The history of baseball in the United States dates to the 19th century, when boys and amateur enthusiasts played a baseball-like game by their own informal rules using homemade equipment. The popularity of the sport grew and amateur men's ball clubs were formed in the 1830–50s. Semi-professional baseball clubs followed in the 1860s, and the first professional leagues arrived in the post-American Civil War 1870s.
The commissioner of baseball is the chief executive officer of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the associated Minor League Baseball (MiLB) – a constellation of leagues and clubs known as "organized baseball". Under the direction of the commissioner, the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts. The commissioner is chosen by a vote of the owners of the teams. The incumbent MLB commissioner is Rob Manfred, who assumed office on January 25, 2015.
In professional sports, a salary cap is an agreement or rule that places a limit on the amount of money that a team can spend on players' salaries. It exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster, or both. Several sports leagues have implemented salary caps, using them to keep overall costs down, and also to maintain a competitive balance by restricting richer clubs from entrenching dominance by signing many more top players than their rivals. Salary caps can be a major issue in negotiations between league management and players' unions because they limit players' and teams' ability to negotiate higher salaries even if a team is operating at significant profits, and have been the focal point of several strikes by players and lockouts by owners and administrators.
Jerry Michael Reinsdorf is an American sports executive and businessman who is the owner of the NBA's Chicago Bulls and MLB's Chicago White Sox. He started his professional life as a tax attorney with the Internal Revenue Service. He has been the owner of the White Sox and Bulls for nearly 40 years. As of May 2024, his net worth was estimated at US$2.2 billion.
The 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike was the eighth and longest work stoppage in Major League Baseball (MLB) history, as well as the fourth in-season work stoppage in 22 years. The strike began on August 12, 1994, and resulted in the remainder of that season, including the postseason and the World Series, being canceled. This was the first time in ninety years, since 1904, that a World Series was not played. The strike was suspended on April 2, 1995, after 232 days, making it the longest such stoppage in MLB history and the longest work stoppage in major league professional sports at the time.
Scott Dean Boras is an American sports agent, specializing in baseball. He is the founder, owner and president of the Boras Corporation, a sports agency based in Newport Beach, California, that represents roughly 175 professional baseball clients.
Manuel Arístides Ramírez Onelcida is a Dominican-American former professional baseball outfielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for parts of 19 seasons. He played with the Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago White Sox, and Tampa Bay Rays before playing one season at the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan. Ramirez is recognized for having great batting skill and power. He was a nine-time Silver Slugger and was one of 28 players to hit 500 career home runs. His 21 grand slams are third all-time, and his 29 postseason home runs are the most in MLB history. He appeared in 12 All-Star Games, with a streak of eleven consecutive games beginning in 1998 that included every season that he played with the Red Sox.
Arnold Malcolm "Mickey" Owen was an American professional baseball player, coach and scout. He played as a catcher for 13 seasons in Major League Baseball between 1937 and 1954 for the St. Louis Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox. Considered an outstanding defensive catcher, his career was nonetheless marred by a crucial error that he committed during the 1941 World Series.
In the National Basketball Association (NBA), a sign-and-trade deal is a type of transaction allowed by the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) where one franchise/team signs an unrestricted free agent or restricted free agent player to a new contract, only to then immediately trade him to another team of the player's choosing. This is typically done to enable the player to obtain a higher salary and/or greater number of years on their contract than NBA salary cap rules would ordinarily allow a destination team that signs him directly to a contract.
The NBA salary cap is the limit to the total amount of money that National Basketball Association teams are allowed to pay their players. Like the other major professional sports leagues in North America, the NBA has a salary cap to control costs and benefit parity, defined by the league's collective bargaining agreement (CBA). This limit is subject to a complex system of rules and exceptions and is calculated as a percentage of the league's revenue from the previous season. Under the CBA ratified in July 2017, the cap will continue to vary in future seasons based on league revenues. For the 2023–24 season, the cap is set at $136.021 million.
The posting system is a baseball player transfer system that operates between Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and Major League Baseball (MLB). Despite the drafting of the United States – Japanese Player Contract Agreement, unveiled in 1967 to regulate NPB players moving to MLB, problems began to arise in the late 1990s. Some NPB teams lost star players without compensation, an issue highlighted when NPB stars Hideo Nomo and Alfonso Soriano left to play in MLB after using loopholes to void their existing contracts. A further problem was that NPB players had very little negotiating power if their teams decided to deal them to MLB, as when pitcher Hideki Irabu was traded to an MLB team for which he had no desire to play. In 1998, the Agreement was rewritten to address both problems; the result was dubbed the "posting system".
Andrew Friedman is an American baseball executive. He is currently the president of baseball operations of the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball (MLB). He previously served as the general manager for MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays, where Sporting News named him Executive of the Year in 2008. That year, for the first time in franchise history, the Rays both qualified for the playoffs and played in the World Series. In Los Angeles, as of 2023, Friedman and the Dodgers have won a World Series, three pennants, and eight division titles since he took the job after the 2014 season. Baseball America called the Dodgers the model franchise in the sport under Friedman’s tenure as President.
Major League Baseball collusion refers to owners working together to avoid competitive bidding for player services or players jointly negotiating with team owners.
In professional sports within the United States and Canada, a trade is a sports league transaction between sports clubs involving the exchange of player rights from one team to another. Though player rights are the primary trading assets, draft picks and cash are other assets that may be supplemented to consummate a trade, either packaged alongside player rights to be transferred to another team, or as standalone assets in exchange for player rights and/or draft picks in return. Typically, trades are completed between two clubs, but there are instances where trades are consummated between three or more clubs.
Trayce Nikolas Thompson is an American professional baseball outfielder in the Chicago Cubs organization. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Oakland Athletics, and San Diego Padres. Thompson also played for the Great Britain National Team in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
Major League Baseball (MLB) has a luxury tax called the "Competitive Balance Tax" (CBT). In place of a salary cap, the competitive balance tax regulates the total sum of money a given team can spend on their roster. Salary caps are common across professional sports leagues in the United States. Without these measures, teams would not be restricted on the amount of money spent on players' salaries. Therefore, teams with greater funding or revenue would possess a competitive advantage in their ability to attract top talent via higher salaries.
The following are the baseball events of the year 2017 throughout the world.
The 2019 Major League Baseball draft was held from June 3 to 5, 2019. The draft assigned amateur baseball players to MLB teams. The draft order was set based on the reverse order of the 2018 MLB season standings. In addition, compensation picks were distributed for players who did not sign from the 2018 MLB Draft and for teams that lost qualifying free agents. The first 41 picks, including the first round and compensatory picks, were broadcast by MLB Network on June 3, and the second round was streamed on MLB.com directly following the first round. The remainder of the draft was streamed online from June 4 to 5.
The 2023 Major League Baseball draft took place on July 9–11, 2023, in Seattle. The draft assigned amateur baseball players to MLB teams. For the first time, a draft lottery was used to set a portion of the draft order. The first six selections were set via the lottery, with picks belonging to the remaining lottery participants set in reverse order of regular season winning percentage. To complete the first round, playoff teams selected in an order that combined postseason finish, revenue sharing status, and reverse order of winning percentage. Reverse order of regular season winning percentage and postseason finish was used to set the draft order for rounds two through 20. In addition, compensation picks were distributed for players who did not sign from the 2022 MLB Draft.
