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1856 The New York Mercury coins the phrase “the National Pastime.” 1860s Baseball comes to Cuba and soon spreads to other parts of the Caribbean. In the next decade, it arrives in Japan. 1869 The Cincinnati Red Stockings become the first admittedly all-professional baseball club. The following year, with a profit of $1.35, the team folds. 1879 Professional baseball adopts the reserve clause, giving teams the right to automatically renew a player’s contract at the end of each season. 1885-1889 Baseball’s first union forms. The Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players (unsuccessfully) demands an end to the reserve clause and salary caps. 1893-1904 The stories differ, but some time during these years baseball meets the hot dog and an American classic is born. 1908 The Mills Commission, a “blue-ribbon panel” appointed by A.G. Spalding, falsely concludes that baseball was invented by General Abner Doubleday, in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839—declaring it a purely American sport. 1910 William Howard Taft becomes the first U.S. President to throw out the first pitch on opening day. 1919 Black Sox Scandal: Eight players on the Chicago White Sox conspire with gamblers to throw the World Series. They are acquitted in a court of law—but they are banned from baseball forever. 1920 The Negro National League, the first financially successful all-black league, is founded by Hall-of-Famer Rube Foster. 1921 Station KDKA in Pittsburgh broadcasts radio’s first live major league game. (Fewer than 10 percent of Americans own a radio.) 1935 The first night game in major league baseball is played in Cincinnati. 1939 The first televised major league game is broadcast from Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. 1939 Little League Baseball is founded. 1942 Just weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt declares, “it would be best for the country to keep baseball going.” 1943 Philip K. Wrigley starts what will become the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the country’s only professional female league. 1947 By joining the Dodgers, Jackie Robinson becomes the first African-American to play major league baseball in the 20th century. 1957 The Dodgers leave Brooklyn for Los Angeles. The Giants leave New York for San Francisco. Major league baseball finally reaches the west coast. 1966 Astroturf, the first artificial sports surface, is installed in the Houston Astrodome. 1974 Under court order, Little League is officially gender-integrated. 1975 An arbitrator’s ruling leads to a modification of the reserve clause and the start of free agency. Baseball salaries begin to skyrocket. 1994 The year without a World Series: the longest and costliest strike in baseball history begins on August 12, 1994, and lasts until the following spring. 2000 For the first time, the Major League baseball season opens in Tokyo, Japan (Chicago Cubs vs. New York Mets). 2001 October 30, just weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, President George W. Bush throws out the first ball of the third game of the World Series in New York’s Yankee Stadium. 2002 Tsuyoshi Shinjo, an outfielder for the San Francisco Giants, became the first Japanese player to take part in a World Series Game |
