Alex Duran

12/1/09
BASEBALL AS AMERICA

In 1823, 16 years before the supposed ivention by Abner Doubleday, a New York
newspaper, the National Advocate, talks about "the manly and athletic game of baseball".
33 years later in 1856, the phrase "the National Pastime." was coined by the New York
Mercury. Baseball in the 1860s had spreads to places like Cuba and parts of the Caribbean.
A decade later baseball comes to Japan.

In 1869 the all-professional baseball club was the Cincinnati Red Stockings. With a
profit of $1.35 a year later the team folds. In the late 1800s the reserve clause is added to
professional baseball and demanding an end to the reserve clause and salary caps, was
baseball's first union.

In the early 1900s. A.G. Spelding concludes that Abner Doubleday invented
baseball. The first U.S. President to throw the first pitch on opening day was William H. Taft.
The first all-black Negro National League was founded by Hall-of-Famer Rube Foster. The
first night game, to the first televised game and major league baseball finally goes out west.

The late 1900s to early 2000s. Baseball salaries skyrocket and free agancy starts.
Then came a shocking year in baseball, there would be no World Series do to a strike, it
lasted from August 12, 1994 till spring. Six years later, Major League baseball for the first
time opens in Tokyo, Japan. A few weeks after the terrorist attacks in New York, presiden
George W. Bush throws out the first pitch in game three of the World Series at Yankee
Stadium. Jackie Robinson was the first African-American in major league baseball and 55
year after him was Tsuyoshi Shinjo, the first Japanese player to play in the World Series.