Major League Baseball Totally Explained

Everything about Major League Baseball totally explained

Major League Baseball (MLB) is the highest level of play in North American professional baseball. More specifically, Major League Baseball refers to the organization that operates North American baseball's two major leagues, the National League and the American League, by means of a joint organizational structure which has existed between them since 1903. Major League Baseball teams play a 162-game season, which generally begins on the first Sunday in April and ends on the first Sunday in October, with playoffs played in October and early November. The two leagues follow the same rules, with one exception: the American League operates under the Designated Hitter Rule, while the National League does not. Utilization of the DH Rule in Interleague, All-Star and World Series games is determined by the home team's league rules. In 2000, the American and National Leagues were officially disbanded as separate legal entities with all rights and functions consolidated in the commissioner's office. MLB effectively operates as a single league and as such it constitutes one of the major professional sports leagues of North America.
MLB is controlled by an agreement that has undergone several incarnations since 1876, then called the NL Constitution, with the most recent revisions being made in 2005. Major League Baseball, under the direction of its Commissioner (currently Bud Selig), hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts. As is the case for most North American sports leagues, the "closed shop" aspect of MLB effectively prevents the yearly promotion and relegation of teams into and out of the Major League by virtue of their performance. Major League Baseball is mostly funded by private enterprises, but also partially funded directly by public taxes. MLB maintains a unique, controlling relationship over the sport, including most aspects of minor league baseball. This is due in large part to a 1922 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Federal Baseball Club v. National League which held that baseball isn't interstate commerce and therefore not subject to federal antitrust law. This ruling has been weakened only slightly in subsequent years.
The production/multimedia wing of MLB is New York-based MLB Advanced Media which oversees MLB.com and all 30 of the individual teams' websites. Its charter states that MLB Advanced Media holds editorial independence from the League itself, but it's indeed 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.

Current Major League franchises

American League
Division	Team	Founded	City/Area	Stadium	Opened	Capacity
East	Baltimore Orioles	1901⁶	Baltimore, MD	Oriole Park at Camden Yards	1992	48,290
	Boston Red Sox	1901	Boston, MA	Fenway Park	1912	37,400(night) 36,984(day)
	New York Yankees	1901⁷	New York City, NY	Yankee Stadium^{1, 5}	1923	57,545
	Tampa Bay Rays	1998	St. Petersburg, FL (Tampa Bay Area)	Tropicana Field²	1990	36,048
	Toronto Blue Jays	1977	Toronto, ON	Rogers Centre	1989	49,539
Central	Chicago White Sox	1901	Chicago, IL	U.S. Cellular Field	1991	40,615
	Cleveland Indians	1901	Cleveland, OH	Progressive Field	1994	43,545
	Detroit Tigers	1901	Detroit, MI	Comerica Park	2000	41,782
	Kansas City Royals	1969	Kansas City, MO	Kauffman Stadium	1973	38,030
	Minnesota Twins	1901⁸	Minneapolis, MN	Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome³	1982	46,632
West	Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim	1961	Anaheim, CA	Angel Stadium	1966	45,257
	Oakland Athletics	1901⁹	Oakland, CA	McAfee Coliseum⁴	1966	35,067
	Seattle Mariners	1977	Seattle, WA	Safeco Field	1999	47,447
	Texas Rangers	1961¹⁰	Arlington, TX (Dallas/Fort Worth Metro)	Rangers Ballpark in Arlington	1994	48,911

� ¹ To be replaced in 2009 by a new stadium also named "Yankee Stadium"

   ² To be replaced in 2012 by a new stadium currently named "Rays Ballpark" � ³ To be replaced in 2010 by a new stadium currently named "Twins Ballpark"

   ⁴ To be replaced in 2010 — 2012 by a new stadium named "Cisco Field" � ⁵ Hosting 2008 All-Star Game.

   ⁶ Milwaukee Brewers 1901; St. Louis Browns 1902 — 1953 � ⁷ Baltimore Orioles 1901 — 1902, New York Highlanders 1903 - 1912

   ⁸ Washington Senators 1901 — 1960 � ⁹ located in Philadelphia 1901 — 1954, Kansas City 1955 — 1967

   ¹⁰ Washington Senators 1961 — 1971

National League
Division	Team	Founded	City/Area	Stadium	Opened	Capacity
East	Atlanta Braves	1871⁴	Atlanta, GA	Turner Field	1997	49,743
	Florida Marlins*	1993	Miami Gardens, FL (Miami area)	Dolphin Stadium¹	1987	38,560
	New York Mets	1962	New York City, NY	Shea Stadium²	1964	57,333
	Philadelphia Phillies	1883	Philadelphia, PA	Citizens Bank Park	2004	43,647
	Washington Nationals	1969⁵	Washington, DC	Nationals Park	2008	41,222
Central	Chicago Cubs	1878	Chicago, IL	Wrigley Field	1914	41,160
	Cincinnati Reds	1882	Cincinnati, OH	Great American Ball Park	2003	42,319
	Houston Astros	1962	Houston, TX	Minute Maid Park	2000	40,976
	Milwaukee Brewers	1969⁶	Milwaukee, WI	Miller Park	2001	41,900
	Pittsburgh Pirates	1882	Pittsburgh, PA	PNC Park	2001	38,362
	St. Louis Cardinals	1882	St. Louis, MO	Busch Stadium³	2006	43,975
West	Arizona Diamondbacks	1998	Phoenix, AZ	Chase Field	1998	49,033
	Colorado Rockies	1993	Denver, CO	Coors Field	1995	50,449
	Los Angeles Dodgers	1890⁷	Los Angeles, CA	Dodger Stadium	1962	56,000
	San Diego Padres	1969	San Diego, CA	PETCO Park	2004	42,685
	San Francisco Giants	1883⁸	San Francisco, CA	AT&T Park	2000	41,907

� ¹ To be replaced in 2011 by a new stadium currently named "New Marlins Stadium"

   ² To be replaced in 2009 by a new stadium named "Citi Field" � ³ Hosting 2009 All-Star Game

   ⁴ located in Boston 1876 — 1952; Milwaukee 1953 — 1965 � ⁵ Montreal Expos 1969 — 2004

   ⁶ Seattle Pilots 1969; Mil. Brewers 1970 — � ⁷ located in Brooklyn 1890 — 1957

   ⁸ located in New York 1883 — 1957 � ^* When the Marlins move out of Dolphin Stadium the team will be renamed the "Miami Marlins"

Organizational Alignment

The Commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig, has often floated the idea of international expansion and realignment of the major leagues. At the moment, however, the two major leagues are each split into three divisions and structured as listed in the tables above.
   In all, there are 30 teams in the two leagues: 16 in the older National League ("NL") and 14 in the American League ("AL"). The leagues don't have the same number of teams because an odd number of teams would force at least one team to be off every day, or play a team from the opposite league. Each has its teams split into three divisions grouped generally by geography. They are (number of teams in each division in parenthesis): NL East (5), NL Central (6), NL West (5), AL East (5), AL Central (5), and AL West (4).
   Each team's regular season consists of 162 games, a duration established in 1961 in the American League and 1962 in the National League. From 1904 into the early 1960s, except for 1919, a 154-game schedule was played in both leagues (in which each team played its seven opponents 22 times apiece). Expansion from eight to ten teams in each league in the early 1960s resulted in a revised schedule of 162 games (in which each team played its nine opponents 18 times) in their expansion years, for the American League in 1961 and the National League in 1962. Although the schedule remains at 162 games to this day, the layout of games played was changed when Divisional play began in 1969, so that teams played more games against opponents within their own division than against the other divisions or (beginning in 1997) the other league.
   Unplanned shortened seasons were played in 1918 due to the United States entering World War I, and in 1972, 1981, 1994 and 1995 due to player strikes and lockouts. A 140-game schedule (with each team playing its seven opponents 20 times) was used in 1919, due to the influenza outbreak, and the schedule before 1904 varied from year to year.

Scheduling

The Major League regular season generally runs from the first Sunday in April to the first Sunday in October. Each team is scheduled to play 162 games during the season. Games are scheduled every day (except as noted in the next paragraph), although not all teams play every day; by rule, each team has a scheduled day off at least once every two weeks. Players and teams prepare for the season in spring training, in Florida and Arizona, during February and March. Three rounds of playoffs follow the regular season, culminating in the World Series in early November. Playoffs consist of multiple game series which are split between the two teams' home fields; predetermined sites are not used as they're in some other professional sports championships.
   An annual "All-Star Game" is conducted halfway through the season, at a pre-determined site, with all teams enjoying a three-day break. National League players make up one team, while American League players form the other. Eight players from each league (one for each field position other than pitcher) are selected by fan vote, while the remainder are selected by the selected coaches of the two League teams (which are the coaches of the previous year's World Series teams).
   Games are played predominantly against teams within each league through an unbalanced schedule which heavily favors intra-divisional play. In 1997, Major League Baseball introduced interleague play, in which American and National League teams play against one another. This break from tradition (previously, the two leagues played completely separate schedules except for the All-Star Game and World Series) was criticized by the sport's purists but has since proven very lucrative to the franchises. The interleague games are currently confined to the months of May and June. Typically many intra-division games are scheduled toward the end of the season, anticipating the possibility of close divisional races and heightened fan interest.
   Generally, when two teams meet, they play two to four games against one another, normally scheduled as one game per day on consecutive days. In the unbalanced schedule currently in use, most teams will travel to visit each other team in their division three times per season, each team in their league's other divisions once per season, and make three visits to teams from the opposite league, totalling 81 games. The remaining 81 games are conducted at home, with other teams visiting on a similar schedule. When games must be rescheduled due to weather or other concerns, it's common for the game to be rescheduled as part of a "double-header", in which two games featuring the same two teams are played back-to-back on the same day.
   Most games begin at either 1:05 pm or 7:05 pm local time, although some teams prefer other times, and individual games may be scheduled at other times for a variety of reasons (often relating to being featured on nationwide television). When not over-ridden due to broadcast contracts, the game time is ultimately set by the home team. Most teams prefer to schedule daytime games on Sunday and one chosen weekday, with night games the remainder of the week. However, the Chicago Cubs, by agreement with the City of Chicago, are required to play almost two-thirds of their home games during the day. (The Cubs' stadium, Wrigley Field, was also the last stadium to operate without lights, which were installed in 1988. Prior to the 1988 season, all Cubs home games were played in daylight.)

Draft and Minor Leagues

Each year in June, Major League Baseball conducts a draft for first-year players who have never signed a Major or Minor League contract. These players are generally American and Canadian high school graduates or university students, although players from a limited number of foreign countries may also be drafted. Notably, players from Japan may not be drafted, it being regarded as the exclusive right of the Japanese leagues to do so.
   The Major League Baseball Draft is among the least followed of the professional sports drafts in the United States, possibly because other professional sports drafts feature players who will immediately start to play for the team they're drafted by that next year, whereas the MLB has an extensive minor league system to help players mature and hone their skills to be able to compete with those in the major leagues.
   After being drafted, players are assigned to minor league teams who are affiliated with the major league team. The minor leagues are organized into several levels, and players normally work their way up over a period of three or more seasons (based on skill and performance) before appearing in the Major Leagues.
   For a detailed history of the length of the regular season, see Major League Baseball season.

Team names and colors

In American professional sports (and usually amateur sports as well), a generally standardized and marketing-oriented structure has evolved for the names and colors, and thus the identities of individual clubs. The structure involves three elements: a geographical designator, traditionally the name of the team's city, although in recent decades the team's state or region has sometimes been used; a nickname, usually connected with either a mascot, the team's colors, or a feature unique to the region or to the club; and team colors, a carryover from heraldry. This approach contrasts with some non-American sports, such as European soccer, in which team names need not necessarily follow a particular pattern, or Asian professional baseball, which generally follows a "corporate sponsor" name followed by a "nickname". The pattern began with early organized baseball clubs and has been extended from there to almost all U.S. professional clubs.
   Originally, gentlemen's athletic clubs were key movers in the development of organized baseball, so early prominent teams were simply named after the clubs that formed them: Athletic Club, Mutual Club, Olympic Club, Forest City Club, Kekionga Club, Atlantic Club, Western Club. By 1871, with the formation of the National Association, clubs no longer just competed with local rivals, but with the best clubs from other cities around the northeast. Thus, geographic designators were sometimes added, establishing the now familiar pattern (only reversed): Athletic of Philadelphia, Mutual of New York, Olympic of Washington, Forest City of Cleveland, Kekionga of Fort Wayne, Atlantic of Brooklyn, Western of Keokuk.
   By 1876, when the National League entered play, baseball clubs were no longer primarily associated with gentlemen's athletic clubs, and most of the original teams were named after the one uniform feature that served to distinguish them on the field - the color of their stockings. Thus: Boston Red Stockings, Chicago White Stockings, Cincinnati Red Stockings, Hartford Dark Blues, Louisville Grays, St. Louis Brown Stockings. The 1876 New York and Philadelphia clubs still held over the traditional "Mutual" and "Athletic" names, and were usually so referenced in the standings. The plural usage seen sometimes, "Mutuals" or "Athletics", was equivalent to the "Chicagos" or the "Bostons". Modern historians have often retrofitted these names in the modern style, such as "New York Mutuals", which is technically incorrect. "Mutual" was the actual name of the team, and the club had separate "nicknames" that referred to the team colors in a given year, such as "Green Stockings". The Athletics name did persist, however, and the Philadelphia American League team would retain this name even through two relocations.
   Throughout this period, club nicknames were ad hoc, bestowed and used at will by sportswriters and fans. Nicknames became associated with particular cities, and fans tended to refer to the local team by this name, even if it wasn't associated in a corporate fashion with its predecessor. Thus, multiple, unassociated teams used names such as Boston Red Stockings, Chicago White Stockings, Cincinnati Red Stockings, St. Louis Brown Stockings, Louisville Grays, Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Brewers, and the like.
   Early in the 20th century, the club nickname began to acquire a more important status, eventually an official status, being designated by the club ownership and ultimately used as part of the club's marketing efforts. Sometimes a club would change its nickname or adopt an official name that superseded one or more unofficial names in the past. An example would be the Boston Braves, who were tagged with various nicknames prior to officially adopting "Braves" as their name and mascot. Sometimes such a name change didn't catch on with the press and public, which is why there's no longer a "Philadelphia Blue Jays" nor a "Boston Bees". The original Washington Senators were officially the "Washington Nationals" for many decades, but the alternate nickname "Senators" persisted, "Nationals" faded, and the team finally, officially became the "Senators" in the late 1950s. (With modern marketing strategies, such a fate is less likely to befall the current Washington Nationals.)
   In contrast, the Brooklyn Dodgers began by adopting the old "Atlantic" designation, then were dubbed the "Bridegrooms" for a while, then the "Trolley Dodgers", then the "Superbas", then the "Robins" (for their manager, Wilbert Robinson), although the alternate nickname "Dodgers" persisted from the moment the team acquired that tag. The Dodgers didn't actually put that name on their uniforms until the 1930s. Sometimes teams have changed their nicknames for marketing or other reasons. For example, the Houston Colt 45s became the Houston Astros (short for originally Astronauts) in 1965.
   Team colors are sometimes tied in with a team's name, and occasionally they're changed for marketing reasons. One of the most striking examples of the latter was in 1963, when flamboyant owner Charles O. Finley changed the Kansas City Athletics' uniforms from a traditional white/gray with blue and red trim to bright yellow with green trim, a move that sparked controversy, but also one that fit in with the new medium of color television. Before this, home uniforms in MLB were uniformly white with colored trim, while road uniforms were uniformly gray; afterwards many teams displayed a variety of color schemes, notably the Houston Astros and San Diego Padres.
   The Chicago Cubs have occasionally worn a bright blue top on the road since 1982, whereas the Chicago White Sox have changed colors many times during that interval, at one or another time wearing navy blue, red, royal blue, and white stockings. In recent years the team has sometimes worn black hosiery.
   Interestingly, the St. Louis Cardinals (baseball) once played in the same city as the St. Louis Cardinals (football, now the Arizona Cardinals), but the teams were not named for each other. The St. Louis Cardinals baseball club always played in St. Louis and were originally the St. Louis Brown Stockings (not to be confused with the St. Louis Browns in the American League), while the former St. Louis Cardinals football club (now the Arizona Cardinals), the oldest American football team still in existence, were first known as the Racine Normals, then Racine Cardinals, then the Chicago Cardinals. During their time in St. Louis, the football team was usually referred to by fans as "Big Red" or the "Gridbirds" in order to avoid confusion between the teams.

Major League Baseball uniforms

The official rules of Major League Baseball require that all players on a team wear matching uniforms, although this rule wasn't in force in the early days. Originally, teams were primarily distinguished by the colors of their stockings and the success of the Cincinnati Red Stockings popularized the adoption of sock color as the explicit identity of the club. The 1876 Chicago White Stockings actually wore caps of different colors. In 1882, the National League assigned stocking colors to the member clubs: red for Boston, white for Chicago, grey for Buffalo, blue for Worcester, gold for Detroit, green for Troy, and so on. That year, the league also assigned jersey and cap colors, but by player position rather than by club.
   Traditionally, when playing at home, teams wore uniforms that were mostly white with trim in team colors and when playing away, they wore uniforms that were mostly gray with trim in team colors. Aside from the obvious need to distinguish one team from the other, conventional wisdom held that it was more difficult to properly launder uniforms while on a road trip, thus the "road grays" helped to hide accumulated soil. This convention continued well after its original premise was nullified by the issuance of multiple uniforms and the growth of the laundromat industry. Starting in the 1970s, with the advent of synthetic fabrics, teams began using more color in their uniforms, notably the Kansas City Athletics in 1963, the San Diego Padres unusual brown and yellow scheme beginning in 1969, and the Houston Astros' rainbow stripes in the mid-1970s. In the late 1970s, the Pittsburgh Pirates began a trend of multiple combinations of differently colored jerseys and trousers and caps (with the options of black, yellow, and white with pin stripes). At one point in the 1970s, the Cleveland Indians had an all-red uniform.
   Starting in the 1990s, MLB clubs began heavily marketing licensed goods, such as caps and uniform jerseys to the public and this has resulted in a wide array of uniforms for each team. Now, some teams have not only a basic home uniform and away uniform, but also special "Sunday game" uniforms and uniforms that are worn only during batting practice and uniforms worn on singular events. From time to time, individual MLB teams have held "Turn Back the Clock Day", regularly-scheduled games in which teams donned uniforms in styles their predecessors wore generations earlier (sometimes called "throwback" uniforms), or other antique-style uniforms such as those of Negro League clubs. In addition, in 1999, MLB staged "Turn Ahead the Clock Day," in which teams wore futuristic, somewhat strange-looking uniforms, including futuristic or science fiction references, such as the New York Mets being referred to as the "Mercury Mets."
   The result is that it's now often difficult to say which uniform is a team's "official" one. For example, the Cincinnati Reds used to wear a variety of caps: all red, red crown and black bill, black crown and red bill, and all black, until 2007, when only the all-red and red crown/black bill was brought back. In contrast from the pre-1990s era, in which there usually was just one home uniform and one road uniform (with certain exceptions, such as Oakland and Pittsburgh's complex combinations), today choices of what combination of uniform elements are worn are now sometimes left up to players. In some cases, aspects of the uniform that are considered official are now rarely worn, such as the New York Mets' all-blue home cap, which is rarely seen on the field today in favor of an "alternate" black-and-blue cap. Through 2007, The New York Yankees, Detroit Tigers, St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Chicago Cubs were the only teams that did't wear alternate uniforms. The Cubs, Dodgers and Giants had worn alternate uniforms in the past, but as of 2007 didn't have one. In 2008, the Chicago Cubs reintroduced their alternate, all Blue uniform.
   The official rules state that:

All players on a team must wear identical uniforms during a single game.
Numbers: All players must wear their uniform numbers on the back of the uniform.
Undershirt: If the undershirt is exposed then all the players on the team must wear matching ones. Numbers or other devices may be worn on the sleeve of the undershirt (for example, if it's worn with a sleeveless jersey), except that pitchers may not have such devices on their undershirt sleeves.
The league office might require that each team have a single uniform for all games or requires that each team have a single, white home uniform and a single, non-white away uniform. With the elimination of the separate American League and National League administrations, it's unknown what the effectiveness of this rule now is.
Sleeve length: The rules allow for minor variation in sleeve length, but they must be "approximately the same length" and the sleeves may not be "ragged, frayed or slit."
No attachments: Tape or other attachments of non-matching color may not be used on uniforms. Pants may not be attached to the bottom of the shoe in any manner.
No images of baseballs: No "pattern that imitates or suggests the shape of a baseball" may be used on uniforms. Notably, in apparent violation of this rule, the Milwaukee Brewers, Anaheim Angels, Florida Marlins and Philadelphia Phillies for many years had logos that incorporated the image of a baseball. However, while the Philadelphia cap logo clearly depicted the baseball, the logo worn on the uniform jersey didn't feature the image of the stylized stitching indicating the image of a baseball. The Marlins logo, while depicting a baseball, can not easily be mistaken for one, as the team's namesake fish is displayed in front of the ball design. The classic Brewers "ball and glove" logo (with the team's initials, MB, stylized into the shape of a blue baseball glove surrounding a ball) made a comeback in 2006 on the hats of the Brewers' Sunday home uniforms and is now the Brewers' Friday home uniform. Also, many teams such as the Giants, Nationals, Rangers and the Mariners use uniform logos that clearly depict a baseball, and the New York Mets have featured uniforms with a sleeve logo that imitates the appearance of a baseball since the team's inception in 1962, so it may be that the rule isn't enforced, at least for caps. (The purpose of this rule is to prevent one team from deceiving the other. The National Football League has a similar rule, which states that no pattern that imitates or suggests the shape of a football).
No glass buttons or polished metal.
No commercial advertisements on uniforms. This rule is in variance with other professional sports, such as the Arena Football League in the United States, but especially outside the US (notably soccer), in which it's customary for uniforms to prominently display the logo of a sponsoring company. However, when the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays opened the season in Japan in 2004, an ad for Ricoh was clearly visible on the batters' helmets. When the Oakland Athletics and Boston Red Sox opened the 2008 season in Tokyo, not only did both teams wear batting helmets featuring the Ricoh ad; but also, the Red Sox featured a commercial advertisement for a New England-based business on their jerseys. Exceptions are made for the manufacturers of the pieces of uniform or equipment upon which they're placed (for example the hat manufacturer's emblem may be on the hat).
Names: "A league may provide that the uniforms of its member teams include the names of its players on their backs. Any name other than the last name of the player must be approved by the League President. If adopted, all uniforms for a team must have the names of its players." Again, with the elimination of separate administrations for the American and National leagues, it's unknown what the provenance of this rule is. (Currently, Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners is the only player to have his given name rather than his family name displayed on the back his uniform, having applied for this permission in order to continue being identified as he'd been in the Japanese leagues. Vida Blue also used his first name on the back of his uniform when he played for the San Francisco Giants in the mid-1980s). As of 2007, the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and San Francisco Giants don't display their players' names on their home uniforms; the Yankees also don't display them on their road uniforms. The New York Mets used alternate home uniforms without last names for the 1999 season. The names were returned the next season. The Chicago Cubs didn't have names on their home or alternate jerseys for the 2005 and 2006 seasons. The names are now back on both jerseys. The Los Angeles Dodgers didn't have names on the back of their home and road jerseys for the 2005 and 2006 seasons. Names have returned on both jerseys for 2007.

Another apparent violation of the concept of a "uniform" is that some players on a team will wear the traditional knee-breeches or "knickers" while other teammates are wearing the more-recent ankle-length, closely-cut trousers. Many clubs do this at both major and minor league level, with no apparent objections.
On game days that don't require a special uniform (either by team or MLB request) it's generally (but not always) the starting pitcher for a team that chooses the uniform to be worn for that day's game.
In his comedy routine "Baseball & Football," George Carlin observes that in baseball, as compared to football, the manager is required to wear the same uniform the players do. However, this was actually not true in the early years of the game. Player-managers were common, but non-playing managers whose realm was strictly the dugout often wore business suits, a common occurrence at the time. Retired players who became managers were more likely to continue to wear a baseball uniform (John McGraw, for example), especially if they were also active on the coaching lines; managers often doubled as third-base coach. By the late 1940s, nearly all managers were wearing baseball uniforms. Connie Mack was the last major league manager to wear a suit in the dugout until his retirement in the early 1950s; however, in contrast to the uniform-wearing managers, Mack rarely if ever stepped onto the field during a game; instead he sent uniformed coaches onto the field when a managerial presence outside the dugout was required.

All-Star Game

Early July marks the midway point of the season, during which a three day break is taken when the Major League Baseball All-Star Game is staged. The All-Star game pits players from the NL, headed up by the manager of the previous NL World Series team, against players from the AL, similarly managed, in an exhibition game. Since 1989, the designated hitter rule is used when the game is played in an AL ballpark; formerly no designated hitters played in the All-Star game. The 2002 contest ended in an 11-inning tie because both teams were out of pitchers, a result which proved highly unpopular with the fans. As a result, for a two-year trial in 2003 and 2004, the league which won the game received the benefit of home-field advantage in the World Series (four of the seven games taking place at their home park). That practice has since been extended indefinitely, since it has become popular with fans. The practice has upset purists over the previous format of the two leagues alternating home-field advantage for the World Series. The Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox took some advantage of the rule in 2004 and 2005 respectively, as each team started the Series with two home victories, giving them good momentum for a sweep. However, the rule didn't help the Yankees in 2003, as they lost the Series to Florida in 6 games, or the Detroit Tigers in 2006, as they lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in 5 games.
Since 1970, the eight position players for each team who take the field initially have been voted into the game by fans; MLB and Gillette entered into an agreement wherein fans would vote on pre-printed punch cards for their choices, with a spot reserved for write-in votes (indeed, that first year, Atlanta outfielder Rico Carty, who led the National League in batting average, was voted into the starting lineup as a write-in candidate). The fan voting had been cancelled since 1957 as a result of the Cincinnati ballot-box-stuffing scandal (a local newspaper had printed pre-voted ballots for fans to send in, resulting in seven of the eight positions going to Cincinnati players). The league overruled the vote, adding St. Louis' Stan Musial and Milwaukee's Henry Aaron to the team, and fan voting was eliminated until the 1970 season. In more recent years, internet voting has been allowed.
The remaining position players and all of the pitchers on each league's roster were, for a large number of years, solely at the discretion of that team's manager. In 2004, however, MLB instituted a system where some reserves and pitchers were selected by a vote of MLB players, and some were selected by the manager after consulting with the Commissioner's Office. Each person is allowed to vote 25 times. By MLB regulation, every team in the majors must have at least one designated all-star player, regardless of voting. This rule exists so that fans of every team have a player to watch for in the All-Star Game.

Post-season

Total World Series Championships>

Rank	Team	Titles
1st	New York Yankees	26
2nd	St. Louis Cardinals	10
3rd	Oakland Athletics	9
4th	Boston Red Sox	7
5th	Los Angeles Dodgers	6
T-6th	Cincinnati Reds	5
T-6th	Pittsburgh Pirates	5
T-6th	San Francisco Giants	5
9th	Detroit Tigers	4
T-10th	Atlanta Braves	3
T-10th	Baltimore Orioles	3
T-10th	Chicago White Sox	3
T-10th	Minnesota Twins	3
T-13th	Toronto Blue Jays	2
T-13th	New York Mets	2
T-13th	Cleveland Indians	2
T-13th	Florida Marlins	2
T-13th	Chicago Cubs	2
T-19th	Arizona Diamondbacks	1
T-19th	Kansas City Royals	1
T-19th	Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim	1
T-19th	Philadelphia Phillies	1

When the regular season ends after the first Sunday in October (or the last Sunday in September), eight teams enter the post-season playoffs. Six teams are division champions; the remaining two "wild-card" spots are filled by the team in each league that has the best record but isn't a division champion (best second-place team). Three rounds of series of games are played to determine the champion:

American League Division Series and National League Division Series, each a best-of-five game series;

American League Championship Series and National League Championship Series, each a best-of-seven game series played between the surviving teams from the ALDS and NLDS; and

World Series, a best-of-seven game series played between the champions of each league. The division winners are seeded 1-3 based on record. The wild-card team is the 4 seed, regardless of its record. The matchup for the first round of the playoffs is usually 1 seed vs. 4 seed and 2 seed vs. 3 seed, unless the wild-card team is from the same division as the 1 seed, in which case the matchup is 1 seed vs. 3 seed and 2 seed vs. 4 seed, as teams from the same division can't meet in the 1st round. In the first and second round of the playoffs, the better seeded team has home-field advantage, regardless of record.
   In the event of a tie in the standings at the close of the regular season, league rules provide for a one-game playoff (with the home field determined by head-to-head record) to determine which of two teams participate in the Division Series. If three teams are involved in a tie, a two-game playoff may be played. If two teams are tied, but a tiebreaker would result in both participating in the Division Series anyway (due to one being division champion and the other being wild card), then no playoff is played and seedings are determined by head-to-head record.
   The team belonging to the league that won the mid-season All-Star Game receives home-field advantage in the World Series.
   As all playoff series are split between the two teams' home fields, "home field advantage" doesn't play a significant role unless the series goes to its maximum number of games, in which case the final game takes place at the field of the team holding the advantage.

Stadiums

Unlike some other sports, the exact dimensions of a baseball stadium, other than the configuration of the infield, isn't strictly uniform. Baseball parks, therefore, affect both the general ambience as well as the play of the game itself to a greater degree than with any other major sport. Certain parks, such as Wrigley Field, Fenway Park and the newer Oriole Park at Camden Yards are known for their nostalgic aura. Certain parks with deeper dimensions and prevailing wind patterns blowing toward home plate favor pitchers, while smaller parks or parks with prevailing winds blowing towards the outfield favor batters. Asymmetrical dimensions in some parks may affect fielding, batting and strategy. Some parks are known for short home runs near the foul poles, others for allowing long-hit balls to center field to be caught for outs. Some, the most extreme example being the old Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan, were known for both.
   Professional baseball in the United States began in the mid-19th century when entrepreneurs and baseball enthusiasts found that people will pay to watch the game played at a high level, requiring the construction of stadiums with grandstands to control attendance. For most of the 19th century, baseball stadiums were generally wooden grandstands constructed quickly over the course of a single offseason. Parks were generally fully owned by the club or the club's owner and investors. As such, they were built not directly within the central business district of a city, but generally a few miles outside of it where land was cheaper and more plentiful. Being an era before strict building codes, stringent liability and emphasis on safety, fires and disasters associated with these stadiums happened frequently.
   Philadelphia's Baker Bowl was rebuilt after such a fire in 1895 as the first baseball park constructed primarily of steel and concrete rather than wood, spurring a construction boom within MLB. By 1915, the 16 teams then existing all played in steel and concrete stadiums known today as the Jewel Box stadiums, and, with few exceptions, would remain in them until the last half of the 20th century. Two Jewel Boxes, Fenway Park and Wrigley Field, are still in use today substantially as they were originally built. The last Jewel Box to be built, 1923's Yankee Stadium, was completely reconstructed in the mid-1970s but remains classified as a Jewel Box by most students of baseball history as its general appearance wasn't substantially changed other than that necessary for modernization. Jewel Boxes were without exception asymmetrical parks, usually built within the confines of a city block or two in a residential neighborhood a few miles from the city center. Since Jewel Boxes (except for Yankee Stadium) were built during the dead-ball era, most originally featured deep fences and emphasized speed rather than power. As the home run became more central to strategy after 1920, most teams pulled fences in to accommodate the power game and its growing popularity with fans over the next several decades.
   Governments began to fund the building and maintenance of stadiums throughout the 20th century ostensibly because of the value to the local economy such a stadium provides. Most research, however, shows the impact of stadiums has been widely overstated and doesn't alone justify the high costs to taxpayers. The first such stadium was the massive Cleveland Stadium which began MLB use in 1932. It was also the first park built within the central business district of its home city. More importantly, Cleveland Stadium was the first multi-purpose stadium, built with American football as well as baseball in mind.
   In the 1960s and 1970s, virtually all new parks built were multipurpose stadiums whose design was a compromise between the needs of baseball and those of football, with the result of not being ideal for either. The first indoor MLB stadium, the Astrodome, was opened in Houston in 1965 with a semitransparent roof and a grass field. The glare off of the roof made fielding fly balls nearly impossible and the roof was quickly painted and a new synthetic surface, Astroturf, was installed to replace the grass, which wilted without sunlight. Stadium officials nationwide, both at domed and open-air facilities, enjoyed the maintenance benefits of synthetic turf, even as athletes complained about its unnatural, play-affecting and injury-causing properties. As the once-upscale neighborhoods around the old Jewel Box stadiums began to decay, their replacements were generally multipurpose stadiums built in either suburban locations or the central business district. Most of the '60s and '70s multipurpose stadiums shared similar looks and features and are referred to pejoratively as cookie cutter stadiums. Few baseball-specific stadiums were built in this era, but those that were have outlived their multipurpose brethren (for example Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City).
   The Sky Dome (now Rogers Centre) opened in Toronto for the 1989 season and featured the first working retractable roof, allowing play no matter what weather conditions existed as in a dome but also allowing for open-air baseball in fair weather. A retractable roof has since become preferred over pure domed stadiums for those locations where weather cancellations are common, since most players, fans and officials prefer the game to be played outdoors.
   Most of the multipurpose-era parks, despite their modern conveniences, were almost universally criticized for being "sterile." The perception of new parks lacking charm changed radically with the 1992 opening and resounding success of the retro-styled Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Soon, almost all new parks were designed similarly as baseball-specific parks built in similar appearance and function to Jewel Box parks but with modern revenue-enhancing features such as additional luxury boxes and improved concessions and facilities. Most of these new parks are built in a central business district, reversing the suburban trend begun in the 1960s. Unlike many of the Jewel Boxes, most modern MLB parks feature shorter fences near the corners, allowing for more home runs and decreasing the importance of offensive speed.
   The building of new stadiums can be controversial, with factors such as cost, tax breaks, and public subsidies playing roles in the debate. Some owners (most recently, the Florida Marlins owners) have also been accused of threatening to move to other cities if their demands for a more modern stadium at government expense are not met.

MLB steroid policy

Over most of the course of Major League Baseball, steroid testing was never a major issue. However, after the BALCO steroid scandal, which involved allegations that top baseball players had used illegal performance-enhancing drugs, Major League Baseball finally decided to issue harsher penalties for steroid users. The policy, which was accepted by Major League Baseball players and owners, was issued at the start of the 2005 season and went as follows:
A first positive test resulted in a suspension of 10 games, a second positive test resulted in a suspension of 30 games, the third positive test resulted in a suspension of 60 games, the fourth positive test resulted in a suspension of one full year, and a fifth positive test resulted in a penalty at the commissioner’s discretion. Players were tested at least once per year, with the chance that several players could be tested many times per year.
   See: List of Major League Baseball players suspended for steroids This program replaced the previous steroid testing program under which, for example, no player was even suspended in 2004. Under the old policy, which was established in 2002, a first-time offense would only result in treatment for the player, and the player wouldn't even be named. The 2005 agreement changed this rule so that first-time offenders were named and suspended.
   In November 2005, MLB owners and players approved even tougher penalties for positive tests than the ones in place during the 2005 season. Under the new rules, a first positive test would result in a 50-game suspension, a second positive test would result in a 100-game suspension, and a third positive test would result in a lifetime suspension from MLB.
   These new penalties are much harsher than the previous ones. The new steroid policy finally brings MLB closer in line with international rules, as well as with the NFL, which has long taken a tough stance on those caught using steroids.
   MLB's previous reluctance to take a hard line on drugs (as many other sports featured far stricter testing and penalties) was widely seen as one of the main reasons why baseball has been dropped from the Olympics, effective in 2012.
   On March 30, 2006, Bud Selig launched an investigation on the alleged steroid use by players such as Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire and Gary Sheffield as the weight of books like Game of Shadows emerged. The inquiry into steroids' use in baseball is expected to go back no further than 2002, when MLB started testing players for performance-enhancing drugs. On December 13, 2007, former Sen. George Mitchell, who investigated this issue, released his report that has names of MLB Players that could, or have taken, performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids. ==

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