Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization, the oldest of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada.

The four leagues universally included in the definition are Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), and National Hockey League (NHL).

A total of 30 teams play in the National League (NL) and American League (AL), with 15 teams in each league.

The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest current professional team sports league.

After cooperating but remaining legally separate entities beginning in 1903, the leagues merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball in 2000. Under the direction of the Commissioner of Baseball, MLB hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts.

The Commissioner of Baseball is the chief executive of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the associated Minor League Baseball (MiLB) – a constellation of leagues and clubs known as organized baseball.

A total of 30 teams play in the National League (NL) and American League (AL), with 15 teams in each league.

The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada.

The organization also oversees Minor League Baseball, which comprises 256 teams affiliated with the Major League clubs.

Minor League Baseball is a hierarchy of professional baseball leagues in the Americas that compete at levels below Major League Baseball (MLB) and provide opportunities for player development and a way to prepare for the major leagues.

With the World Baseball Softball Confederation, MLB manages the international World Baseball Classic tournament.

It was proposed to the IBAF by Major League Baseball (MLB), the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), and other professional baseball leagues and their players associations around the world.

Baseball survived a conspiracy to fix the 1919 World Series, which came to be known as the Black Sox Scandal.

The Black Sox Scandal was a Major League Baseball match fixing incident in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of intentionally losing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate led by Arnold Rothstein.

The sport rose in popularity in the 1920s, and survived potential downturns during the Great Depression and World War II. Shortly after the war, Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era.

Baseball's first openly all-professional team was founded in Cincinnati in 1869.

Cincinnati is home to three major sports teams: the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball; the Cincinnati Bengals of the National Football League; and FC Cincinnati, currently playing in the second division United Soccer League but moving to Major League Soccer (Division 1) in 2019.

The sport rose in popularity in the 1920s, and survived potential downturns during the Great Depression and World War II. Shortly after the war, Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier.

The Color Line, also known as the Color Barrier, in American baseball excluded players of Black African descent from Major League Baseball and its affiliated Minor Leagues until 1947 (with a few notable exceptions in the 19th century before the line was firmly established).

Teams play 162 games each season and five teams in each league advance to a four-round postseason tournament that culminates in the World Series, a best-of-seven championship series between the two league champions that dates to 1903. Until 1996, the two leagues met on the field only during the World Series and the All-Star Game.

The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in North America, contested since 1903 between the American League (AL) champion team and the National League (NL) champion team.

Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization, the oldest of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada.

Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada, consists of the National League (founded in 1876) and the American League (1901).

MLB has the highest season attendance of any sports league in the world with more than 73 million spectators in 2015.

Under the direction of the Commissioner of Baseball, MLB hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts.

The following is a detailed description of the various television networks (both broadcast and cable), rights fees, and announcers who have called Major League Baseball games throughout the years (from the late 1930s through the present).

In 2006, an investigation produced the Mitchell Report, which implicated many players in the use of performance-enhancing substances, including at least one player from each team.

The Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball, informally known as the "Mitchell Report," is the result of former Democratic United States Senator from Maine George J. Mitchell's 20-month investigation into the use of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) in Major League Baseball (MLB).

There were several challenges to MLB's primacy in the sport between the 1870s and the Federal League in 1916; the last attempt at a new major league was the aborted Continental League in 1960.

The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, known simply as the Federal League, was an American professional baseball league that played its first season in 1913 and operated as a "third major league", in competition with the established National and American Leagues, from 1914 to 1915.

The multimedia branch of MLB, which is based in Manhattan, is MLB Advanced Media.

MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM) is a limited partnership of the club owners of Major League Baseball (MLB) based in New York City and is the Internet and interactive branch of the league.

MLB also owns 67 percent of MLB Network, with the other 33 percent split between several cable operators and satellite provider DirecTV.

It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball, with AT&T's Turner Broadcasting System, Comcast's NBC Sports Group, Charter Communications and Cox Communications having minority ownership.

Under the direction of the Commissioner of Baseball, MLB hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts.

Becoming a Major League Baseball umpire requires rigorous training, and very few succeed.

In the 1960s, MLB expansion added eight teams, including the first non-U.S. team (the Montreal Expos).

The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States.

Two teams (the Seattle Mariners and the Toronto Blue Jays) were also added in the 1970s.

The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division.

Two teams (the Seattle Mariners and the Toronto Blue Jays) were also added in the 1970s.

The Mariners compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West Division.

Regular-season interleague play was introduced in 1997.

Interleague play in Major League Baseball refers to regular-season baseball games played between an American League (AL) team and a National League (NL) team.

Until 1996, the two leagues met on the field only during the World Series and the All-Star Game.

The Major League Baseball All-Star Game, also known as the "Midsummer Classic", is an annual professional baseball game sanctioned by Major League Baseball (MLB) contested between the All-Stars from the American League (AL) and National League (NL), currently selected by fans for starting fielders, by managers for pitchers, and by managers and players for reserves.

The chief executive of MLB is the commissioner, currently Rob Manfred.

He previously served as the Chief Operating Officer of Major League Baseball (MLB) and succeeded Bud Selig as Commissioner on January 25, 2015.