15 Facts About Major League Baseball

1. Major League Baseball has forever stated its support for Jackie Robinson's legacy, but this donation to her campaign supports racism, not Jackie, and not getting more black players back into the sport, given the current and gross absence of blacks in baseball.

2. Major League Baseball is America's pastime and has seen its share of interesting occurrences and just plain goofy history.

3. Major League Baseball took hold and in fact became part of the Cuban identity in the independence struggle against Spain in the last quarter of the 19th century.

4. Major League Baseball was first played in the United States in the 1840s but soon after became an international sport.

5. The Ohio State Major League Baseball wrestled inconclusively with the colour question.

6. Major League Baseball was on its way to becoming the national pastime.

7. Major League Baseball parks became important local civic monuments and repositories of collective memories.

8. Major League Baseball terms and phrases, such as "He threw me a curve", "Her presentation covered all the bases", and "He's really out in left field", soon became part of the national vocabulary, so entrenched is baseball in the ordinary conversation of Americans.

9. The National Major League Baseball eventually merged with other pro leagues of the time to form the official MLB in 1903.

10. The National Major League Baseball contracted from 12 teams to eight after the 1899 season, and the Spiders were kicked out.

11. Major League Baseball teams are wrapped in the mythic personality of their accomplishments and histories.

12. Major League Baseball teams often wore full-brimmed straw hats or no cap at all since there was no official rule regarding headgear.

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

14. Major League Baseball has an exclusive rights deal with XM Satellite Radio, which includes the channel MLB Network Radio and live play-by-play of all games.

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