In 1998, both Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa hit more home runs than the record of 61 set by Yankees right fielder Roger Maris in 1961. Barry Bonds topped the record in 2001 with 73 home runs. McGwire, Bonds, and Sosa became the subjects of speculation regarding the use of performance-enhancing substances. McGwire later admitted that he used a steroid hormone that was still legal in baseball during the 1998 season.[175] Baseball's original steroid testing policy, in effect from 2002 to 2005, provided for penalties ranging from a ten-game suspension for a first positive test to a one-year suspension for a fourth positive test. Players were tested at least once per year, with the chance that several players could be tested many times per year.[176] A 2006 book, Game of Shadows by San Francisco Chronicle investigative reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, chronicled alleged extensive use of performance enhancers, including several types of steroids and growth hormone by baseball superstars Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, and Jason Giambi. Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell was appointed by Selig on March 30, 2006[177] to investigate the use of performance-enhancing drugs in MLB. The appointment was made after several influential members of the U.S. Congress made negative comments about both the effectiveness and honesty of MLB's drug policies and Commissioner Selig.[178] The day before the Mitchell Report was to be released in 2007, Selig said, "I haven't seen the report yet, but I'm proud I did it."[179][180] The report said that after mandatory random testing began in 2004, HGH treatment for athletic enhancement became popular among players, as HGH is not detectable in tests. It pointed out that HGH is likely a placebo with no performance-enhancing effects.[181] The report included substance use allegations against at least one player from each MLB team.[182] According to ESPN, some people questioned whether Mitchell's director role with the Boston Red Sox created a conflict of interest, especially because no "prime [Sox] players were in the report".[183] The report named several prominent Yankees who were parts of World Series clubs; there is a long-running and fierce Yankees–Red Sox rivalry. Former U.S. prosecutor John M. Dowd brought up Mitchell's conflict of interest,[184] but he later said that the former senator had done a good job.[185] Mitchell acknowledged that his "tight relationship with Major League Baseball left him open to criticism",[186] but he said that readers who examine the report closely "will not find any evidence of bias, of special treatment of the Red Sox".[186] On January 10, 2013, MLB and the players union reached an agreement to add random, in-season HGH testing. They also agreed to implement a new test to reveal the use of testosterone for the 2013 season.[187] The current MLB drug policy provides for an 80-game suspension for a first positive test, a 162-game suspension for a second positive test, and a lifetime suspension for a third positive test.[188] In 2009, allegations surfaced against Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz, and Manny Ramirez received a 50-game suspension after testing positive for banned substances. In early April 2011, Ramirez retired from baseball rather than face a 100-game suspension for his second positive steroid test.[189] He would later unretire, having the suspension dropped to 50 games, and would serve those in 2012.[citation needed] Media coverage Television Main article: Major League Baseball on television See also: List of current Major League Baseball broadcasters Several networks televise baseball games, including Fox, ESPN, TBS, and MLB Network. Since 2008, Fox Sports has broadcast MLB games on Saturdays throughout the entire season; Fox previously only broadcast games from May to September.[190] Fox also holds rights to the All-Star Game each season. Fox also alternates League Championship Series broadcasts, broadcasting the American League Championship Series (ALCS) in odd-numbered years and the National League Championship Series (NLCS) in even-numbered years. Fox broadcasts all games of the World Series.[191] ESPN continues to broadcast MLB games as well, beginning with national Opening Day coverage.[192] The network airs the program Baseball Tonight prior to its weekly regular season game titled: Sunday Night Baseball. ESPN also has the rights to the Home Run Derby every July and in the postseason broadcasts the Wild Card Series exclusively..[193][194] TBS has aired Sunday afternoon regular season games (non-exclusive) nationally, but beginning in 2022 this will be replaced by Tuesday night games.[195][196] In 2007, TBS began its exclusive rights to any tiebreaker games that determine division or wild card champions. It also airs exclusive coverage of the Division Series round of the playoffs.[197] TBS carries the League Championship Series that are not included under Fox's television agreement; TBS shows the NLCS in odd-numbered years and the ALCS in even-numbered years.[198] In January 2009, MLB launched the MLB Network, featuring news and coverage from around the league, and airing 26 live games in the 2009 season.[199] Each team also has local broadcasts for all games not carried by Fox on Saturdays or ESPN on Sunday nights. These games are typically split between a local broadcast television station and a local or regional sports network (RSN), though some teams only air local games through RSNs or through their own team networks. As Canada only contains one team, Sportsnet broadcasts Toronto Blue Jays games nationally.[200] The channel is owned by Rogers Communications, who is also the parent company of the Blue Jays.[200] Sportsnet also televises Fox's Saturday afternoon games, the All-Star Game, playoff games, and the World Series.[200][201] In April 2011, TSN2 began carrying ESPN Sunday Night Baseball in Canada.[202] TVA Sports airs Blue Jays games in French.[203] Several MLB games are broadcast exclusively on Internet television. After a year of exclusive games on Facebook,[204] MLB partnered with YouTube to stream weekly games on the service beginning in the 2019 season, and extending until 2022.[205][206][207] In 2022, MLB made a deal with Apple Inc. to launch Friday Night Baseball on its Apple TV+ streaming service, and NBC Sports to broadcast MLB Sunday Leadoff, a package of early Sunday afternoon games on Peacock.[208][209] ESPN+ broadcasts one out-of-market game per day throughout the whole regular season. Since the 2023 season Division Series the streaming service Max began to simulcast the games broadcast by its sister channel TBS (both owned by Warner Bros. Discovery).[210] Blackout policy Main article: Major League Baseball blackout policy See also: Syndication exclusivity MLB blackout map in the United States Canadian regions subject to Toronto Blue Jays exclusively Shared with Seattle Mariners Shared with Minnesota Twins Shared with Boston Red Sox Note: Toronto Blue Jays territory covers all of Canada MLB has several blackout rules.[211] A local broadcaster has priority to televise games of the team in their market over national broadcasters if the game is not exclusive to the national broadcaster. A market that has a local team playing in a non-exclusive game will receive an alternative programming feed on the national broadcaster.[212] MLB's streaming internet video service is also subject to the same blackout rules.[213] Commissioner Robert Manfred has expressed interest in changing the blackout policy to loosen the rules for streaming options.[214] Radio and Internet Main article: Major League Baseball on the radio The first baseball game ever broadcast on radio was a Pittsburgh Pirates versus Philadelphia Phillies game on August 5, 1921. The game was broadcast by KDKA of Pittsburgh, and the Pirates defeated the Phillies 8–5. It was broadcast by KDKA staff announcer Harold Arlin.[215][216][217][218][219][1] That year, KDKA and WJZ of Newark broadcast the first World Series on the radio, between the New York Giants and the New York Yankees, with Grantland Rice and Tommy Cowan calling the games for KDKA and WJZ, respectively.[216][217][218] However, the broadcasters were not actually present at the game, but simply gave reports from a telegraph wire.[216] In 1922, WJZ broadcast the entire series, with Rice doing play-by-play.[217][218] For the 1923 World Series, Rice was joined on Westinghouse for the first time by Graham McNamee.[216][220] During the 1923 World Series, Rice was the main broadcaster, but during the fourth inning of Game 3, he turned the microphone over to McNamee.[218][220] This was the start of McNamee's career, and McNamee became the first color commentator.[221] Although frequently criticized for his lack of expertise, McNamee helped popularize baseball.[216][220][222] In 1998, national radio broadcasts moved to ESPN Radio.[223] ESPN Radio currently broadcasts Sunday Night Baseball games during the regular season, as well as Saturday and occasional weekday games, along with the All-Star Game and all postseason contests.[224] Since 2021, TUDN Radio airs Spanish-language coverage of select regular season and postseason games, including the World Series.[225] In addition, each team employs its own announcers, who broadcast during the regular season. Most teams operate regional networks to cover their fan bases; some of these supposedly regional networks (such as the New York Yankees Radio Network) have a national reach with affiliates located across the United States.[226] Major League Baseball has an exclusive rights deal with XM Satellite Radio, which includes the channel MLB Network Radio and live play-by-play of all games.[227] Many teams also maintain a network of stations that broadcast their games in Spanish; as of 2022, the Los Angeles Dodgers are the only team that produces radio broadcasts in a third language, with selected games broadcast in Korean.[228] Both Canadian teams (the Montreal Expos before their move to Washington, DC in 2005, and the Toronto Blue Jays) have produced radio broadcasts in French.[229] MLB games are also broadcast live on the internet. All television and radio broadcasts of games are available via subscription to MLB.tv at Major League Baseball's website, MLB.com, and radio-only broadcasts are also available via subscription to MLB.com Gameday Audio.[230] Radio station affiliates are officially forbidden from streaming games through their Internet feeds. Blackout rules are still applied for live television broadcasts, but not radio broadcasts.[citation needed] Since 2005, Major League Baseball has a partnership with XM Satellite Radio, launching a 24-7 channel MLB Home Plate which carries every major league game.[231][232] Games are also carried on MLB Gameday Audio.[233] While all teams maintain a network of stations carrying their games in English, many teams also maintain a Spanish-language network as well. In addition, when the Washington Nationals were based in Montreal as the Montreal Expos, their games were broadcast in both English and French. Selected games of the Los Angeles Dodgers are broadcast in Korean by KMPC.[234][235] International broadcasting Disney Media Networks Latin America through its linear channels (ESPN, FS2, FS3, ESPN Caribbean, ESPN Brazil) and Star+ owns the broadcast rights to more than 180 regular season games (at least 1 game per day), the Home Run Derby, the All Star Game and the post season including: the Wild Card Series, the Division Series, the Championship Series and the World Series for all of Latin America and the Caribbean.[236][237][238][239] In Mexico, as of 2022, Fox Sports airs five regular season games per week[240] and post-season games that belong to the league that broadcasts its American namesake (including the Wild Card Series). Likewise, TUDN carries 4 matches a week until 2022: through the pay television signal, games were broadcast on Tuesdays and Thursdays, while on Saturdays (generally at 12:00 pm) and Sundays (rotating between NBA games, until the start of the NFL season) games were broadcast on Canal 9. Starting with the Championship Series, it only broadcast one division and the whole World Series, these were broadcast on free-to-air television for 59 years.[241] Starting with the 2023 season, it was confirmed that Imagen Televisión would begin broadcasting a regular season game every Saturday and Sunday as well as the playoffs and the World Series on open television and its website for all of Mexico.[242] In Argentina, Fox Sports carries 5 regular season games per week and post-season games that belong to the league that broadcasts its American namesake (including the Wild Card Series). In Venezuela, since the 2016 season the cable channel IVC has the broadcast rights, they currently air 7 games per week.[243] Starting with the 2022 season, Televen broadcasts two games a week and the postseason on free-to-air TV[244][245][246] While Venevisión, starting with the 2023 season, would return with the space "El Juego de la Semana" that carries a game every Sunday and non-working days on free-to-air television.[247] In the Dominican Republic since 2009 Grupo Altice has broadcast the entire regular season, playoffs and World Series through pay TV while on free-to-air television and radio Grupo Corripio airs 7 games per week and the entire postseason.[248][249][250] In Spain, Movistar Plus+ has the rights to broadcast the entire season, including one game daily, and the postseason, covering all games in the championship series and all games in the World Series.[251] Channel 5 in the United Kingdom previously screened MLB games, including the All-Star Game and the postseason games, on Sunday and Wednesday usually starting at 1 a.m. BST. Most recently, Johnny Gould and Josh Chetwynd presented MLB on Five on that station.[252] The channel covered baseball beginning on its opening night in 1997, but for financial reasons, the decision was made not to pick up MLB for the 2009 season.[253] BT Sport ESPN show live and recorded games several times a week—it is available with BT Sport and (on a subscriber-basis) Virgin Media in the UK.[254] ESPN America televised many games in the UK and dozens of other countries; in May 2013, ESPN announced that it would shut down the channel on July 31, 2013.[255][256] In Australia, MLB games are regularly shown on ESPN Australia (subscription).[257] In the Middle East, North Africa and France, MLB games are broadcast on beIN Sports channels.[258][259] In Germany, Austria and Switzerland as many as 500 MLB games will be broadcast from 2022 exclusively on the Sport1 platforms until 2026.[260] In Hungary, MLB games are broadcast on Sport1 as of 2020.[261] See also icon Baseball portal Australian Baseball League Baseball Assistance Team (B.A.T.) Baseball in Canada Baseball in the United States Bob Feller Act of Valor Award Comparison of Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball KBO League List of all-time Major League Baseball win–loss records List of American and Canadian cities by number of major professional sports franchises List of current Major League Baseball stadiums List of former Major League Baseball stadiums List of Major League Baseball awards List of Major League Baseball managers The Brooklyn Tip-Tops were a team in the short-lived Federal League of professional baseball from 1914 to 1915. The team's name came from Tip Top Bread, a product of Ward Baking Company, which was also owned by team owner Robert Ward.[1][2] They were sometimes informally called the Brooklyn Feds or BrookFeds due to being the Brooklyn team of the Federal League. They played in Washington Park, which the Brooklyn Dodgers had abandoned after the 1912 season to move to Ebbets Field. History The 1914 Brooklyn Tip-Tops. The team finished a disappointing 4th in 1914. Federal League officials believed it was important to have a successful franchise in the New York City area and when the Indianapolis Hoosiers were transitioned to Newark, New Jersey, the "Federal League Ty Cobb", as 1914 FL batting champ Benny Kauff was known, was placed on the Brooklyn roster. In 1915, Kauff led the league with a .342 batting average and 55 stolen bases, but the Tip-Tops still finished in seventh place. The Newark and Brooklyn FL teams played three holiday doubleheaders during the 1915 season where one game was in Newark and the second was in Brooklyn. On September 19, 1914, Tip-Top Ed Lafitte threw the only no-hitter in Federal League history, beating the Kansas City Packers 6–2. Had the Federal League (FL) lasted just one more season, night baseball might have been introduced two decades earlier. The Tip Tops had announced plans for the 1916 season to play some games at night. See also Brooklyn Tip-Tops all-time roster 1914 Brooklyn Tip-Tops season 1915 Brooklyn Tip-Tops season George S. Ward The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, known simply as the Federal League, was an American professional baseball league that played its first season as a minor league in 1913 and operated as a "third major league", in competition with the established National and American Leagues, from 1914 to 1915. The Federal League came together in early 1913 through the work of John T. Powers, and immediately challenged the operations of organized baseball as a minor league playing outside of the National Agreement. After James A. Gilmore succeeded Powers as league president, the league declared itself to be a major league. Playing in what detractors called the "outlaw" league allowed players to avoid the restrictions of the organized leagues' reserve clause. The competition of another, better paying league caused players' salaries to skyrocket, demonstrating the bargaining potential of free agency for the first time since the war between the AL and NL. Interference by the National and American Leagues in their operations caused the Federal League to fold after the 1915 season. This resulted in a landmark federal lawsuit, Federal Baseball Club v. National League, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act did not apply to Major League Baseball.[1] The Federal League left its mark on baseball history in the field now known as Wrigley Field, which was originally built for the Chicago Whales Federal League team. The league itself and many sports writers considered it a major league during its existence; organized baseball recognized its major league status in 1968.[2][3] Not including certain periods of the Negro leagues, it would be the last independent major league outside the established structure of professional baseball to make it to the playing field, and would be the last serious attempt to create a third major league until the abortive Continental League of 1960. History In 1912, baseball promoter John T. Powers formed an independent professional league known as the Columbian League. However, the withdrawal of one of the organization's primary investors caused the league to fail before ever playing a game. Undaunted, Powers tried again the following year, creating a new league with teams in Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Covington, Kentucky. He named the organization the Federal League, and served as its first president.[4] Because it did not abide by the National Agreement on player payment in place in organized baseball, the Federal League was called an "outlaw league" by its competitors. The Federal League's outlaw status allowed it to recruit players from established clubs, and it attracted many current and former players from the major as well as minor leagues. In 1913, the Federal League played as an independent six-team minor league. In its first season Powers initially served as president, but he was soon replaced by James A. Gilmore, under whose leadership the league declared itself a major league for the 1914 season. Other financiers of the League included oil baron Harry F. Sinclair, ice magnate Phil Ball, and George S. Ward of the Ward Baking Company.[5] As a major circuit, the Federal League consisted of eight teams each season. Four of the teams were placed in cities with existing major league baseball teams (Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Brooklyn). The other four teams were placed in areas without a current major league club (Baltimore, Buffalo, Indianapolis and Kansas City). In the first year, 1914, some of the teams had official nicknames and some did not, but either way, sportswriters were inclined to invent their own nicknames: "ChiFeds," "BrookFeds," etc. By the second season, most of the teams had "official" nicknames, although many writers still called many of the teams "-Feds." In order for the Federal League to succeed, it needed Big League players. Walter Johnson signed a three-year contract with the Chicago team, but the Senators' Clark Griffith went personally to Johnson's home in Kansas and made a successful counter-offer.[6] Major League players that jumped to the Federal League included Bill McKechnie, Claude Hendrix, Jack Quinn, Russell Ford, Tom Seaton, Doc Crandall, Al Bridwell, and Hal Chase. The Federal League also recruited Big League names to manage the new teams. Joe Tinker managed the Chicago team, Mordecai Brown managed the St. Louis team and Bill Bradley managed the Brooklyn team. In 1914, the Colonial League began to operate as a Class C level league based in Southern New England.[7] In April, Alexander Bannwart drew notice by acquiring Big Jeff Pfeffer to manage the team in Pawtucket, Rhode Island,[8] and by May, it was suspected that Bannwart was working as an agent of the Federal League, which Bannwart denied.[9] Upon these news reports, some of the founding members of the Colonial League resigned, fearing banishment by the National Baseball Commission.[10][11] At the April 1915 league meeting, Coppen was re-elected as president and Bannwart was elected secretary. Walter S. Ward, the treasurer of the Brooklyn Tip-Tops of the Federal League and George S. Ward's son, was elected as the league's treasurer.[12] The Colonial League reorganized itself as a farm system for the Federal League[13] and voluntarily withdrew itself from organized baseball.[14] The Federal League had close pennant races both years. In 1914, Indianapolis beat out Chicago by 1½ games. 1915 witnessed the tightest pennant race in Major League history, as three teams (Chicago, St. Louis and Pittsburgh) fought into the last weekend of the season. On the season's final day, Sunday, October 3, Chicago split a doubleheader with Pittsburgh, winning the darkness-shortened seven-inning nightcap, 3-0; this combined with St. Louis' 6-2 win over Kansas City, knocked Pittsburgh back to third (albeit just a half-game behind), with Chicago and St. Louis in a virtual tie for first. But since the Whales (86-66) played two fewer games than the St. Louis Terriers (87-67), they were awarded the pennant based on their slightly better winning percentage (.566 to .565). Pittsburgh, with one game unplayed, ended up at 86-67 (.562). During the 1914–15 offseason, Federal League owners brought an antitrust lawsuit against the American and National Leagues. The lawsuit ended up in the court of Federal Judge (and future Commissioner of Baseball) Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who allowed the case to languish while he urged both sides to negotiate. Swift action might have made a difference, but without the lawsuit going forward, the Federals found themselves in deepening financial straits. After the 1915 season, the owners of the American and National Leagues bought out half of the owners (Pittsburgh, Newark, Buffalo, and Brooklyn) of the Federal League teams. Two Federal League owners were allowed to buy struggling franchises in the established leagues: Phil Ball, owner of the St. Louis Terriers, was allowed to buy the St. Louis Browns of the AL, and Charles Weeghman, owner of the Chicago Whales, bought the Chicago Cubs. Both owners merged their teams into the established ones. The Kansas City franchise had been declared bankrupt and taken over by the league office after the close of the regular season, and the Baltimore owners rejected the offer made to them. They had sought to buy and move an existing franchise to their city, but were rebuffed, and sued unsuccessfully. Legacy One of baseball's most famous ballparks was originally built for a Federal League team: Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs, began its long life as Weeghman Park, the home of the Chicago Whales. Marc Okkonen, in his book on the Federal League, referred to Wrigley as a "silent monument" to the failed Federal League experiment. Otherwise, few visible remnants were left by the short-lived Federal League. The Baltimore entry sold their facility to the Baltimore Orioles of the International League, who renamed it Oriole Park and played there for nearly 30 years before it was destroyed by fire. The Newark ballpark was also used for minor league ball for a short time. Washington Park in April 1915 Washington Park III in Brooklyn, completed after the 1915 season was underway, resembled Chicago's Weeghman Park. It was used for various sports until the end of 1917 and then for storage until Brooklyn Edison Electric bought the property in 1925 and shortly thereafter tore it down. One wall still stands.[15] The other Federal League ballparks were demolished quickly, including the home of the Pittsburgh Rebels, Exposition Park, which had been the home of the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League until they moved into Forbes Field in 1909.[16] The other "silent monument" to the Federal League is a famous legal decision. In 1922, the Supreme Court ruled in Federal Baseball Club v. National League (brought by the Terrapins, one of the teams which had not been bought out), that Major League Baseball and its constituent leagues were primarily entertainment, not conventional interstate commerce, and thus were exempt from the Sherman Antitrust Act;[1] MLB remains the only North American sports league with such a status, and it has not faced any competitor leagues since unlike the other pro sports leagues because of this exemption.[17][18] Though significantly weakened in the 1970s, this exemption remains intact 102 years later; however, it has been eroded by subsequent court rulings and legislation regarding issues specific to Major League Baseball. Of the locations of teams in the Federal League, five currently have major league teams. Those are Baltimore, Chicago, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. Brooklyn has a minor league team, the Brooklyn Cyclones. (The major league Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958, although the New York Mets, the Cyclones' parent club, have been located in the adjacent borough of Queens since 1964.) Buffalo and Indianapolis have International League teams, the Buffalo Bisons and Indianapolis Indians, respectively. Newark had a team, the Bears, in the independent Can-Am League, which folded after the 2012 season. There is at least one achievement of note that happened in Federal League play. Eddie Plank, pitching for the St. Louis Terriers, won his milestone 300th game on September 11, 1915, at St. Louis' Handlan's Park, becoming the first 300-game winning left-hander in the history of major league baseball and one of only six as of 2018. However, that milestone was not acknowledged by Major League Baseball until 1968. The Federal League was the last serious attempt at creating a "third major league" outside the established structure of professional baseball in the U.S. There was one further attempt at creating a third league – the Continental League in 1959 – but its founders had hoped to find their place within the purview of organized baseball. The Continental League disbanded in 1960 without ever playing a game, making the Federal League the last such league to ever take to the field. The Federal League features prominently in Ring Lardner's sports humor book You Know Me Al (1916), in which the protagonist pitches for the Chicago White Sox and repeatedly threatens to jump to the Federal League whenever he feels underappreciated or underpaid.[19] Baseball Hall of Famers Players in the Baseball Hall of Fame who played in the Federal League are listed below. Each of these players was elected via the Veterans Committee. In addition, Cy Young managed the 1913 Cleveland Green Sox. Player Position Team(s) Induction year Chief Bender Pitcher Baltimore Terrapins (1915) 1953 Mordecai Brown Pitcher St. Louis Terriers, Brooklyn Tip-Tops (1914); Chicago Whales (1915) 1949 Bill McKechnie Third baseman Indianapolis Hoosiers (1914); Newark Peppers (1915) 1962 Eddie Plank Pitcher St. Louis Terriers (1915) 1946 Edd Roush Center fielder Indianapolis Hoosiers (1914); Newark Peppers (1915) 1962 Joe Tinker Shortstop Chicago Whales (1914–1915) 1946 Teams Team Seasons Comment Baltimore Terrapins 1914–15 Brooklyn Tip-Tops 1914–15 Buffalo Blues 1914–15 Initially known as the Buffeds Chicago Whales 1913–15 Initially known as the Federals or Keeleys Cleveland Green Sox 1913 Covington Blue Sox 1913 Also known as the Colonels. Transferred to Kansas City, mid-season 1913 Indianapolis Hoosiers 1913–14 Moved to Newark in 1915 Kansas City Packers 1913–15 Had been in Covington until mid-season 1913 Newark Peppers 1915 Moved from Indianapolis following the 1914 season Pittsburgh Rebels 1913–15 Known as the Filipinos in 1913, and initially as the Stogies in 1914 St. Louis Terriers 1913–15 1914 Brooklyn Tip-Tops Results Champions Joe Tinker managed the 1915 Chicago Whales. Per final regular season standings, as there was no postseason. Year Team Record Manager Note 1913 Indianapolis Hoosiers 75–45 Bill Phillips Minor league 1914 Indianapolis Hoosiers 88–65 Major league 1915 Chicago Whales 86–66 Joe Tinker Standings 1913 George Textor played for Indianapolis in 1913. Federal League W L Pct. GB Indianapolis Hoosiers 75 45 0.625 — Cleveland Green Sox 64 54 0.542 10 St. Louis Terriers 59 60 0.496 15½ Chicago Keeleys 57 62 0.479 17½ Covington Blue Sox / Kansas City Packers 53 65 0.449 21 Pittsburgh Stogies 49 71 0.408 26 Notes: The Federal League operated as an independent minor league in 1913. Covington's record was 21–20 when they relocated to Kansas City on June 26. Source:[20][21] 1914 Bill McKechnie played for Indianapolis in 1914. vteFederal League W L Pct. GB Home Road Indianapolis Hoosiers 88 65 0.575 — 53–23 35–42 Chicago Federals 87 67 0.565 1½ 43–34 44–33 Baltimore Terrapins 84 70 0.545 4½ 53–26 31–44 Buffalo Buffeds 80 71 0.530 7 47–29 33–42 Brooklyn Tip-Tops 77 77 0.500 11½ 47–32 30–45 Kansas City Packers 67 84 0.444 20 37–36 30–48 Pittsburgh Rebels 64 86 0.427 22½ 37–37 27–49 St. Louis Terriers 62 89 0.411 25 32–43 30–46 1915 Mordecai Brown played for Chicago in 1915. vteFederal League W L Pct. GB Home Road Chicago Whales 86 66 0.566 — 44–32 42–34 St. Louis Terriers 87 67 0.565 — 43–34 44–33 Pittsburgh Rebels 86 67 0.562 ½ 45–31 41–36 Kansas City Packers 81 72 0.529 5½ 46–31 35–41 Newark Peppers 80 72 0.526 6 40–39 40–33 Buffalo Blues 74 78 0.487 12 37–40 37–38 Brooklyn Tip-Tops 70 82 0.461 16 34–40 36–42 Baltimore Terrapins 47 107 0.305 40 24–51 23–56 See also icon Baseball portal Continental League Players' League Betting against one's team is the cardinal sin in baseball. Chicago Cubs outfielder Lee Magee found that out on this day in 1920, when he was released after he admitting to betting against the Cincinnati Reds while playing for them. Gambling and baseball were fairly inseparable in the early days of the game. Despite attempts to remove that element, gamblers and baseball players would continue to consort, until the time that betting on the game became grounds for a lifetime banishment from the sport. And yet, players would persist in wagering on the game, at least until the Chicago Black Sox scandal made gambling the cardinal sin in baseball. However, before that time, Major League Baseball had a warmup act to get ready for the impending storm. Chicago Cubs outfielder Lee Magee, fearing that his attempts to throw a game would catch up to him, admitted to team president William Veeck and National League president John Heydler that he had attempted to throw a game. Heydler had already begun an investigation of his own into the matter. Back in 1918, Magee and Hal Chase had approached a gambler in Boston, putting up $500 each as a down payment for a portion of his winnings when they would lose to the Braves. Magee did his part, making two key errors and barely running around the bases. However, the Reds won 4-2 in the 13th inning, as Magee himself was forced to score the winning run. Fearing that he had been double crossed by Chase, he stopped payment on the check. This ruined his relationship in the clubhouse, leading to a trade to the Dodgers. When Magee and the Dodgers returned to Boston in 1919, that gambler served him with papers for non-payment of a debt, sparking the investigation. More from Call to the Pen by TaboolaSponsored LinksYou May Like Look For Any High School Yearbook, It's Free Classmates Given that background, and how Magee simply could not be trusted, the Cubs made their decision to cut him loose. And so, on this day in 1920, the axe fell, as Magee was let go, ending his baseball career. He had been approximately league average with the bat when he played, posting a career .276/.325/.350 batting line, although his baserunning and fielding were questionable at best. Yet, at 30 years old, he likely would have had a few years left in his Major League career. Magee felt the same way. He would sue the Cubs for his $4500 salary in 1920, claiming that his livelihood was destroyed because of the sudden termination of his contract. A litany of baseball officials, reporters, and former teammates testified against Magee, leading to his case being dismissed in June. That attempt to get his salary actually had unintended consequences. While the suit was between Magee and the Cubs, Hal Chase fell under the spotlight for his role in the proceedings. Chase would later come under fire three months later for his role in the Black Sox scandal, the final act in a list of gambling incidents dating back to 1910. Although he left the Majors by that time, Chase would end up being banned for life. Gambling and throwing a game is the most unforgivable crime in the game. Lee Magee learned that lesson the hard way on this day in 1920, when he was released by the Chicago Cubs.
The cover photo on the Sunday magazine insert of the June 29, 1958, edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Citizen was of a young boy wearing a Little League baseball uniform gazing admiringly at an older, bespectacled gentleman who was squatting, a baseball bat in hand. As the accompanying article explained, the man in the photo was the boy’s grandfather, former major leaguer Lee Magee, a veteran of nine big-league seasons and now a Columbus resident and business owner with a large family. The article, written by veteran sports reporter Tom Keys, fairly accurately described Magee’s playing career, portraying a man who valued family above all else.1 However Keys’ article completely failed to tell readers the rest of the Lee Magee “story,” omitting any mention of a career that did not end voluntarily, but rather in controversy and litigation that barred the player for life from the game he loved. Any discussion of the enigmatic Magee is incomplete without it. That Magee should reside in Columbus in later years is not all that surprising. He was born to Joseph and Mary Hoernschemeyer on June 4, 1889, in Cincinnati, just a couple of hours away. His parents were of German ancestry; his father was a grocer. Birth records list Leo F. as their son’s given name and middle initial at birth,2 but at some point thereafter he became known as Leopold Christopher. A 14-letter surname was unwieldy, particularly for someone whose name began regularly appearing in baseball box scores. Leo thus mercifully adopted the last name “Magee.” In January 1917, after many years of unofficial use, he legally changed his name to Leo C. Magee.3 By then he was known in baseball circles as Lee Magee. Magee cut his baseball teeth on the sandlots of Cincinnati, particularly the diamond at the Liberty St. Bottoms. “Our team would show up at the Bottoms at 10 o’clock in the morning to hold the diamond for the game scheduled for 2 o’clock,” he told the writer of the Columbus Citizen article.4 For a time he was a batboy for the Cincinnati Reds. He graduated to professional baseball in June 1906 at the age of 17 when he signed a contract with the Meridian (Mississippi) White Ribbons of the Class D Cotton States League.5 Shortly thereafter he was granted his unconditional release due to a dispute over wages, the first of many such clashes during his career. In 1907 he began the year with Springfield (Illinois) of the Class B Three-I League. However he was soon either sold or transferred to Burlington of the Class D Iowa State League. In midseason he was released and subsequently signed by the Waterloo Cubs of the same league.6 Despite the turmoil Waterloo’s new second baseman was not bashful. “I figured I was a pretty hot player.”7 During the remainder of 1907 and through 1908, the popular Magee remained with Waterloo, raising his paltry .193 average 26 points in season two as his team finished first for the second straight time.8 Magee, a “star find,” according to one local paper,9 was deemed the fastest Waterloo player ever. The speedy Magee played for the Class B (Northwestern League) Seattle Turks in 1909. While there he began to show his versatility by trying his hand at first base and becoming a switch-hitter. His .264 batting average in 150 games for the pennant-winning Turks was 12th in the league, his 48 stolen bases sixth.10 During the 1909 season his rights were sold to the St. Louis Cardinals. He reported to them in 1910, but was optioned to the Louisville Colonels of the Class A American Association in May. The Cardinals reportedly had concerns about the youngster’s hitting and fielding ability, particularly at shortstop, where he was tried and beaten out by another rookie, Arnold Hauser.11 “I was riding the bench so they sent me to Louisville,” he told Tom Keys.12 Magee played in 132 games for the last-place Colonels, batting only .215 to justify the Cardinals’ hitting concerns. Mediocre numbers at Louisville aside, Magee debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals on July 4, 1911. In game two of a doubleheader he was inserted at second base for veteran Miller Huggins by manager Roger Bresnahan in an 11-1 loss to the Pirates at Pittsburgh. He singled off pitcher Claude Hendrix in two at-bats. A week later Magee and his new teammates were spared injury when their two Pullman cars remained on track during a serious train wreck near Bridgeport, Connecticut, in which 14 people died. The Cardinals were deemed heroes for their efforts in assisting the 47 other injured passengers.13 For his first season in the majors Magee appeared in 26 games, mostly at second base with a few at shortstop. At 5-feet-11 and 165 pounds, Magee hit .261 with 8 RBIs. The Cardinals liked what they saw. In early 1912 the veteran Huggins was injured. Magee, who was a typesetter for a Cincinnati newspaper during the offseason, took his place at second and played well, so well that when Huggins returned Magee was moved to left field, where he became a regular. Along the way he picked up the nickname “Flash.”14 In 128 games – 85 in the outfield – he batted .290. Only Huggins and Ed Konetchy were better for the sixth-place team. Magee also stole 16 bases and knocked in 40 runs. As the season wound down, he fashioned an 18-game hitting streak. Magee’s career was marred by frequent run-ins with umpires and opponents. In the October 1912 St. Louis city series against the crosstown Browns, Magee charged and shoved umpire Joe O’Brien. Many more such incidents would follow.15 In 1913 the task of reining in Magee fell to new Cardinals manager Miller Huggins. The pair clashed early on when Magee held out for a boost in salary promised him by former skipper Bresnahan. On March 24 reports indicated that the Cardinals’ offer of $3,200 left the parties $400 apart.16 By the 29th Magee was signed and sealed for an undisclosed sum. Early in the season he showed some rare firepower, hitting the first two home runs of his career, the latter a grand slam off Pittsburgh’s Marty O’Toole on April 20 at Robison Field in St. Louis. A bizarre incident occurred at the Polo Grounds in New York on July 17. Magee and teammate Ted Cather, a reserve outfielder, were ejected from a game with the Giants for fighting – with each other.17 On the whole, however, Magee continued to solidify his career in 1913, batting .267 in 137 games, mostly in left field. While he stole 23 bases, he was thrown out 26 times. After the season Magee and teammate Ivey Wingo were part of a group of National League players assembled by New York Giants manager John McGraw to play a series of exhibition games stateside, then embark on a world tour playing games along the way against a squad of American Leaguers chosen by Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey. During one of the exhibition games, played in a pouring rain in Medford, Oregon, on November 17, Magee, playing left field, made news when “on the dead run [he] picked a ball out of the atmosphere with one hand while holding an umbrella over his head with the other.”18 The tour left North America from Vancouver by ship and included stops in Japan, mainland Asia, and Australia before sailing through the Suez Canal to Cairo. The final portion of the journey included games in Europe and ended in England. Magee kept a journal of the tour.19 He was “an ardent shutterbug,” taking a series of photographs at the numerous tour stops.20 The weary ballplayers headed home in early March 1914 on the soon-to-be infamous Lusitania. As they neared New York a number of the players, including Magee, learned via telegrams that they were now the subject of a fierce battle between the existing major leagues and the Federal League, a fledgling minor league in 1913 with wealthy owners who sought to move up to equal status with the AL and NL in 1914. Juicy contracts were in the offing for players who would jump. Magee and others met with Mordecai Brown, the former pitching star of the Chicago Cubs, now the manager of the FL’s St. Louis entry. Brown had the league’s signing rights for Magee, and made a lucrative offer. However Magee had been given the impression that John McGraw and his pennant-winning Giants were interested in making a strong bid for his services. As it turned out, McGraw was merely acting as a caretaker for the Cardinals.21 Magee ended up signing a two-year deal with the Cardinals.22 The salary was variously reported. It seems likely that the amount was $6,000 per year with a bonus incentive,23 a significant sum given Magee’s record to date but far less than the amount an angry Brown claimed to have offered him. Said Brown, who had also tried and failed to sign Ivey Wingo, “They’ll rot in their boots in organized baseball before I ever offer either one of them another contract.”24 The Cardinals’ investment in Magee proved wise, at least in 1914. Not only did the team improve to third, but Magee had one of his best seasons, playing in 142 games, primarily in center field or first base, while garnering 150 hits, both figures career highs. He batted .284 with 36 steals, also a career high and fifth best in the league. His 35 sacrifice hits led the league. Meanwhile he drew reprimands, fines, and/or suspensions at least three times. None of this curbed his increasing popularity, particularly with the St. Louis sporting press, one of whom, W.J. O’Connor, wrote, “Magee is the sort of player who looks better in a slump than most players do on the stride.”25 The love affair ended abruptly in late 1914. Magee, sensing there was still money to be made, was once again dickering with a Federal League no longer as concerned with preserving territorial rights. In November reports surfaced that Magee was meeting with the president of the Chicago Federals. Magee announced that Chicago’s offer was “almost double what I am getting here.” Cardinals president Schuyler Britton’s response: “Lee Magee can jump into the lake or the Federal League for all I care.”26 It turned out that Britton did care. Magee did not sign with the Chifeds. Instead, in mid-November he signed with the FL’s Brooklyn entry for 1915 – not only to play but also to manage. At 25 he would be one of the youngest to ever manage a major-league team.27 The managerial appointment was met with skepticism. It was also met with a lawsuit. On January 2, 1915, the Cardinals in the name of their manager, Miller Huggins, filed a petition in Cincinnati seeking a temporary injunction restraining Magee, a player they deemed still under contract for 1915, from playing in the FL.28 The petition was part of a series of similar legal maneuvers against individual players filed by the AL and NL to protect against raids on players under reserve to its member teams. The judge in Cincinnati refused to issue the injunctive relief sought by the Cardinals, indefinitely postponing the matter pending resolution of an antitrust action filed in the federal courts in Chicago in January 1915 by the Federal League against the AL and NL. The Feds sought to restrain the two leagues from enforcing contracts like the one at issue in Magee’s case. Magee quickly filed a petition to intervene in this new case.29 Meanwhile Magee was free to manage in Brooklyn. The Tip-Tops had finished fifth out of eight teams in the first season of the league’s existence as a major-league circuit in 1914. The new manager of the Tip-Tops took his job very seriously. From the start, perhaps to allay concerns that his youth would hinder his ability to handle the veteran players on the squad, Magee took a rigid disciplinarian stance. In addition, he appeared determined to send a message to not only his players, but opponents and umpires as well, that he was a fighter who would back down from no one. As a result Magee was in constant hot water with one faction or the other from the start. In Jackson, Mississippi, during a spring-training game with the local Millsaps College squad, he engaged the college team’s catcher in a fight. That quickly involved both teams. The Tip-Tops required a police escort to exit the grounds.30 It was only the start. During his time as manager Magee was ejected on five occasions, including the first inning of the team’s home opener in April. He was thrown out an additional three times as a player.31 The Tip-Top players reacted with derision to the strict stance taken by their new manager. Before the season even started, Magee clashed with veteran outfielder Artie Hofman. When Hofman failed to follow an instruction from Magee during a spring-training game, the rookie manager retaliated by fining Hofman $10 for breaking the manager’s rule against smoking. Hofman refused to play and eventually landed in Buffalo. He was not the only unhappy Tip-Top, according to another veteran, Jim Delahanty. He predicted that a blowup was in the offing.32 Delahanty soon was gone, too. Before long even outfielder Benny Kauff, who defended Magee and was one of the league’s legitimate stars, attempted without success to jump to the New York Giants.33 The effect of Magee’s actions on his team’s performance was not immediately felt. The Tip-Tops won six of their first seven games. The success was fleeting. By the end of July the Tip-Tops were in sixth place, 10 games below .500. Manager Magee was publicly threatening to quit.34 The team’s lackluster play was not due to his on-the-field performance. Magee feasted on the league’s watered-down pitching. He finished third in the league in batting at a career-high .323. His season totals over 121 games included 34 stolen bases and a career-high 49 RBIs. In the end it all proved too much for Magee. In mid-August, his team still mired in sixth at 53-64 and attendance suffering, the club announced Magee’s resignation as manager. According to a club spokesman, he “is young and has a fiery temper and the job has had its bad effects upon him.”35 He would continue to play second base for new manager John Ganzel, a former manager (1908) of the Cincinnati Reds. Ganzel fared only a little better (17-18) as the Tip-Tops ended the season in seventh place. It proved the last season for the Tip-Tops and the FL. In mid-December a settlement was reached with the American and National Leagues. The contracts of Magee and several other Federal League stars were taken over by oilman Harry Sinclair, until the settlement the owner of the Newark Peppers FL franchise. A number of teams sought Magee’s services for 1916, due to his improved hitting and his versatility. In the end the New York Yankees purchased his contract from Sinclair for somewhere between $20,000 and $25,000. Magee’s pay would be in the neighborhood of $8,500, about what he was paid by the Tip-Tops.36 His old Cardinals manager Miller Huggins would be his new manager. “Well, he’s the prize of the Federal League collection,” said Huggins. “His value to a club is great when you stop to consider that he can play five positions on any club very capably.”37 Magee did shine on June 28 when he accumulated a record-tying four assists in the outfield. By season’s end, however, Huggins’ words rang hollow. Although Magee drove in 45 runs, just four fewer than in 1915, his average in 131 games fell to .257. He stole 29 bases, but he was caught 25 times. Only four AL players were caught more times. To his credit, Magee didn’t shy away when he was called upon to offer an explanation of his woes at the plate, telling a reporter, “(t)he pitching in the American league was so much better than what I faced in the Federal league that it soon convinced me that I had spent the season of 1915 in a minor league circuit.”38 In addition to his playing duties in 1916, Magee took an active role in the Baseball Players’ Fraternity, a short-lived players union. By the fall he was listed as one of six vice presidents. He also served the organization as a director and a member of its advisory board.39 After the 1916 season Magee returned to Ohio to take care of two very important personal matters. In early December the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Magee was to marry Beatrice Albina Rodgers, described as a “popular Price Hill beauty.”40 The couple would have three children during a long marriage. And on January 8, 1917, a local judge signed an entry legally changing the ballplayer’s name to Leo C. Magee.41 The 1917 season started with Magee still a Yankee, but it was no secret they were seeking a trade. On July 15 Magee returned to St. Louis, this time to the Browns, in exchange for outfielder Armando Marsans, the Yankees agreeing to pick up the difference in salary of the higher-paid Magee. At the time of the trade Magee was batting only .220 in 51 games. Things were even worse in St. Louis. In 36 games he could muster only 19 hits and a .170 average. Given his hefty salary, more change was in order. The Browns headed in that direction in early 1918 when they reportedly offered Magee a contract for $3,500, less than half of his previous amount.42 He refused to accept the offer, claiming he had played through an injury that affected his 1917 results.43 The Browns had seen and heard enough. On March 18 they were part of a three-team deal that sent Magee to his hometown Reds. The Yankees sent outfielder Tim Hendryx to the Browns. The Reds sent the Yankees catcher Tommy Clarke. Magee was thrilled to finally get to play in Cincinnati. His manager would be the legendary Christy Mathewson, who had sought Magee for several months prior to the trade.44 All should have gone well. It did not. One of Magee’s teammates on the Reds was Hal Chase, the first baseman known as much for his shady play as his matchless fielding prowess. It was not a good mix. While Magee’s batting average improved to .290, his fielding did not. He made a league-leading 29 errors at second base. (His 40 had led the Federal League at that position in 1915.) Moreover there were off-field problems. One on public display occurred during the Reds’ batting practice before a game with the Brooklyn Robins at Ebbets Field. One report had Magee firing a ball “with force” at outfield teammate Earle “Greasy” Neale.45 When Neale returned to the dugout, a fight broke out that left Magee bloodied. He did not return to the lineup for several games, indicating that perhaps there was more afoot than just the fight.46 As the 1918 season wound down, the nation’s war effort and not baseball was on the players’ minds. The New York Times reported that Magee had joined the war effort by way of the YMCA as “an overseas physical recreation director.”47 By the spring of 1919, the war was over and as usual Magee was battling his club over salary. When the Reds refused to increase it, he did not travel to spring training. On April 18 his contract was purchased by Brooklyn. By now many were getting fed up with Magee’s actions, but not all. Noted sports journalist Hugh Fullerton wrote, “Magee is a smart, rather brilliant fellow, whose trouble has been largely because he was accused by fellow-players of being a ‘swelled-head.’ I never have found him that way.”48 Apparently the Robins did not share Hugh Fullerton’s enthusiasm. On June 2, after 45 games and a .238 average, they shipped Magee to the Chicago Cubs for infielder Pete Kilduff. The sudden change seemed to energize Magee. Less than a month after the trade, he hit his 12th and final career home run off Wilbur Cooper of the Pirates. Playing mostly in the Cubs outfield, he batted .292 in 79 games and stole 14 bases. On August 1 he paid back the Robins with a triple and a pair of doubles in a 9-2 Cubs win. The Cubs seemed satisfied. When the Cubs released a list of players they planned to reserve for 1920, Magee was on the list. Thus it was with no little surprise that a St. Louis newspaper reported on February 12, 1920, that Magee had been waived out of both major leagues.49 The Cubs issued his unconditional release nine days later.50 The word on the street was that Magee was accused of betting on baseball games. The Cubs chose to release the player without comment rather than air the issue in public.51 Magee chose not to go quietly. On March 6 he forwarded a telegram to the sports editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch claiming that he had been unlawfully blacklisted from baseball. He threatened to file a lawsuit to test the right of the Cubs to exercise its option for his services as they did in December and then release him a month or so later. The article accompanying the text of Magee’s letter mentioned that he “was reported to have been involved in the discussion surrounding [his Reds teammate] Hal Chase, who was tried and acquitted of betting against the Cincinnati club. …”52 Those charges were heard after the 1918 season by John Heydler, the president of the NL. Attorney Robert S. Alcorn represented Chase. Magee now retained Alcorn in late March 1920 to represent him. The pair awaited a response from Heydler to a written complaint Magee sent him. If none was forthcoming, Magee threatened to publicly air the charges against him as well as “burn my bridges and then jump off the ruins.” If no longer permitted to play, “I’ll take quite a few noted people with me. I’ll show up some people for tricks turned ever since 1906. …”53 President Heydler quickly responded to this latest salvo. He told reporters that no charges were pending against Magee and challenged him to produce his evidence of wrongdoing in the sport.54 Alcorn later claimed he gave Heydler the names of four active players who bet on baseball. Heydler categorically denied that the letter he had received from Alcorn contained the names of any such players.55 (Correspondence between the two indicates that Alcorn’s letter referred only to those players previously implicated during the Chase hearing in 1918.56) When it became clear the Cubs and the NL would not budge, Magee filed a lawsuit against them in the state court in Cincinnati claiming $9,500 damages for breach of contract. The defendants successfully petitioned to remove the case to the federal court system on the basis that Magee resided in Ohio and the Cubs were an Illinois resident. Murray Seasongood, a Cincinnati trial attorney who later became the city’s mayor, represented the Cubs. During the pretrial phase it became clear that at trial the Cubs would claim that on February 10, 1920, Magee confessed to Cubs president William L. Veeck and to Heydler that while members of the Reds on July 25, 1918, he and Hal Chase each bet $500 against their team in the first game of a doubleheader against the Boston Braves.57 The Reds won the game, played in Boston, 4-2 in 13 innings. Magee was 1-for-6. He scored a run and made two fielding errors. Magee’s lawsuit was tried over three days beginning on June 7, 1920, in the US District Court in Cincinnati before Judge John W. Peck. A key witness for the Cubs was James Costello, a Boston billiards-hall owner. He testified that in July 1918 Magee, and not Chase, came to him with a proposition to throw the first game of the next day’s doubleheader with Boston. The next morning Magee and Hal Chase visited Costello and renewed Magee’s offer. Costello told the pair the gamblers would not bite unless each of them had money on the game as well. Since they claimed they had no money with them, Costello agreed to take checks from each in the amount of $500. The players assured Costello that the Reds’ pitcher, Pete Schneider, was in on the fix. (As it turned out Schneider, who denied that he was part of the plot, asked to pitch the second game and not the first that day.) The players were to get even money and their checks returned if Boston won, as well as one-third of all bets collected for that game. When the Reds won the game, Costello went to cash the player’s checks. Chase’s check went through. However Magee had canceled his check.58 In June 1919 Costello brought charges against Magee in Boston Municipal Court for nonpayment. Magee was arrested but released when a settlement was reached to repay the debt. However, Magee’s connection to gambler Costello was now public knowledge.59 Both league President Heydler and Cubs president Veeck confirmed Veeck’s earlier version of events culminating in Magee’s confession of his role in the matter, although Magee had told them Chase was the instigator and not Magee. Magee, who had testified in his portion of the case, countered this strong testimony against him by taking the witness stand again, this time in rebuttal. He admitted making the bet. He denied that he and Chase planned to bet against the Reds, claiming that he was double-crossed by Chase, who bet their money against the Reds. That is why he canceled the check. Magee claimed that it was his strong play that won the game for the Reds in the top of the 13th inning. He pointed to his base hit that allowed him to score the lead run when he came home on teammate Edd Roush’s inside-the-park home run.60 That testimony had already been blunted by the earlier testimony of his manager, Christy Mathewson, who told jurors that in the ninth inning with the Reds ahead by one run, a Magee throwing error permitted Boston to tie the game. Furthermore, Magee reached first base safely in the 13th only because his easy grounder hit a stone, bounced up and struck the shortstop in the face, breaking his nose. Magee then proceeded to ignore Mathewson’s steal signal, scoring only because of the home run. Finally, he recalled that Magee threw wildly again in the bottom of the 13th inning, the Reds holding on to win in spite of the muff.61 It took the jury only 44 minutes to render a verdict in favor of the defendant Cubs. An elated John Heydler told reporters, “I consider this verdict the greatest verdict in the history of the national game in behalf of clean baseball.”62 It was only the start. A few months later, in September, a Chicago grand jury issued indictments in what is now known as the Black Sox Scandal. The decision to try Magee’s case rather than reach a settlement was but the first shot by baseball’s establishment to rid the game of its gambling problems. Emboldened by the result, the leagues took the next step. While under cross-examination during his trial, Magee had testified, “(A) man ought to be put out of the league who would bet against his own team.”63 That became Magee’s fate, as well as Chase’s.64 Considered permanently ineligible, Magee never played a major-league game after September 28, 1919. He was 30 years old at the time. Over nine seasons he played in 1,015 games. His lifetime batting average of .276 and 1,031 hits included 12 home runs, 277 runs batted in, and 199 extra-base hits. He stole 186 bases. He played every position but catcher and pitcher. Magee spent his post-baseball years in Columbus. He seemingly kept his baseball career, particularly the way it ended, under wraps, as evidenced by his daughter’s comments to sportswriter Tom Keys in the summer of 1958 that until recently she was unaware he had ever played major-league baseball.65 He initially worked for a finance company and played some semipro ball. Later he earned his living as the proprietor of the Commerce Coal Co., delivering coal to customers in the Columbus area. He served as a member of the Board of Trustees of Rosemont School. He died of a “coronary occlusion” on March 14, 1966, at St. Anthony Hospital, Columbus. He was 76.66 He was survived by his wife, Beatrice; a son, James Rodgers Magee; a daughter, Mrs. Joseph (Janet) M. Gallen Jr.; seven grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Another son, Leo C. Magee Jr., died while serving in the military. Lee Magee is buried at St. Joseph Cemetery, just south of Columbus in Lockbourne, Ohio.67 Leo Christopher "Lee" Magee (born Leopold Christopher Hoernschemeyer; June 4, 1889 – March 14, 1966) was an American Major League Baseball player and manager between 1911 and 1919. While he played the majority of his professional games in the outfield, he also played the infield frequently. In 1915, he was a player/manager for the Brooklyn Tip-Tops of the Federal League for most of the season. The team was 53–64 under his management. Magee was later banned from baseball for his ties to gamblers and match fixing. Professional career Magee signed with the Seattle Turks of the Northwestern League for the 1909 season. The Oregonian noted "To provide against a possible loss of [Pug] Bennett, [Dan] Dugdale signed Lee Magee, a fast youngster, who so far has justified the advance press dope of his touters that he handles himself in the field like Johnny Evers."[1] On August 19, 1909, Magee was sold to the St. Louis Cardinals by the Seattle Turks of the Northwestern League.[2] In 1915, Magee was sued by the St. Louis Cardinals after he jumped to the Brooklyn Tip-Tops in the Federal League. James A. Gilmore, president of the Federal League, instructed Magee to ignore the suit.[3] In 1015 games over nine seasons, Magee posted a .276 batting average (1031-for-3741) with 467 runs, 133 doubles, 54 triples, 12 home runs, 277 RBI, 186 stolen bases and 265 bases on balls. Defensively, he finished his career with an overall .962 fielding percentage. Banishment As a ballplayer with the Chicago Cubs, Magee and Hal Chase of the Philadelphia Phillies were accused of fixing a game on August 31, 1919, by the Cook County, Illinois grand jury investigating the Black Sox scandal. In response Cubs president Bill Veeck released Magee.[4] Magee filed suit against the Cubs for $9,500 in lost wages and bonuses in 1920. He claimed to have damning evidence which would be the "biggest bomb in baseball history".[5][6] The jury ruled in favor of the Cubs on June 9, 1920.[7] Personal life Magee was accused by Fred W. Kleine of St. Louis, Missouri in a reply to his wife Harriet Kleine's petition for divorce, with a charge that Harriet would meet Magee and other baseball players at Robison Field and bring them home. In one instance in May 1910, Fred W. Kleine claimed he found his wife drinking beer with Magee, Jack Bliss and Kitty Knight. Another instance, according to Fred W. Kleine, his wife had to assist an inebriated Magee down their stairs. All of the players denied wrongdoing, but said they had been guests at the Kleine's house, which was across the street from the ballpark. Magee responded that it was a leg injury that made him require assistance down the Kleine's stairs.[8] The Oregonian noted that "Magee's name in a divorce suit along with other ball players, is not much of a surprise. Lee was a handsome boy and women admired him. He had an escapade on a sleeping car when he was playing first [base] for Seattle, that took diplomacy on the part of president Dugdale to smooth over."[9] Magee married Beatrice Rogers in 1917 and during this time Magee petitioned the court in Cincinnati to legally change his name from Leopold Christopher Hoernschemeyer to Lee Magee. According to The Oregonian this was done so his wife would be known as Mrs. Magee following their marriage.[10] See also List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders List of Major League Baseball player-managers Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league and the highest level of organized baseball in the United States and Canada. One of the big four major leagues, MLB comprises 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. Formed in 1876 and 1901, respectively, the NL and AL cemented their cooperation with the National Agreement in 1903, making MLB the oldest major professional sports league in the world. They remained legally separate entities until 2000, when they merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball.[3][7][17][18] MLB is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.[7] Baseball's first all-professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was founded in 1869. The first few decades of professional baseball saw rivalries between leagues, and players often jumped from one team or league to another. The period before 1920 was the dead-ball era, when home runs were rarely hit. Professional baseball survived the Black Sox Scandal, a conspiracy to fix the 1919 World Series, then rose in popularity in the following decade. It survived the Great Depression and World War II. Shortly after the war, Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier. The 1950s and 1960s saw the AL and NL add clubs; some moved around the country. Modern stadiums with artificial turf surfaces began to change the game in the 1970s and 1980s. Home runs dominated the game during the 1990s. In the mid-2000s, media reports disclosed the use of anabolic steroids among MLB players; a 2006–07 investigation produced the Mitchell Report, which found that many players had used steroids and other performance-enhancing substances, including at least one player from each team. Each team plays 162 games per season, with Opening Day traditionally held during the first week of April. Six teams in each league then advance to a four-round postseason tournament in October, culminating in the World Series, a best-of-seven championship series between the two league champions first played in 1903. The New York Yankees have the most championships with 27. The reigning champions are the Texas Rangers, who defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2023 World Series. MLB is the second-wealthiest professional sport league by revenue after the National Football League (NFL).[19][20][21] Baseball games are broadcast on television, radio, and the internet throughout North America and in several other countries. MLB has the highest total season attendance of any sports league in the world; in 2018, it drew more than 69.6 million spectators.[22] MLB also oversees Minor League Baseball, which comprises lower-tier teams affiliated with the major league clubs. MLB and the World Baseball Softball Confederation jointly manage the international World Baseball Classic tournament. Organizational structure MLB is governed by the Major League Baseball Constitution. This document has undergone several incarnations since its creation in 1876.[23] Under the direction of the Commissioner of Baseball, MLB hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts. MLB maintains a unique, controlling relationship over the sport, including most aspects of Minor League Baseball. This is due in large part to the 1922 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Federal Baseball Club v. National League, which held that baseball is not interstate commerce and therefore not subject to federal antitrust law; MLB is the only league that has such a status, and has not faced any competition since this case.[24][25] This ruling has been weakened only slightly in subsequent years.[26] The weakened ruling granted more stability to the owners of teams and has resulted in values increasing at double-digit rates.[26][27] There were several challenges to MLB's primacy in the sport, with notable attempts to establish competing leagues occurring during the late 1800s, from 1913 to 1915 with the short-lived Federal League, and in 1960 with the aborted Continental League.[26] The chief executive of MLB is the commissioner, Rob Manfred. The deputy commissioner of baseball administration and chief legal officer is Dan Halem. There are seven other executives: executive vice president and general counsel, chief operations and strategy officer, chief communications officer, chief financial officer and senior advisor, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, chief revenue officer, and chief baseball development officer.[28][29] The multimedia branch of MLB is MLB Advanced Media, which is based in New York City. This branch oversees MLB.com and each of the 30 teams' websites. Its charter states that MLB Advanced Media holds editorial independence from the league, but it is under the same ownership group and revenue-sharing plan. MLB Productions is a similarly structured wing of the league, focusing on video and traditional broadcast media. MLB also owns 67 percent of MLB Network, with the other 33 percent split between several cable operators and satellite provider DirecTV.[30] It operates out of studios in Secaucus, New Jersey, and also has editorial independence from the league.[31] League organization In 1920, the weak National Commission, created to manage relationships between the two leagues, was replaced with the much more powerful Commissioner of Baseball, who had the power to make decisions for all of professional baseball unilaterally.[3] From 1901 to 1960, the American and National Leagues fielded eight teams apiece. In the 1960s, MLB expansion added eight teams, including the first non-U.S. team (the Montreal Expos). Two teams (the Seattle Mariners and the Toronto Blue Jays) were also added in the 1970s. From 1969 through 1993, each league consisted of an East and West Division. In 1993, the National League expanded with two teams, the Florida Marlins and the Colorado Rockies, to even up the number of teams in both leagues. A third division, the Central Division, was formed in each league in 1994. Until 1996, the two leagues met on the field only during the World Series and the All-Star Game. Regular-season interleague play was introduced in 1997.[32] In March 1995, two new franchises, the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now known as the Tampa Bay Rays), were awarded by MLB, which began play in 1998. This addition brought the total number of franchises to 30. In early 1997, MLB decided to assign one new team to each league: Tampa Bay joined the AL and Arizona joined the NL. The original plan was to have an odd number of teams in each league (15 per league, with five in each division), but in order for every team to be able to play daily, this would have required interleague play to be scheduled throughout the entire season. However, it was unclear at the time if the interleague play would continue after the 1998 season, as it had to be approved by the players' union. For this and other reasons, it was decided that both leagues should continue to have an even number of teams, and therefore, one existing club would have to switch leagues. The Milwaukee Brewers agreed in November 1997 to move from the AL to the NL, thereby making the NL a 16-team league. At the same time, the Detroit Tigers agreed to move from the AL East to the AL Central (to replace Milwaukee), with the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays joining the AL East.[33] Later, when the Houston Astros changed ownership prior to the 2013 season, the team moved from the NL Central to the AL West,[34][35] resulting in both leagues having three divisions of five teams each and allowing all teams to have a more balanced schedule.[35] Interleague play is now held throughout the season.[35] In 2000, the AL and NL were dissolved as legal entities, and MLB became a single, overall league de jure, similar to the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Hockey League (NHL)—albeit with two components called "leagues" instead of "conferences". The same rules and regulations are used in both leagues, with one former exception: the AL operated under the designated hitter (DH) rule, while the NL did not.[36][37] This difference in rules between leagues was unique to MLB, as the other major professional sports leagues in the U.S. and Canada have one set of rules for all teams.[citation needed] In 2020, the National League (NL) used the designated hitter (DH) rule for the first time.[38] As part of the settlement of the 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout, this change was made permanent thus making the rules in the two leagues identical.[36][39] Teams See also: Timeline of Major League Baseball BravesMarlinsMetsPhilliesNationalsCubsRedsBrewersPiratesCardinalsDiamondbacksRockiesDodgersPadresGiantsOriolesRed SoxYankeesRaysBlue JaysWhite SoxGuardiansTigersRoyalsTwinsAstrosAngelsAthleticsMarinersRangers Map all coordinates using OpenStreetMap Download coordinates as: An asterisk (*) denotes a relocation of a franchise. See respective team articles for more information. Overview of MLB teams League Division Team City Stadium Capacity Coordinates Founded Joined American League East Baltimore Orioles[40] Baltimore, Maryland Oriole Park at Camden Yards 45,971 39°17′2″N 76°37′18″W 1901* Boston Red Sox[41] Boston, Massachusetts Fenway Park 37,949 42°20′47″N 71°5′51″W 1901 New York Yankees[42] New York, New York Yankee Stadium 47,309 40°49′45″N 73°55′35″W 1903 Tampa Bay Rays[43] St. Petersburg, Florida Tropicana Field 31,042 27°46′6″N 82°39′12″W 1998 Toronto Blue Jays[44] Toronto, Ontario Rogers Centre 41,500 43°38′29″N 79°23′21″W 1977 Central Chicago White Sox[45] Chicago, Illinois Guaranteed Rate Field 40,615 41°49′48″N 87°38′2″W 1901 Cleveland Guardians[46] Cleveland, Ohio Progressive Field 34,830 41°29′45″N 81°41′7″W 1901 Detroit Tigers[47] Detroit, Michigan Comerica Park 41,297 42°20′21″N 83°2′55″W 1901 Kansas City Royals[48] Kansas City, Missouri Kauffman Stadium 37,903 39°3′5″N 94°28′50″W 1969 Minnesota Twins[49] Minneapolis, Minnesota Target Field 38,871 44°58′54″N 93°16′42″W 1901* West Houston Astros[50] Houston, Texas Minute Maid Park 41,676 29°45′25″N 95°21′20″W 1962 (NL) 2013 (AL) Los Angeles Angels[51] Anaheim, California Angel Stadium 45,957 33°48′1″N 117°52′58″W 1961 Oakland Athletics[52] Oakland, California[B] Oakland Coliseum[B] 46,847 37°45′6″N 122°12′2″W 1901* Seattle Mariners[54] Seattle, Washington T-Mobile Park 47,943 47°35′29″N 122°19′57″W 1977 Texas Rangers[55] Arlington, Texas Globe Life Field 40,300 32°45′5″N 97°4′58″W 1961* National League East Atlanta Braves[56] Cumberland, Georgia Truist Park 41,500 33°53′24″N 84°28′4″W 1871* (NA) 1876 (NL) Miami Marlins[57] Miami, Florida LoanDepot Park 36,742 25°46′41″N 80°13′11″W 1993 New York Mets[58] New York, New York Citi Field 41,922 40°45′25″N 73°50′45″W 1962 Philadelphia Phillies[59] Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Citizens Bank Park 43,651 39°54′21″N 75°9′59″W 1883 Washington Nationals[60] Washington, D.C. Nationals Park 41,313 38°52′22″N 77°0′27″W 1969* Central Chicago Cubs[61] Chicago, Illinois Wrigley Field 41,268 41°56′54″N 87°39′20″W 1870 (NA) 1876 (NL) Cincinnati Reds[62] Cincinnati, Ohio Great American Ball Park 42,319 39°5′51″N 84°30′24″W 1882 (AA) 1890 (NL) Milwaukee Brewers[63] Milwaukee, Wisconsin American Family Field 41,900 43°1′42″N 87°58′16″W 1969* (AL) 1998 (NL) Pittsburgh Pirates[64] Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania PNC Park 38,362 40°26′49″N 80°0′21″W 1882 (AA) 1887 (NL) St. Louis Cardinals[65] St. Louis, Missouri Busch Stadium 44,383 38°37′21″N 90°11′35″W 1882 (AA) 1892 (NL) West Arizona Diamondbacks[66] Phoenix, Arizona Chase Field 48,519 33°26′43″N 112°4′1″W 1998 Colorado Rockies[67] Denver, Colorado Coors Field 46,897 39°45′22″N 104°59′39″W 1993 Los Angeles Dodgers[68] Los Angeles, California Dodger Stadium 56,000 34°4′25″N 118°14′24″W 1884* (AA) 1890 (NL) San Diego Padres[69] San Diego, California Petco Park 42,445 32°42′26″N 117°9′24″W 1969 San Francisco Giants[70] San Francisco, California Oracle Park 41,915 37°46′43″N 122°23′21″W 1883* History Main article: History of baseball in the United States Founding In the 1860s, aided by soldiers playing the game in camp during the Civil War, "New York"-style baseball expanded into a national game and spawned baseball's first governing body, the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP). The NABBP existed as an amateur league for 12 years. By 1867, more than 400 clubs were members. Most of the strongest clubs remained those based in the Northeastern United States. For professional baseball's founding year, MLB uses the year 1869—when the first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was established.[71] A schism developed between professional and amateur ballplayers after the founding of the Cincinnati club. The NABBP split into an amateur organization and a professional organization. The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, often known as the National Association (NA), was formed in 1871.[72] Its amateur counterpart disappeared after only a few years.[73] The modern Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves franchises trace their histories back to the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players in the 1870s.[74] In 1876, the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs (later known as the National League or NL) was established after the NA proved ineffective. The league placed its emphasis on clubs rather than on players. Clubs could now enforce player contracts, preventing players from jumping to higher-paying clubs. Clubs were required to play the full schedule of games instead of forfeiting scheduled games when the club was no longer in the running for the league championship, which happened frequently under the NA. A concerted effort was made to curb gambling on games, which was leaving the validity of results in doubt. The first game in the NL—on Saturday, April 22, 1876 (at Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia)—is often pointed to as the beginning of MLB.[75] National League Baltimore Orioles, 1896 The early years of the NL were tumultuous, with threats from rival leagues and a rebellion by players against the hated "reserve clause," which restricted the free movement of players between clubs. Teams came and went; 1882 was the first season where the league's membership was the same as the preceding season's, and only four franchises survived to see 1900. Competitor leagues formed regularly and also disbanded regularly. The most successful was the American Association (1882–1891), sometimes called the "beer and whiskey league" for its tolerance of the sale of alcoholic beverages to spectators. For several years, the NL and American Association champions met in a postseason championship series—the first attempt at a World Series. The two leagues merged in 1892 as a single 12-team NL, but the NL dropped four teams after the 1899 season. This led to the formation of the American League in 1901 under AL president Ban Johnson, and the resulting bidding war for players led to widespread contract-breaking and legal disputes.[citation needed] The war between the AL and NL caused shock waves throughout the baseball world. At a meeting at the Leland Hotel in Chicago in 1901, the other baseball leagues negotiated a plan to maintain their independence. A new National Association was formed to oversee these minor leagues.[76] After 1902, the NL, AL, and NA signed a new National Agreement which tied independent contracts to the reserve-clause contracts. The agreement also set up a formal classification system for minor leagues, the forerunner of today's system that was refined by Branch Rickey.[77] Other recognized leagues Several other early defunct baseball leagues are considered major leagues, and their statistics and records are included with those of the two modern major leagues. In 1969, the Special Baseball Records Committee of Major League Baseball officially recognized six major leagues: the National League, American League, American Association, Union Association (1884), Players' League (1890), and Federal League (1914–1915).[78] The status of the National Association as a major league has been a point of dispute among baseball researchers; while its statistics are not recognized by Major League Baseball, its statistics are included with those of other major leagues by some baseball reference websites, such as Retrosheet.[79] Some researchers, including Nate Silver, dispute the major-league status of the Union Association by pointing out that franchises came and went and that the St. Louis club was deliberately "stacked"; the St. Louis club was owned by the league's president and it was the only club that was close to major-league caliber.[80] In December 2020, Major League Baseball announced its recognition of seven leagues within Negro league baseball as major leagues: the first and second Negro National Leagues (1920–1931 and 1933–1948), the Eastern Colored League (1923–1928), the American Negro League (1929), the East–West League (1932), the Negro Southern League (1932), and the Negro American League (1937–1948).[81] In 2021, baseball reference website Baseball-Reference.com began to include statistics from those seven leagues into their major-league statistics.[82] Dead-ball era Main article: Dead-ball era Cy Young, 1911 baseball card The period between 1900 and 1919 is commonly referred to as the "dead-ball era". Games of this era tended to be low-scoring and were often dominated by pitchers, such as Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Mordecai Brown, and Grover Cleveland Alexander. The term also accurately describes the condition of the baseball itself. The baseball used American rather than the modern Australian wool yarn and was not wound as tightly, affecting the distance that it would travel.[83] More significantly, balls were kept in play until they were mangled, soft and sometimes lopsided. During this era, a baseball cost three dollars, equal to $50.64 today (in inflation-adjusted USD), and owners were reluctant to purchase new balls. Fans were expected to throw back fouls and (rare) home runs. Baseballs also became stained with tobacco juice, grass, and mud, and sometimes the juice of licorice, which some players would chew for the purpose of discoloring the ball.[84] Also, pitchers could manipulate the ball through the use of the spitball (In 1921, use of this pitch was restricted to a few pitchers with a grandfather clause). Additionally, many ballparks had large dimensions, such as the West Side Grounds of the Chicago Cubs, which was 560 feet (170 m) to the center field fence, and the Huntington Avenue Grounds of the Boston Red Sox, which was 635 feet (194 m) to the center field fence, thus home runs were rare, and "small ball" tactics such as singles, bunts, stolen bases, and the hit-and-run play dominated the strategies of the time.[85] Hitting methods like the Baltimore chop were used to increase the number of infield singles.[86] On a successful Baltimore chop, the batter hits the ball forcefully into the ground, causing it to bounce so high that the batter reaches first base before the ball can be fielded and thrown to the first baseman.[87] The adoption of the foul strike rule—in the NL in 1901, in the AL two years later—quickly sent baseball from a high-scoring game to one where scoring runs became a struggle. Before this rule, foul balls were not counted as strikes: a batter could foul off any number of pitches with no strikes counted against him; this gave an enormous advantage to the batter.[88] After the 1919 World Series between the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds, baseball was rocked by allegations of a game-fixing scheme known as the Black Sox Scandal. Eight players—"Shoeless" Joe Jackson, Eddie Cicotte, Claude "Lefty" Williams, George "Buck" Weaver, Arnold "Chick" Gandil, Fred McMullin, Charles "Swede" Risberg, and Oscar "Happy" Felsch—intentionally lost the World Series in exchange for a ring worth $100,000 ($1,712,780.35 in 2022 dollars).[89] Despite being acquitted, all were permanently banned from Major League Baseball.[90] Rise in popularity Baseball's popularity increased in the 1920s and 1930s. The 1920 season was notable for the death of Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians. Chapman, who was struck in the head by a pitch and died a few hours later, became the only MLB player to die of an on-field injury.[91] Both leagues quickly began to require the use of new, white baseballs whenever a ball became scuffed or dirty, helping bring the "dead-ball" era to an end. The following year, the New York Yankees made their first World Series appearance.[92] By the end of the 1930s, the team had appeared in 11 World Series, winning eight of them.[93] Yankees slugger Babe Ruth had set the single-season home run record in 1927, hitting 60 home runs; breaking his own record of 29 home runs.[94] Afflicted by the Great Depression, baseball's popularity had begun a downward turn in the early 1930s. By 1932, only two MLB teams turned a profit. Attendance had fallen, due at least in part to a 10% federal amusement tax added to baseball ticket prices. Baseball owners cut their rosters from 25 men to 23, and even the best players took pay cuts. Team executives were innovative in their attempts to survive, creating night games, broadcasting games live by radio, and rolling out promotions such as free admission for women. Throughout the Great Depression, no MLB teams moved or folded.[95] World War II era The onset of World War II created a shortage of professional baseball players, as more than 500 men left MLB teams to serve in the military. Many of them played on service baseball teams that entertained military personnel in the US or in the Pacific. MLB teams of this time largely consisted of young men, older players, and those with a military classification of 4F, indicating mental, physical, or moral unsuitability for service. Men like Pete Gray, a one-armed outfielder, got the chance to advance to the major leagues. However, MLB rosters did not include any black players through the end of the war.[96] Black players, many of whom served in the war, were still restricted to playing Negro league baseball.[97] Wartime blackout restrictions, designed to keep outdoor lighting at low levels, caused another problem for baseball. These rules limited traveling and night games to the point that the 1942 season was nearly canceled.[97] On January 14, 1942, MLB Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis wrote to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, pleading for the continuation of baseball during the war. Roosevelt responded, "I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before. And that means that they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before."[98] With the approval of President Roosevelt, spring training began in 1942 with few repercussions. The war interrupted the careers of stars including Stan Musial, Bob Feller, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio, but baseball clubs continued to field their teams.[99] Breaking the color barrier Main article: Baseball color line Jackie Robinson comic book, 1951 Branch Rickey, president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, began making efforts to introduce a black baseball player to the previously all-white professional baseball leagues in the mid-1940s. He selected Jackie Robinson from a list of promising Negro league players. After obtaining a commitment from Robinson to "turn the other cheek" to any racial antagonism directed at him, Rickey agreed to sign him to a contract for $600 a month. In what was later referred to as "The Noble Experiment", Robinson was the first black baseball player in the International League since the 1880s, joining the Dodgers' farm club, the Montreal Royals, for the 1946 season.[100] The following year, the Dodgers called up Robinson to the major leagues. On April 15, 1947, Robinson made his major league debut at Ebbets Field before a crowd of 26,623 spectators, including more than 14,000 black patrons. Black baseball fans began flocking to see the Dodgers when they came to town, abandoning the Negro league teams that they had followed exclusively. Robinson's promotion met a generally positive, although mixed, reception among newspaper writers and white major league players. Manager Leo Durocher informed his team, "I don't care if he is yellow or black or has stripes like a fucking zebra. I'm his manager and I say he plays."[101] After a strike threat by some players, NL President Ford Frick and Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler let it be known that any striking players would be suspended. Robinson received significant encouragement from several major-league players, including Dodgers teammate Pee Wee Reese who said, "You can hate a man for many reasons. Color is not one of them."[102] That year, Robinson won the inaugural Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award (separate NL and AL Rookie of the Year honors were not awarded until 1949).[103] Less than three months later, Larry Doby became the first African-American to break the color barrier in the American League with the Cleveland Indians.[104] The next year, a number of other black players entered the major leagues. Satchel Paige was signed by the Indians and the Dodgers added star catcher Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe, who was later the first winner of the Cy Young Award for his outstanding pitching.[105] Women in baseball Main article: Women in baseball MLB banned the signing of women to contracts in 1952, but that ban was lifted in 1992.[106] There have been no female MLB players. Relocation and expansion Main article: Major League Baseball relocation of 1950s–1960s 1959 World Series action at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum From 1903 to 1952, the major leagues consisted of two eight-team leagues[a] whose 16 teams were located in ten cities, all in the northeastern and midwestern United States: New York City had three teams and Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis each had two teams. St. Louis was the southernmost and westernmost city with a major league team. The longest possible road trip, from Boston to St. Louis, took about 24 hours by railroad. After a half-century of stability, starting in the 1950s, teams began to move out of cities with multiple teams into cities that had not had them before. From 1953 to 1955, three teams moved to new cities: the Boston Braves became the Milwaukee Braves, the St. Louis Browns became the Baltimore Orioles, and the Philadelphia Athletics became the Kansas City Athletics. The 1958 Major League Baseball season began to turn Major League Baseball into a nationwide league. Walter O'Malley, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers and "perhaps the most influential owner of baseball's early expansion era,"[107] moved his team to Los Angeles, marking the first major league franchise on the West Coast.[108] O'Malley also helped persuade the rival New York Giants to move west to become the San Francisco Giants. Giants owner Horace Stoneham had been contemplating a move to Minnesota amid slumping attendance at the aging Polo Grounds ballpark[109] when O'Malley invited him to meet San Francisco Mayor George Christopher in New York.[110] After Stoneham was persuaded to move to California, Time magazine put O'Malley on its cover.[111] MLB Commissioner Ford Frick had opposed the meeting,[112] but the dual moves proved successful for both franchises—and for MLB.[108] Had the Dodgers moved out west alone, the St. Louis Cardinals—1,600 mi (2,575 km) away[113][114]—would have been the closest NL team. Instead, the joint move made West Coast road trips economical for visiting teams.[110] The Dodgers set a single-game MLB attendance record in their first home appearance with 78,672 fans.[110] In 1961, the first Washington Senators franchise moved to Minneapolis–St. Paul to become the Minnesota Twins. Two new teams were added to the American League at the same time: the Los Angeles Angels (who soon moved from downtown L.A. to nearby Anaheim) and a new Washington Senators franchise. The NL added the Houston Astros and the New York Mets in 1962. The Astros (known as the "Colt .45s" during their first three seasons) became the first southern major league franchise since the Louisville Colonels folded in 1899 and the first franchise to be located along the Gulf Coast. The Mets established a reputation for futility by going 40–120 during their first season of play in the nation's media capital—and by playing only a little better in subsequent campaigns—but in their eighth season (1969) the Mets became the first of the 1960s expansion teams to play in the postseason, culminating in a World Series title over the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles. In 1966, the major leagues moved to the "Deep South" when the Braves moved to Atlanta. In 1968, the Kansas City Athletics moved west to become the Oakland Athletics. In 1969, the American and National Leagues both added two expansion franchises. The American League added the Seattle Pilots (who became the Milwaukee Brewers after one disastrous season in Seattle) and the Kansas City Royals. The NL added the first Canadian franchise, the Montreal Expos, as well as the San Diego Padres. In 1972, the second Washington Senators moved to the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex to become the Texas Rangers. In 1977, baseball expanded again, adding a second Canadian team, the Toronto Blue Jays, as well as the Seattle Mariners. Subsequently, no new teams were added until the 1990s and no teams moved until 2005. Pitching dominance and rule changes Graph showing, by year, the average number of runs per MLB game By the late 1960s, the balance between pitching and hitting had swung in favor of the pitchers. In 1968—later nicknamed "the year of the pitcher"[115]—Boston Red Sox player Carl Yastrzemski won the American League batting title with an average of just .301, the lowest in the history of Major League Baseball.[116] Detroit Tigers pitcher Denny McLain won 31 games, making him the only pitcher to win 30 games in a season since Dizzy Dean in 1934.[117] St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Bob Gibson achieved an equally remarkable feat by allowing an ERA of just 1.12.[118] Following these pitching performances, in December 1968 the MLB Playing Rules Committee voted to reduce the strike zone from knees to shoulders to top of knees to armpits and lower the pitcher's mound from 15 to 10 inches, beginning in the 1969 season.[119] In 1973, the American League, which had been suffering from much lower attendance than the National League, sought to increase scoring even further by initiating the designated hitter (DH) rule.[120] New stadiums and artificial surfaces Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, as baseball expanded, NFL football had been surging in popularity, making it economical for many of these cities to build multi-purpose stadiums instead of single-purpose baseball fields. Because of climate and economic issues, many of these facilities had playing surfaces made from artificial turf, as well as the oval designs characteristic of stadiums designed to house both baseball and football.[121] This often resulted in baseball fields with relatively more foul territory than older stadiums. These characteristics changed the nature of professional baseball, putting a higher premium on speed and defense over home-run hitting power since the fields were often too big for teams to expect to hit many home runs and foul balls hit in the air could more easily be caught for outs.[citation needed] Teams began to be built around pitching—particularly their bullpens—and speed on the basepaths. Artificial surfaces meant balls traveled quicker and bounced higher, so it became easier to hit ground balls "in the hole" between the corner and middle infielders. Starting pitchers were no longer expected to throw complete games; it was enough for a starter to pitch 6–7 innings and turn the game over to the team's closer, a position which grew in importance over these decades. As stolen bases increased, home run totals dropped. After Willie Mays hit 52 home runs in 1965, only one player (George Foster) reached that mark until the 1990s.[citation needed] Scandals and a changing game During the 1980s, baseball experienced a number of significant changes the game had not seen in years. Home runs were on the decline throughout the decade, with players hitting only 40 home runs just 13 times and no one hitting more than 50 home runs in a season for the first time since the Dead-ball era (1900–1919).[122][123] The 1981 Major League Baseball strike from June 12 until July 31 forced the cancellation of 713 total games and resulted in a split-season format. In 1985, Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's all-time hits record with his 4,192nd hit, and in 1989 Rose received a lifetime ban from baseball as a result of betting on baseball games while manager of the Cincinnati Reds. Rose was the first person to receive a lifetime ban from baseball since 1943.[122][124] 1985 also saw the Pittsburgh drug trials which involved players who were called to testify before a grand jury in Pittsburgh related to cocaine trafficking. The 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike from August 12, 1994, to April 25, 1995, caused the cancellation of over 900 games and the forfeit of the entire 1994 postseason.[125] Steroid era, further expansion and near contraction Mark McGwire was one of several central figures in baseball's steroids scandal Routinely in the late 1990s and early 2000s, baseball players hit 40 or 50 home runs in a season, a feat that was considered rare even in the 1980s. It later became apparent that at least some of this power surge was a result of players using steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. In 1993, the NL added the Florida Marlins in Miami and the Colorado Rockies in Denver. In 1998, the Brewers switched leagues by joining the National League, and two new teams were added: the NL's Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix and the AL's Tampa Bay Devil Rays in Tampa Bay. After the 2001 season, the team owners voted in favor of contraction. Several MLB teams had been considered for elimination in early talks about contraction, but the Montreal Expos and the Minnesota Twins were the two teams that came closest to folding under the plan. Plans for MLB contraction were halted when the Twins landlord was awarded a court injunction that required the team to play its 2002 home games at their stadium. MLB owners agreed to hold off on reducing the league's size until at least 2006.[126] The Montreal Expos became the first franchise in over three decades to move when they became the Washington Nationals in 2005. This move left Canada with just one team, but it also returned baseball to Washington after a 33-year absence. This franchise shift, like many previous ones, involved baseball's return to a city that had been previously abandoned. Not counting the short-lived Federal League, Montreal is the only city to host an MLB franchise since 1901 that, as of December 2023, does not have a team. The modern game In recent years, with the advent of technologies such as Statcast and its use of Hawk-Eye starting in 2020[127] as well as with advanced statistics as provided by sites such as FanGraphs and Baseball Savant, MLB has evolved. With the ability to see precise movements of pitchers and batters, teams can assess the mechanics of a player and help them improve. Statcast also provides some features such as tracking the paths of most batted balls, tracking the speed of most batted balls, and tracking the exit velocity of most batted balls. Statcast has allowed for advanced defensive analytics that have not been possible before tracking of players due to how subjective fielding can be. The rate of teams using a defensive shift has gone up from 13.7% in 2016 to 33.6% in 2022 because advanced statistics support this as an effective way to stop hitters from getting hits.[128] Because the shift reduces the amount of balls in play that result in hits and MLB wishes to increase interest in baseball, MLB announced in September 2022 that extreme infield defensive shifts would be banned starting in 2023. In order to be compliant, there must be two fielders on each side of second base, and those fielders must have both of their feet on the infield dirt at the time the pitch is thrown. If this rule is not followed, the choice of an automatic ball or the outcome of the play is given to the batting team.[129] The game of baseball has also slowed down significantly due to an increased number of strikeouts and walks—two outcomes that generally take many pitches to complete—and an increased amount of time taken for a pitcher to pitch. In 2020, it took an average of three hours and six minutes to complete a 9 inning game, a number which has steadily ticked up for years.[130] Along with the restrictions on defensive shifts, MLB announced the introduction of a pitch clock for the 2023 season and beyond, which is something that has been an experiment in MiLB for a few years. The pitch clock starts at 15 seconds. By the time the clock reaches 10 seconds, the catcher must be in their crouch behind home plate. When the clock reaches 8 seconds, the batter must be in the batter's box and be "alert". Before the 15 second timer reaches 0 seconds, the pitcher must have started their "motion to pitch". If any of these deadlines are violated, the count of the batter will be increased by one ball if the defending team violated the pitch clock or one strike if it is the offensive team who violated the pitch clock. Additionally, in order to prevent circumventing these rules pickoffs and step-offs which reset the pitch clock are only allowed two times total per plate appearance and, if a pitcher attempts a third pickoff and fails to get the runner out, a balk will be called. Similarly, a batter is restricted to calling a timeout (an action which resets the pitch clock) just once per plate appearance.[129] In 2019, Major League Baseball opened an investigation into allegations that members of the 2017 World Series champion Houston Astros stole signs from opposing teams using technology during the 2017 and 2018 seasons. The Astros were found guilty in January 2020 and while no active players faced any repercussions due to an immunity agreement in exchange for testimony, Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and field manager A. J. Hinch were suspended for the entire 2020 season. The Astros were fined the maximum allowable $5 million and forfeited their first- and second-round picks in the 2020 and 2021 drafts.[131] The Boston Red Sox were also found guilty of stealing signs during the 2017 and 2018 seasons, with the latter season ending in a World Series victory.[132] Red Sox manager Alex Cora was suspended for a year and the team was fined with the loss of a second round draft pick in the 2020 draft as a result.[133] 21st-century relocation and potential expansion In November 2023, the Oakland Athletics relocation to Las Vegas was approved by MLB owners.[134] As of early 2024, MLB has discussed preparations for another round of expansion, and several investment groups are vying for an MLB franchise. Main article: Potential Major League Baseball expansion Uniforms Cleveland Indians throwback uniform Main articles: Major League Baseball uniforms and Baseball uniform A baseball uniform is a type of uniform worn by baseball players, and by some non-playing personnel, such as field managers and coaches. It is worn to indicate the person's role in the game and—through the use of logos, colors, and numbers—to identify the teams and their players, managers, and coaches.[135] Traditionally, home uniforms display the team name on the front, while away uniforms display the team's home location. In modern times, however, exceptions to this pattern have become common, with teams using their team name on both uniforms.[136] Most teams also have one or more alternate uniforms, usually consisting of the primary or secondary team color on the vest instead of the usual white or gray.[136] In the past few decades throwback uniforms have become popular.[137] The New York Knickerbockers were the first baseball team to use uniforms, taking the field on April 4, 1849, in pants made of blue wool, white flannel shirts (jerseys) and straw hats.[138][139][140] Caps and other types of headgear have been a part of baseball uniforms from the beginning.[141][142] Baseball teams often wore full-brimmed straw hats or no cap at all since there was no official rule regarding headgear.[143] Under the 1882 uniform rules, players on the same team wore uniforms of different colors and patterns that indicated which position they played. This rule was soon abandoned as impractical.[144] In the late 1880s, Detroit and Washington of the National League and Brooklyn of the American Association were the first to wear striped uniforms.[145] By the end of the 19th century, teams began the practice of having two different uniforms, one for when they played at home in their own baseball stadium and a different one for when they played away (on the road) at the other team's ballpark.[136] It became common to wear white pants with a white color vest at home and gray pants with a gray or solid (dark) colored vest when away.[136] By 1900, both home and away uniforms were standard across the major leagues.[146] In June 2021, MLB announced a long-term deal with cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which includes the FTX logo appearing on umpire uniforms during all games.[147] FTX is MLB's first-ever umpire uniform patch partner.[148] On November 11, 2022, FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. MLB removed the FTX patches from umpires' uniforms before the 2023 season.[149] Season structure Main articles: Major League Baseball schedule and List of Major League Baseball seasons Spring training Main article: Spring training A Grapefruit League game at the former Los Angeles Dodgers camp in Vero Beach, Florida Spring training is a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Teams hold training camps in the states of Arizona and Florida, where the early warm weather allows teams to practice and play without worrying about the late winter cold. Spring training allows new players to compete for roster and position spots and gives existing team players practice time prior to competitive play. The teams that hold spring training in Arizona are grouped into the Cactus League,[150] while teams that hold camp in Florida are known as the Grapefruit League.[151] Spring training has always attracted fan attention, drawing crowds who travel to the warmer climates to enjoy the weather and watch their favorite teams play, and spring training usually coincides with spring break for many students. Autograph seekers also find greater access to players during spring training.[citation needed] Spring training typically lasts almost two months, starting in mid-February and running until just before the season-opening day, traditionally the first week of April. As pitchers benefit from a longer training period, pitchers and catchers begin spring training several days before the rest of the team.[152] Regular season Each team plays 162 games per season. A team's schedule is typically organized into three-game series, sets of consecutive games against the same opponent, with occasional two- or four-game series.[153] Postponed games or continuations of suspended games can result in an ad hoc one-game or five-game series. All games of a series are usually hosted by the same team and multiple series are typically grouped together. I.e, a team usually hosts several series in a row, called a homestand, and follows that by going on several road series in a row. Teams generally play games five to seven days per week. Most games are scheduled at night, although teams will often play day games on Opening Day, holidays, and for the last game of a series to allow teams extra time to travel to their next opponent. Sunday games are generally played during the afternoon, allowing teams to travel to their next destination prior to a Monday night game. In the current three-division structure, each team plays 19 games against each of its four divisional opponents. It plays one home series and one away series, amounting to six or seven games, against the 10 other teams in its league. A team also plays one of the divisions in the other league, rotating each year, with two opponents in a three-game home series, two in a three-game away series, and one with four games split between home and away. Furthermore, each team has an interleague "natural rival" (in many cases its counterpart in the same metro area) with which it plays two home games and two away games each year. With an odd number of teams in each league (15), it is necessary to have two teams participate in interleague play for most days in the season, except when two or more teams have a day off. Each team plays 20 interleague games throughout the season, usually with just one interleague game per day, but for one weekend in late May, all teams will participate in an interleague series. Before 2013, interleague play was structured differently: there would be one weekend in mid-May and another period consisting typically of the last two-thirds of June in which all teams played interleague games (save for two NL teams each day), and no interleague games were scheduled outside those dates. (Before 2013, season-long interleague play was not necessary, because each league had an even number of teams. In 2013, the Houston Astros moved to the American League, so that each league would have 15 teams.) Prior to the adoption of the universal designated hitter in 2022, whether the DH was in use depended on whether the home team was from the AL, where the DH was used, or the NL, where it was not. Starting with the 2023 season, the scheduling formula is set to change, with each team playing at least one series against every other team every year. Each team will play 14 games against teams in the same division, with one 3-game and one 4-game series at each park, six games against teams within the same league but in other divisions, with one 3-game series at each park, and one 3-game series against teams in the other league, alternating home teams each year, except for each team's designated interleague rival, which will continue to consist of two 2-game series at each of the teams' home parks. Beginning with the 2022 season, teams compete for the six playoff berths in their respective leagues. To secure a berth, a team must either win its division or capture a wild card spot by having one of the three best records among the non-winners in its entire league.[154] With the adoption of a third wild card, the former practice of breaking ties with an additional regular-season game, known as game 163, was dropped in favor of a tie-breaker formula. All-Star Game Main article: Major League Baseball All-Star Game President John F. Kennedy throwing out the first pitch at the 1962 All-Star Game at DC Stadium In early-to-mid July, just after the midway point of the season, the Major League Baseball All-Star Game is held during a four-day break from the regular-season schedule. The All-Star Game features a team of players from the American League (AL)—led by the manager of the previous AL World Series team—and a team of players from the National League (NL), similarly managed, in an exhibition game. From 1959 to 1962, two games were held each season, one was held in July and one was held in August. The designated-hitter rule was used in the All-Star Game for the first time in 1989. Following games used a DH when the game was played in an AL ballpark. Since 2010, the DH rule has been in effect regardless of venue.[155] The first official All-Star Game was held as part of the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois, and was the idea of Arch Ward, then sports editor for The Chicago Tribune.[156] Initially intended to be a one-time event, its great success resulted in making the game an annual one. Ward's contribution was recognized by Major League Baseball in 1962 with the creation of the "Arch Ward Trophy", given to the All-Star Game's Most Valuable Player each year.[157] (In 1970, it was renamed the Commissioner's Trophy, until 1985, when the name change was reversed. In 2002, it was renamed the Ted Williams Most Valuable Player Award.)[citation needed] Beginning in 1947, the eight position players in each team's starting lineup have been voted into the game by fans.[156] The fan voting was discontinued after a 1957 ballot-box-stuffing scandal in Cincinnati: seven of the eight slots originally went to Reds players, two of whom were subsequently removed from the lineup to make room for Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. Fan voting was reinstated in 1970 and has continued ever since, including Internet voting in recent years.[citation needed] The 2002 contest in Milwaukee controversially ended in an 11-inning tie when both managers ran out of pitchers. In response, starting in 2003 the league which wins the All-Star game received home-field advantage in the World Series: the league champion hosted the first two games at its own ballpark as well as the last two (if necessary). The National League did not win an All-Star game and thus gain a home-field advantage until 2010; it was able to overcome this disadvantage and win in three of the seven World Series from 2003 to 2009.[158][159] This was discontinued after the 2016 season.[citation needed] MLB All-Stars from both leagues have worn uniforms from their respective teams at the game with one exception. In the 1933 All-Star Game, the National League All-Star Team members wore special gray uniforms with "National League" written in navy blue letters across the front of the jersey.[160][161] On July 3, 2020, it was announced that the 2020 Major League Baseball All-Star Game scheduled to be held in Los Angeles would not be played due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[162] As compensation, Los Angeles was awarded the next available All-Star Game in 2022.[163] Postseason Main article: Major League Baseball postseason See also: World Series and List of World Series champions World Series Records Team Series won Last Series won Series played New York Yankees (AL) 27 2009 40 St. Louis Cardinals (NL) 11 2011 19 Oakland Athletics (AL) 9 1989 14 Boston Red Sox (AL) 9 2018 13 San Francisco Giants (NL) 8 2014 20 Los Angeles Dodgers (NL) 7 2020 21 Cincinnati Reds (NL) 5 1990 9 Pittsburgh Pirates (NL) 5 1979 7 Detroit Tigers (AL) 4 1984 11 Atlanta Braves (NL) 4 2021 10 Chicago Cubs (NL) 3 2016 11 Baltimore Orioles (AL) 3 1983 7 Minnesota Twins (AL) 3 1991 6 Chicago White Sox (AL) 3 2005 5 Philadelphia Phillies (NL) 2 2008 8 Cleveland Guardians (AL) 2 1948 6 Houston Astros (NL to AL, 2013) 2 [AL] 2022 5 (4 [AL], 1 [NL]) New York Mets (NL) 2 1986 5 Kansas City Royals (AL) 2 2015 4 Miami Marlins (NL) 2 2003 2 Toronto Blue Jays (AL) 2 1993 2 Texas Rangers (AL) 1 2023 3 Arizona Diamondbacks (NL) 1 2001 2 Washington Nationals (NL) 1 2019 1 Los Angeles Angels (AL) 1 2002 1 Tampa Bay Rays (AL) 0 2 San Diego Padres (NL) 0 2 Colorado Rockies (NL) 0 1 Milwaukee Brewers (AL to NL, 1998) 0 1 [AL] Seattle Mariners (AL) 0 0 The regular season ends after the first Sunday in October (or the last Sunday in September), after which twelve teams enter the postseason playoffs. These twelve teams consist of the six division champions and six "wild-card" teams: the team with the best overall win–loss record in each of the six divisions, and the three teams in each league with the best records other than the division champions. Four rounds of series of games are played to determine the champion:[citation needed] Wild Card Series, a best of three games playoff between the lowest seeded division champion and three "wild-card teams", the higher seeds will host all three games American League Division Series and National League Division Series, each a best-of-five-games series. American League Championship Series and National League Championship Series, each a best-of-seven-games series played between the winning teams from the Division Series. The league champions are referred to as the pennant winners. World Series, a best-of-seven-games series played between the pennant winners of each league. Within each league, the division winners are the 1, 2, and 3-seeds, based on win–loss records. The teams with the first, second, and third best records among non-division winners will be seeded 4, 5, and 6 respectively. Throughout the postseason, home-field advantage is awarded to the team with the higher win-loss record, with tiebreakers being applied if necessary. In the Wild Card Series, the 3-seed will host the 6-seed, and the 4-seed will host the 5-seed, with the winners advancing to the Division Series. Unlike the NFL, there is no reseeding between each series. In the Division Series, the 1-seed goes up against the 3/6-seed and the 2-seed goes up against the 4/5-seed. The winners of those matches will compete in their respective League Championship Series for their League Pennant, and the Pennant winners will advance to the World Series.[164] Since 2017, home-field advantage in the World Series is determined by regular-season records of the two league champions, replacing a system used for the prior 14 seasons where the champion of the league that won the All-Star Game would receive home-field advantage.[citation needed] The team with home-field advantage in the Wild Card Series will host all three games, and subsequent series' will split home fields between the two teams in a 2-3-2 format, with the advantaged team hosting games 1 and 2, as well as 6 and 7 (if necessary). With this format, the home-field advantage does not usually play a large role in the postseason unless the series goes to its maximum number of games. However, because the first two games of a postseason series are hosted by the same team, a team starting with two wins will likely have momentum heading into the venue switch.[165][166] International play See also: List of Major League Baseball games played outside the United States and Canada, MLB Japan All-Star Series, MLB Taiwan All-Star Series, and 2019 MLB London Series Since 1986 an All-Star team from MLB is sent to a biennial end-of-the-season tour of Japan, dubbed as MLB Japan All-Star Series, playing exhibition games in a best-of format against the All-Stars from Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) or recently as of 2014 their national team Samurai Japan. In 2008, MLB played the MLB China Series in the People's Republic of China. It was a series of two spring-training games between the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers. The games were an effort to popularize baseball in China.[167] MLB played the MLB Taiwan All-Star Series in Taiwan in November 2011. It was a series of five exhibition games played by a team made up of MLB players called the MLB All-Stars and the Chinese Taipei national baseball team. The MLB All-Stars swept the series, five games to zero.[168] At the end of the 2011 season, it was announced that the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics would play their season openers in Japan.[169] In October 2013, Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune wrote that MLB was considering postseason all-star tours in Taiwan and Korea; baseball is increasing in popularity in both countries.[170] The Arizona Diamondbacks opened the 2014 season against Los Angeles Dodgers on March 22–23 in Australia.[171] The teams played each other at the historic Sydney Cricket Ground, which has a seating capacity of 46,000. The two games represented the first MLB regular-season play held in that country. The games counted as home games for the Diamondbacks, so they played 79 home games at Chase Field.[172] In 2019, the Red Sox were the home team in a regular-season two-game series against the Yankees. The games, which were the first regular-season MLB games held in Europe, were played on June 29–30 at London Stadium with the Yankees winning both games.[173] Together with the World Baseball Softball Confederation, MLB sponsors the World Baseball Classic, an international baseball tournament contested by national teams.[citation needed] Performance-enhancing drugs See also: Doping in baseball and List of Major League Baseball players suspended for performance-enhancing drugs Rafael Palmeiro (batter), one of the MLB players suspended for steroid use[174] In 1998, both Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa hit more home runs than the record of 61 set by Yankees right fielder Roger Maris in 1961. Barry Bonds topped the record in 2001 with 73 home runs. McGwire, Bonds, and Sosa became the subjects of speculation regarding the use of performance-enhancing substances. McGwire later admitted that he used a steroid hormone that was still legal in baseball during the 1998 season.[175] Baseball's original steroid testing policy, in effect from 2002 to 2005, provided for penalties ranging from a ten-game suspension for a first positive test to a one-year suspension for a fourth positive test. Players were tested at least once per year, with the chance that several players could be tested many times per year.[176] A 2006 book, Game of Shadows by San Francisco Chronicle investigative reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, chronicled alleged extensive use of performance enhancers, including several types of steroids and growth hormone by baseball superstars Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, and Jason Giambi. Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell was appointed by Selig on March 30, 2006[177] to investigate the use of performance-enhancing drugs in MLB. The appointment was made after several influential members of the U.S. Congress made negative comments about both the effectiveness and honesty of MLB's drug policies and Commissioner Selig.[178] The day before the Mitchell Report was to be released in 2007, Selig said, "I haven't seen the report yet, but I'm proud I did it."[179][180] The report said that after mandatory random testing began in 2004, HGH treatment for athletic enhancement became popular among players, as HGH is not detectable in tests. It pointed out that HGH is likely a placebo with no performance-enhancing effects.[181] The report included substance use allegations against at least one player from each MLB team.[182] According to ESPN, some people questioned whether Mitchell's director role with the Boston Red Sox created a conflict of interest, especially because no "prime [Sox] players were in the report".[183] The report named several prominent Yankees who were parts of World Series clubs; there is a long-running and fierce Yankees–Red Sox rivalry. Former U.S. prosecutor John M. Dowd brought up Mitchell's conflict of interest,[184] but he later said that the former senator had done a good job.[185] Mitchell acknowledged that his "tight relationship with Major League Baseball left him open to criticism",[186] but he said that readers who examine the report closely "will not find any evidence of bias, of special treatment of the Red Sox".[186] On January 10, 2013, MLB and the players union reached an agreement to add random, in-season HGH testing. They also agreed to implement a new test to reveal the use of testosterone for the 2013 season.[187] The current MLB drug policy provides for an 80-game suspension for a first positive test, a 162-game suspension for a second positive test, and a lifetime suspension for a third positive test.[188] In 2009, allegations surfaced against Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz, and Manny Ramirez received a 50-game suspension after testing positive for banned substances. In early April 2011, Ramirez retired from baseball rather than face a 100-game suspension for his second positive steroid test.[189] He would later unretire, having the suspension dropped to 50 games, and would serve those in 2012.[citation needed] Media coverage Television Main article: Major League Baseball on television See also: List of current Major League Baseball broadcasters Several networks televise baseball games, including Fox, ESPN, TBS, and MLB Network. Since 2008, Fox Sports has broadcast MLB games on Saturdays throughout the entire season; Fox previously only broadcast games from May to September.[190] Fox also holds rights to the All-Star Game each season. Fox also alternates League Championship Series broadcasts, broadcasting the American League Championship Series (ALCS) in odd-numbered years and the National League Championship Series (NLCS) in even-numbered years. Fox broadcasts all games of the World Series.[191] ESPN continues to broadcast MLB games as well, beginning with national Opening Day coverage.[192] The network airs the program Baseball Tonight prior to its weekly regular season game titled: Sunday Night Baseball. ESPN also has the rights to the Home Run Derby every July and in the postseason broadcasts the Wild Card Series exclusively..[193][194] TBS has aired Sunday afternoon regular season games (non-exclusive) nationally, but beginning in 2022 this will be replaced by Tuesday night games.[195][196] In 2007, TBS began its exclusive rights to any tiebreaker games that determine division or wild card champions. It also airs exclusive coverage of the Division Series round of the playoffs.[197] TBS carries the League Championship Series that are not included under Fox's television agreement; TBS shows the NLCS in odd-numbered years and the ALCS in even-numbered years.[198] In January 2009, MLB launched the MLB Network, featuring news and coverage from around the league, and airing 26 live games in the 2009 season.[199] Each team also has local broadcasts for all games not carried by Fox on Saturdays or ESPN on Sunday nights. These games are typically split between a local broadcast television station and a local or regional sports network (RSN), though some teams only air local games through RSNs or through their own team networks. As Canada only contains one team, Sportsnet broadcasts Toronto Blue Jays games nationally.[200] The channel is owned by Rogers Communications, who is also the parent company of the Blue Jays.[200] Sportsnet also televises Fox's Saturday afternoon games, the All-Star Game, playoff games, and the World Series.[200][201] In April 2011, TSN2 began carrying ESPN Sunday Night Baseball in Canada.[202] TVA Sports airs Blue Jays games in French.[203] Several MLB games are broadcast exclusively on Internet television. After a year of exclusive games on Facebook,[204] MLB partnered with YouTube to stream weekly games on the service beginning in the 2019 season, and extending until 2022.[205][206][207] In 2022, MLB made a deal with Apple Inc. to launch Friday Night Baseball on its Apple TV+ streaming service, and NBC Sports to broadcast MLB Sunday Leadoff, a package of early Sunday afternoon games on Peacock.[208][209] ESPN+ broadcasts one out-of-market game per day throughout the whole regular season. Since the 2023 season Division Series the streaming service Max began to simulcast the games broadcast by its sister channel TBS (both owned by Warner Bros. Discovery).[210] Blackout policy Main article: Major League Baseball blackout policy See also: Syndication exclusivity MLB blackout map in the United States Canadian regions subject to Toronto Blue Jays exclusively Shared with Seattle Mariners Shared with Minnesota Twins Shared with Boston Red Sox Note: Toronto Blue Jays territory covers all of Canada MLB has several blackout rules.[211] A local broadcaster has priority to televise games of the team in their market over national broadcasters if the game is not exclusive to the national broadcaster. A market that has a local team playing in a non-exclusive game will receive an alternative programming feed on the national broadcaster.[212] MLB's streaming internet video service is also subject to the same blackout rules.[213] Commissioner Robert Manfred has expressed interest in changing the blackout policy to loosen the rules for streaming options.[214] Radio and Internet Main article: Major League Baseball on the radio The first baseball game ever broadcast on radio was a Pittsburgh Pirates versus Philadelphia Phillies game on August 5, 1921. The game was broadcast by KDKA of Pittsburgh, and the Pirates defeated the Phillies 8–5. It was broadcast by KDKA staff announcer Harold Arlin.[215][216][217][218][219][1] That year, KDKA and WJZ of Newark broadcast the first World Series on the radio, between the New York Giants and the New York Yankees, with Grantland Rice and Tommy Cowan calling the games for KDKA and WJZ, respectively.[216][217][218] However, the broadcasters were not actually present at the game, but simply gave reports from a telegraph wire.[216] In 1922, WJZ broadcast the entire series, with Rice doing play-by-play.[217][218] For the 1923 World Series, Rice was joined on Westinghouse for the first time by Graham McNamee.[216][220] During the 1923 World Series, Rice was the main broadcaster, but during the fourth inning of Game 3, he turned the microphone over to McNamee.[218][220] This was the start of McNamee's career, and McNamee became the first color commentator.[221] Although frequently criticized for his lack of expertise, McNamee helped popularize baseball.[216][220][222] In 1998, national radio broadcasts moved to ESPN Radio.[223] ESPN Radio currently broadcasts Sunday Night Baseball games during the regular season, as well as Saturday and occasional weekday games, along with the All-Star Game and all postseason contests.[224] Since 2021, TUDN Radio airs Spanish-language coverage of select regular season and postseason games, including the World Series.[225] In addition, each team employs its own announcers, who broadcast during the regular season. Most teams operate regional networks to cover their fan bases; some of these supposedly regional networks (such as the New York Yankees Radio Network) have a national reach with affiliates located across the United States.[226] Major League Baseball has an exclusive rights deal with XM Satellite Radio, which includes the channel MLB Network Radio and live play-by-play of all games.[227] Many teams also maintain a network of stations that broadcast their games in Spanish; as of 2022, the Los Angeles Dodgers are the only team that produces radio broadcasts in a third language, with selected games broadcast in Korean.[228] Both Canadian teams (the Montreal Expos before their move to Washington, DC in 2005, and the Toronto Blue Jays) have produced radio broadcasts in French.[229] MLB games are also broadcast live on the internet. All television and radio broadcasts of games are available via subscription to MLB.tv at Major League Baseball's website, MLB.com, and radio-only broadcasts are also available via subscription to MLB.com Gameday Audio.[230] Radio station affiliates are officially forbidden from streaming games through their Internet feeds. Blackout rules are still applied for live television broadcasts, but not radio broadcasts.[citation needed] Since 2005, Major League Baseball has a partnership with XM Satellite Radio, launching a 24-7 channel MLB Home Plate which carries every major league game.[231][232] Games are also carried on MLB Gameday Audio.[233] While all teams maintain a network of stations carrying their games in English, many teams also maintain a Spanish-language network as well. In addition, when the Washington Nationals were based in Montreal as the Montreal Expos, their games were broadcast in both English and French. Selected games of the Los Angeles Dodgers are broadcast in Korean by KMPC.[234][235] International broadcasting Disney Media Networks Latin America through its linear channels (ESPN, FS2, FS3, ESPN Caribbean, ESPN Brazil) and Star+ owns the broadcast rights to more than 180 regular season games (at least 1 game per day), the Home Run Derby, the All Star Game and the post season including: the Wild Card Series, the Division Series, the Championship Series and the World Series for all of Latin America and the Caribbean.[236][237][238][239] In Mexico, as of 2022, Fox Sports airs five regular season games per week[240] and post-season games that belong to the league that broadcasts its American namesake (including the Wild Card Series). Likewise, TUDN carries 4 matches a week until 2022: through the pay television signal, games were broadcast on Tuesdays and Thursdays, while on Saturdays (generally at 12:00 pm) and Sundays (rotating between NBA games, until the start of the NFL season) games were broadcast on Canal 9. Starting with the Championship Series, it only broadcast one division and the whole World Series, these were broadcast on free-to-air television for 59 years.[241] Starting with the 2023 season, it was confirmed that Imagen Televisión would begin broadcasting a regular season game every Saturday and Sunday as well as the playoffs and the World Series on open television and its website for all of Mexico.[242] In Argentina, Fox Sports carries 5 regular season games per week and post-season games that belong to the league that broadcasts its American namesake (including the Wild Card Series). In Venezuela, since the 2016 season the cable channel IVC has the broadcast rights, they currently air 7 games per week.[243] Starting with the 2022 season, Televen broadcasts two games a week and the postseason on free-to-air TV[244][245][246] While Venevisión, starting with the 2023 season, would return with the space "El Juego de la Semana" that carries a game every Sunday and non-working days on free-to-air television.[247] In the Dominican Republic since 2009 Grupo Altice has broadcast the entire regular season, playoffs and World Series through pay TV while on free-to-air television and radio Grupo Corripio airs 7 games per week and the entire postseason.[248][249][250] In Spain, Movistar Plus+ has the rights to broadcast the entire season, including one game daily, and the postseason, covering all games in the championship series and all games in the World Series.[251] Channel 5 in the United Kingdom previously screened MLB games, including the All-Star Game and the postseason games, on Sunday and Wednesday usually starting at 1 a.m. BST. Most recently, Johnny Gould and Josh Chetwynd presented MLB on Five on that station.[252] The channel covered baseball beginning on its opening night in 1997, but for financial reasons, the decision was made not to pick up MLB for the 2009 season.[253] BT Sport ESPN show live and recorded games several times a week—it is available with BT Sport and (on a subscriber-basis) Virgin Media in the UK.[254] ESPN America televised many games in the UK and dozens of other countries; in May 2013, ESPN announced that it would shut down the channel on July 31, 2013.[255][256] In Australia, MLB games are regularly shown on ESPN Australia (subscription).[257] In the Middle East, North Africa and France, MLB games are broadcast on beIN Sports channels.[258][259] In Germany, Austria and Switzerland as many as 500 MLB games will be broadcast from 2022 exclusively on the Sport1 platforms until 2026.[260] In Hungary, MLB games are broadcast on Sport1 as of 2020.[261] See also icon Baseball portal Australian Baseball League Baseball Assistance Team (B.A.T.) Baseball in Canada Baseball in the United States Bob Feller Act of Valor Award Comparison of Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball KBO League List of all-time Major League Baseball win–loss records List of American and Canadian cities by number of major professional sports franchises List of current Major League Baseball stadiums List of former Major League Baseball stadiums List of Major League Baseball awards List of Major League Baseball managers The Brooklyn Tip-Tops were a team in the short-lived Federal League of professional baseball from 1914 to 1915. The team's name came from Tip Top Bread, a product of Ward Baking Company, which was also owned by team owner Robert Ward.[1][2] They were sometimes informally called the Brooklyn Feds or BrookFeds due to being the Brooklyn team of the Federal League. They played in Washington Park, which the Brooklyn Dodgers had abandoned after the 1912 season to move to Ebbets Field. History The 1914 Brooklyn Tip-Tops. The team finished a disappointing 4th in 1914. Federal League officials believed it was important to have a successful franchise in the New York City area and when the Indianapolis Hoosiers were transitioned to Newark, New Jersey, the "Federal League Ty Cobb", as 1914 FL batting champ Benny Kauff was known, was placed on the Brooklyn roster. In 1915, Kauff led the league with a .342 batting average and 55 stolen bases, but the Tip-Tops still finished in seventh place. The Newark and Brooklyn FL teams played three holiday doubleheaders during the 1915 season where one game was in Newark and the second was in Brooklyn. On September 19, 1914, Tip-Top Ed Lafitte threw the only no-hitter in Federal League history, beating the Kansas City Packers 6–2. Had the Federal League (FL) lasted just one more season, night baseball might have been introduced two decades earlier. The Tip Tops had announced plans for the 1916 season to play some games at night. See also Brooklyn Tip-Tops all-time roster 1914 Brooklyn Tip-Tops season 1915 Brooklyn Tip-Tops season George S. Ward The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, known simply as the Federal League, was an American professional baseball league that played its first season as a minor league in 1913 and operated as a "third major league", in competition with the established National and American Leagues, from 1914 to 1915. The Federal League came together in early 1913 through the work of John T. Powers, and immediately challenged the operations of organized baseball as a minor league playing outside of the National Agreement. After James A. Gilmore succeeded Powers as league president, the league declared itself to be a major league. Playing in what detractors called the "outlaw" league allowed players to avoid the restrictions of the organized leagues' reserve clause. The competition of another, better paying league caused players' salaries to skyrocket, demonstrating the bargaining potential of free agency for the first time since the war between the AL and NL. Interference by the National and American Leagues in their operations caused the Federal League to fold after the 1915 season. This resulted in a landmark federal lawsuit, Federal Baseball Club v. National League, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act did not apply to Major League Baseball.[1] The Federal League left its mark on baseball history in the field now known as Wrigley Field, which was originally built for the Chicago Whales Federal League team. The league itself and many sports writers considered it a major league during its existence; organized baseball recognized its major league status in 1968.[2][3] Not including certain periods of the Negro leagues, it would be the last independent major league outside the established structure of professional baseball to make it to the playing field, and would be the last serious attempt to create a third major league until the abortive Continental League of 1960. History In 1912, baseball promoter John T. Powers formed an independent professional league known as the Columbian League. However, the withdrawal of one of the organization's primary investors caused the league to fail before ever playing a game. Undaunted, Powers tried again the following year, creating a new league with teams in Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Covington, Kentucky. He named the organization the Federal League, and served as its first president.[4] Because it did not abide by the National Agreement on player payment in place in organized baseball, the Federal League was called an "outlaw league" by its competitors. The Federal League's outlaw status allowed it to recruit players from established clubs, and it attracted many current and former players from the major as well as minor leagues. In 1913, the Federal League played as an independent six-team minor league. In its first season Powers initially served as president, but he was soon replaced by James A. Gilmore, under whose leadership the league declared itself a major league for the 1914 season. Other financiers of the League included oil baron Harry F. Sinclair, ice magnate Phil Ball, and George S. Ward of the Ward Baking Company.[5] As a major circuit, the Federal League consisted of eight teams each season. Four of the teams were placed in cities with existing major league baseball teams (Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Brooklyn). The other four teams were placed in areas without a current major league club (Baltimore, Buffalo, Indianapolis and Kansas City). In the first year, 1914, some of the teams had official nicknames and some did not, but either way, sportswriters were inclined to invent their own nicknames: "ChiFeds," "BrookFeds," etc. By the second season, most of the teams had "official" nicknames, although many writers still called many of the teams "-Feds." In order for the Federal League to succeed, it needed Big League players. Walter Johnson signed a three-year contract with the Chicago team, but the Senators' Clark Griffith went personally to Johnson's home in Kansas and made a successful counter-offer.[6] Major League players that jumped to the Federal League included Bill McKechnie, Claude Hendrix, Jack Quinn, Russell Ford, Tom Seaton, Doc Crandall, Al Bridwell, and Hal Chase. The Federal League also recruited Big League names to manage the new teams. Joe Tinker managed the Chicago team, Mordecai Brown managed the St. Louis team and Bill Bradley managed the Brooklyn team. In 1914, the Colonial League began to operate as a Class C level league based in Southern New England.[7] In April, Alexander Bannwart drew notice by acquiring Big Jeff Pfeffer to manage the team in Pawtucket, Rhode Island,[8] and by May, it was suspected that Bannwart was working as an agent of the Federal League, which Bannwart denied.[9] Upon these news reports, some of the founding members of the Colonial League resigned, fearing banishment by the National Baseball Commission.[10][11] At the April 1915 league meeting, Coppen was re-elected as president and Bannwart was elected secretary. Walter S. Ward, the treasurer of the Brooklyn Tip-Tops of the Federal League and George S. Ward's son, was elected as the league's treasurer.[12] The Colonial League reorganized itself as a farm system for the Federal League[13] and voluntarily withdrew itself from organized baseball.[14] The Federal League had close pennant races both years. In 1914, Indianapolis beat out Chicago by 1½ games. 1915 witnessed the tightest pennant race in Major League history, as three teams (Chicago, St. Louis and Pittsburgh) fought into the last weekend of the season. On the season's final day, Sunday, October 3, Chicago split a doubleheader with Pittsburgh, winning the darkness-shortened seven-inning nightcap, 3-0; this combined with St. Louis' 6-2 win over Kansas City, knocked Pittsburgh back to third (albeit just a half-game behind), with Chicago and St. Louis in a virtual tie for first. But since the Whales (86-66) played two fewer games than the St. Louis Terriers (87-67), they were awarded the pennant based on their slightly better winning percentage (.566 to .565). Pittsburgh, with one game unplayed, ended up at 86-67 (.562). During the 1914–15 offseason, Federal League owners brought an antitrust lawsuit against the American and National Leagues. The lawsuit ended up in the court of Federal Judge (and future Commissioner of Baseball) Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who allowed the case to languish while he urged both sides to negotiate. Swift action might have made a difference, but without the lawsuit going forward, the Federals found themselves in deepening financial straits. After the 1915 season, the owners of the American and National Leagues bought out half of the owners (Pittsburgh, Newark, Buffalo, and Brooklyn) of the Federal League teams. Two Federal League owners were allowed to buy struggling franchises in the established leagues: Phil Ball, owner of the St. Louis Terriers, was allowed to buy the St. Louis Browns of the AL, and Charles Weeghman, owner of the Chicago Whales, bought the Chicago Cubs. Both owners merged their teams into the established ones. The Kansas City franchise had been declared bankrupt and taken over by the league office after the close of the regular season, and the Baltimore owners rejected the offer made to them. They had sought to buy and move an existing franchise to their city, but were rebuffed, and sued unsuccessfully. Legacy One of baseball's most famous ballparks was originally built for a Federal League team: Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs, began its long life as Weeghman Park, the home of the Chicago Whales. Marc Okkonen, in his book on the Federal League, referred to Wrigley as a "silent monument" to the failed Federal League experiment. Otherwise, few visible remnants were left by the short-lived Federal League. The Baltimore entry sold their facility to the Baltimore Orioles of the International League, who renamed it Oriole Park and played there for nearly 30 years before it was destroyed by fire. The Newark ballpark was also used for minor league ball for a short time. Washington Park in April 1915 Washington Park III in Brooklyn, completed after the 1915 season was underway, resembled Chicago's Weeghman Park. It was used for various sports until the end of 1917 and then for storage until Brooklyn Edison Electric bought the property in 1925 and shortly thereafter tore it down. One wall still stands.[15] The other Federal League ballparks were demolished quickly, including the home of the Pittsburgh Rebels, Exposition Park, which had been the home of the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League until they moved into Forbes Field in 1909.[16] The other "silent monument" to the Federal League is a famous legal decision. In 1922, the Supreme Court ruled in Federal Baseball Club v. National League (brought by the Terrapins, one of the teams which had not been bought out), that Major League Baseball and its constituent leagues were primarily entertainment, not conventional interstate commerce, and thus were exempt from the Sherman Antitrust Act;[1] MLB remains the only North American sports league with such a status, and it has not faced any competitor leagues since unlike the other pro sports leagues because of this exemption.[17][18] Though significantly weakened in the 1970s, this exemption remains intact 102 years later; however, it has been eroded by subsequent court rulings and legislation regarding issues specific to Major League Baseball. Of the locations of teams in the Federal League, five currently have major league teams. Those are Baltimore, Chicago, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. Brooklyn has a minor league team, the Brooklyn Cyclones. (The major league Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958, although the New York Mets, the Cyclones' parent club, have been located in the adjacent borough of Queens since 1964.) Buffalo and Indianapolis have International League teams, the Buffalo Bisons and Indianapolis Indians, respectively. Newark had a team, the Bears, in the independent Can-Am League, which folded after the 2012 season. There is at least one achievement of note that happened in Federal League play. Eddie Plank, pitching for the St. Louis Terriers, won his milestone 300th game on September 11, 1915, at St. Louis' Handlan's Park, becoming the first 300-game winning left-hander in the history of major league baseball and one of only six as of 2018. However, that milestone was not acknowledged by Major League Baseball until 1968. The Federal League was the last serious attempt at creating a "third major league" outside the established structure of professional baseball in the U.S. There was one further attempt at creating a third league – the Continental League in 1959 – but its founders had hoped to find their place within the purview of organized baseball. The Continental League disbanded in 1960 without ever playing a game, making the Federal League the last such league to ever take to the field. The Federal League features prominently in Ring Lardner's sports humor book You Know Me Al (1916), in which the protagonist pitches for the Chicago White Sox and repeatedly threatens to jump to the Federal League whenever he feels underappreciated or underpaid.[19] Baseball Hall of Famers Players in the Baseball Hall of Fame who played in the Federal League are listed below. Each of these players was elected via the Veterans Committee. In addition, Cy Young managed the 1913 Cleveland Green Sox. Player Position Team(s) Induction year Chief Bender Pitcher Baltimore Terrapins (1915) 1953 Mordecai Brown Pitcher St. Louis Terriers, Brooklyn Tip-Tops (1914); Chicago Whales (1915) 1949 Bill McKechnie Third baseman Indianapolis Hoosiers (1914); Newark Peppers (1915) 1962 Eddie Plank Pitcher St. Louis Terriers (1915) 1946 Edd Roush Center fielder Indianapolis Hoosiers (1914); Newark Peppers (1915) 1962 Joe Tinker Shortstop Chicago Whales (1914–1915) 1946 Teams Team Seasons Comment Baltimore Terrapins 1914–15 Brooklyn Tip-Tops 1914–15 Buffalo Blues 1914–15 Initially known as the Buffeds Chicago Whales 1913–15 Initially known as the Federals or Keeleys Cleveland Green Sox 1913 Covington Blue Sox 1913 Also known as the Colonels. Transferred to Kansas City, mid-season 1913 Indianapolis Hoosiers 1913–14 Moved to Newark in 1915 Kansas City Packers 1913–15 Had been in Covington until mid-season 1913 Newark Peppers 1915 Moved from Indianapolis following the 1914 season Pittsburgh Rebels 1913–15 Known as the Filipinos in 1913, and initially as the Stogies in 1914 St. Louis Terriers 1913–15 1914 Brooklyn Tip-Tops Results Champions Joe Tinker managed the 1915 Chicago Whales. Per final regular season standings, as there was no postseason. Year Team Record Manager Note 1913 Indianapolis Hoosiers 75–45 Bill Phillips Minor league 1914 Indianapolis Hoosiers 88–65 Major league 1915 Chicago Whales 86–66 Joe Tinker Standings 1913 George Textor played for Indianapolis in 1913. Federal League W L Pct. GB Indianapolis Hoosiers 75 45 0.625 — Cleveland Green Sox 64 54 0.542 10 St. Louis Terriers 59 60 0.496 15½ Chicago Keeleys 57 62 0.479 17½ Covington Blue Sox / Kansas City Packers 53 65 0.449 21 Pittsburgh Stogies 49 71 0.408 26 Notes: The Federal League operated as an independent minor league in 1913. Covington's record was 21–20 when they relocated to Kansas City on June 26. Source:[20][21] 1914 Bill McKechnie played for Indianapolis in 1914. vteFederal League W L Pct. GB Home Road Indianapolis Hoosiers 88 65 0.575 — 53–23 35–42 Chicago Federals 87 67 0.565 1½ 43–34 44–33 Baltimore Terrapins 84 70 0.545 4½ 53–26 31–44 Buffalo Buffeds 80 71 0.530 7 47–29 33–42 Brooklyn Tip-Tops 77 77 0.500 11½ 47–32 30–45 Kansas City Packers 67 84 0.444 20 37–36 30–48 Pittsburgh Rebels 64 86 0.427 22½ 37–37 27–49 St. Louis Terriers 62 89 0.411 25 32–43 30–46 1915 Mordecai Brown played for Chicago in 1915. vteFederal League W L Pct. GB Home Road Chicago Whales 86 66 0.566 — 44–32 42–34 St. Louis Terriers 87 67 0.565 — 43–34 44–33 Pittsburgh Rebels 86 67 0.562 ½ 45–31 41–36 Kansas City Packers 81 72 0.529 5½ 46–31 35–41 Newark Peppers 80 72 0.526 6 40–39 40–33 Buffalo Blues 74 78 0.487 12 37–40 37–38 Brooklyn Tip-Tops 70 82 0.461 16 34–40 36–42 Baltimore Terrapins 47 107 0.305 40 24–51 23–56 See also icon Baseball portal Continental League Players' League Betting against one's team is the cardinal sin in baseball. Chicago Cubs outfielder Lee Magee found that out on this day in 1920, when he was released after he admitting to betting against the Cincinnati Reds while playing for them. Gambling and baseball were fairly inseparable in the early days of the game. Despite attempts to remove that element, gamblers and baseball players would continue to consort, until the time that betting on the game became grounds for a lifetime banishment from the sport. And yet, players would persist in wagering on the game, at least until the Chicago Black Sox scandal made gambling the cardinal sin in baseball. However, before that time, Major League Baseball had a warmup act to get ready for the impending storm. Chicago Cubs outfielder Lee Magee, fearing that his attempts to throw a game would catch up to him, admitted to team president William Veeck and National League president John Heydler that he had attempted to throw a game. Heydler had already begun an investigation of his own into the matter. Back in 1918, Magee and Hal Chase had approached a gambler in Boston, putting up $500 each as a down payment for a portion of his winnings when they would lose to the Braves. Magee did his part, making two key errors and barely running around the bases. However, the Reds won 4-2 in the 13th inning, as Magee himself was forced to score the winning run. Fearing that he had been double crossed by Chase, he stopped payment on the check. This ruined his relationship in the clubhouse, leading to a trade to the Dodgers. When Magee and the Dodgers returned to Boston in 1919, that gambler served him with papers for non-payment of a debt, sparking the investigation. More from Call to the Pen by TaboolaSponsored LinksYou May Like Look For Any High School Yearbook, It's Free Classmates Given that background, and how Magee simply could not be trusted, the Cubs made their decision to cut him loose. And so, on this day in 1920, the axe fell, as Magee was let go, ending his baseball career. He had been approximately league average with the bat when he played, posting a career .276/.325/.350 batting line, although his baserunning and fielding were questionable at best. Yet, at 30 years old, he likely would have had a few years left in his Major League career. Magee felt the same way. He would sue the Cubs for his $4500 salary in 1920, claiming that his livelihood was destroyed because of the sudden termination of his contract. A litany of baseball officials, reporters, and former teammates testified against Magee, leading to his case being dismissed in June. That attempt to get his salary actually had unintended consequences. While the suit was between Magee and the Cubs, Hal Chase fell under the spotlight for his role in the proceedings. Chase would later come under fire three months later for his role in the Black Sox scandal, the final act in a list of gambling incidents dating back to 1910. Although he left the Majors by that time, Chase would end up being banned for life. Gambling and throwing a game is the most unforgivable crime in the game. Lee Magee learned that lesson the hard way on this day in 1920, when he was released by the Chicago Cubs.
- Condition: Used
- Industry: Sports
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- Original/Reproduction: Original
- Autographed Item: Index Card
- Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
PicClick Insights - Scarce Banned From Baseball Lee Magee Autograph Card Fantastic Gambling PicClick Exclusive
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