| Baseball seems always to have lived more in | | | | slavery (the infamous reserve rule) and |
| myth than in history. Children in England and | | | | freewheeling industrial capitalism: |
| the United States had been playing variants | | | | blacklisting, fines, salary limits, and |
| of the game for years such as rounders, one | | | | reductions, even the use of Pinkerton spies. |
| o' cat, and base. | | | | |
| | | | In 1975 and arbitrator ruled that the |
| In 1845, some young men in Manhattan | | | | reserved clause applied for only one year and |
| organized themselves into the Knickerbockers | | | | players, as "free agents," regained their |
| BaseBall Club and wrote down the rules of the | | | | negotiating power; salaries quickly reached |
| game they were playing. Twenty years later | | | | unheard-of levels. Owners retaliated in 1981 |
| dozens of baseball clubs in New York and | | | | but were soundly defeated by a players' |
| Brooklyn, and their journalist brethren, had | | | | strike. |
| made what they called "the national pastime" | | | | |
| more popular than cricket, and the metropolis | | | | Then in the late 1980s they conspired |
| had become the country's first baseball | | | | (illegally, an arbitrator held) to limit |
| powerhouse. | | | | salary offers to free agents. After a |
| | | | twenty-year period of franchise movement, |
| As baseball clubs were transformed into | | | | league expansions, and the creation of |
| entertainment businesses, so grew their need | | | | divisions within leagues, baseball became |
| for first-rate players who could attract | | | | organizationally stable again in the late |
| paying crowds. Although distinctions between | | | | 1970s. |
| players and their clubs (now really small | | | | |
| businesses) had been hardening for years, the | | | | Attendance grew dramatically throughout the |
| National League formalized the division, | | | | 1980s, more people attended major league |
| which has continued until today. | | | | baseball games (over 50 million per year at |
| | | | the end of the decade) than at any other time |
| Baseball soon outdistanced other spectator | | | | in the games history. Baseball has been |
| sports in popularity and contributed to the | | | | America's most popular sport for so long |
| sports boom of the 1880s and 1890s. Late | | | | mainly because it has successfully straddled |
| nineteenth-century baseball resembled the | | | | some of the nation's most important cultural |
| Gilded Age business world. Owners moved the | | | | divisions. Though it was born among the |
| clubs frequently, while rival leagues sprung | | | | respectable working class and sporting middle |
| up and competed for players and spectators. | | | | class, the games cultural antecedents lay in |
| | | | the boisterous street culture of saloon-based |
| The National League either defeated its | | | | volunteer fire companies, militias, theater |
| opponents outright or incorporated them into | | | | partisans, street gangs, and political |
| a subordinate national structure of minor | | | | factions. |
| leagues. Not until 1901 was the National | | | | |
| League force to accept the American League, | | | | Currently, baseball is integrated in that |
| the only other surviving major league. | | | | there are large numbers of African-American |
| Leagues controlled access to spectators by | | | | and Latin players; it is not unusual for a |
| granting franchises. Owners and leagues | | | | starting lineup to have a minority of whites. |
| controlled the players through labor | | | | They are a great part in the ball game |
| practices that combined elements of chattel | | | | itinerary. |