James Edward Rice, nicknamed "Jim Ed", is a former Major League Baseball left fielder and designated hitter. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 26, 2009, as the 103rd member voted in by the BBWAA. Rice played his entire 16-year baseball career for the Boston Red Sox.
Michael Jack Schmidt is an American former professional baseball third baseman who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Philadelphia Phillies. Schmidt was a 12-time All-Star and a three-time winner of the National League (NL) Most Valuable Player award (MVP), and he was known for his combination of power hitting and strong defense. As a hitter, he compiled 548 home runs and 1,595 runs batted in (RBIs), and led the NL in home runs eight times and in RBIs four times. As a fielder, Schmidt won the National League Gold Glove Award for third basemen ten times. Schmidt was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995 and is widely considered to be the greatest third baseman in baseball history.
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) and contested between the all-stars from the American League (AL) and National League (NL). All-Stars are selected by fans for starting fielders, by managers for pitchers, and by managers and players for reserves.
Dennis Joseph "Dan" Brouthers was an American first baseman in Major League Baseball whose career spanned the period from 1879 to 1896, with a brief return in 1904. Nicknamed "Big Dan" for his size, he was 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) and weighed 207 pounds (94 kg), which was large by 19th-century standards.
Edward Trowbridge Collins Sr., nicknamed "Cocky", was an American professional baseball player, manager and executive. He played as a second baseman in Major League Baseball from 1906 to 1930 for the Philadelphia Athletics and Chicago White Sox. A graduate of Columbia University, Collins holds major league career records in several categories and is among the top few players in several other categories. In 1925, Collins became just the sixth person to join the 3,000 hit club – and the last for the next 17 seasons. His 47 career home runs are the fewest of anyone in it. Collins is the only non-Yankee to win five or more World Series titles with the same club as a player.
The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP), often known simply as the National Association (NA), was the first fully-professional sports league in baseball. The NA was founded in 1871 and continued through the 1875 season. It succeeded and incorporated several professional clubs from the previous National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) of 1857–1870, sometimes called "the amateur Association". In turn, several NA clubs created the succeeding National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, which joined with the American League of Professional Base Ball Clubs to form Major League Baseball (MLB) in 1903.
Robert Lee Johnson, nicknamed "Indian Bob", was an American professional baseball player. He played as a left fielder in Major League Baseball for three American League teams from 1933 to 1945, primarily the Philadelphia Athletics. His elder brother Roy was a major league outfielder from 1929 to 1938.
Major League Baseball transactions are changes made to the roster of a major league team during or after the season. They may include waiving, releasing, and trading players, as well as assigning players to minor league teams.
Louis Norman "Bobo" Newsom was an American starting pitcher in Major League Baseball. Also known as "Buck", Newsom played for nine of the 16 then-existing big-league teams from 1929 through 1953 over all or parts of 20 seasons, appearing in an even 600 games pitched and 3,7591⁄3 innings pitched. He batted and threw right-handed, stood 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighed 200 pounds (91 kg).
In Major League Baseball (MLB), spring training is a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spring training allows new players to try out for roster and position spots, and gives established players practice time prior to competitive play. Spring training has always attracted fan attention, drawing crowds who travel to the warm climates of Arizona and Florida to enjoy the weather and watch their favorite teams play, and spring training usually coincides with spring break for many US students.
Minor League Baseball (MiLB) is a hierarchy of professional baseball minor leagues in the Americas that compete at skill levels below Major League Baseball (MLB) and help prepare players to join major league teams. Those teams which are affiliated with MLB teams operate under the Commissioner of Baseball within the scope of organized baseball. Several leagues, known as independent baseball leagues, consist of teams with no affiliation to MLB teams.