5 Things You Didn't Know: MLB
Why shouldn’t it? Americans have always loved everything about two and a half hours or less. It’s a magical stretch of time.
OK, well maybe Peverelly was premature; the game had no identity back then. It, and the country, grew up together, built on fabricated mythologies, racism, greed, shady deals, labor exploitation, and of course creative interpretation of the existing rules, otherwise known as cheating. Throw in a genuine hero every now and again, and there you have it: the great American pastime.
With the 2008 season well underway, we take a look through the complicated history of the league and pro baseball to present five things you didn’t know about the MLB.
1- Early MLB teams were not distinguished by their jerseysRed stockings, brown ones, white ones — back in the early years of the National League, teams were not distinguished by their jerseys at all, but by their socks. Remarkably, some of these baseball team names have stuck around, namely in Boston, Cincinnati and Chicago.
In fact, home teams wore white socks because it was easier for them to do their laundry. Visiting teams, meanwhile, wore dark socks because it was not so easy for them. It's interesting to note that the tradition of wearing white at home in most North American sports leagues has its origins here.
2- Jackie Robinson was not the MLB's first black playerThe grandson of a slave, Jackie Robinson debuted in the Major Leagues in 1947, predating by one year the desegregation of the U.S. Army — in which Robinson had been a second lieutenant — and by seven years that of the public school system. As a Dodger, Robinson played for the National League, and a few months later, Larry Doby joined Cleveland to become the first black player in the American League.
Robinson and Doby, as the first black players of the modern era, were able to enter the MLB because there was simply no written rule prohibiting non-white players. The “Gentleman’s Agreement” (one of the sleaziest misnomers in sports history) that upheld the color line was fully realized by 1898, but ultimately written on the wind.
However, the first black pro-baseball player is a matter of some dispute. In May 1884, Moses Fleetwood Walker played pro ball in a league that competed against the National League. Yet, recently, the Society for American Baseball Research has begun to point to William Edward White as the first black man to play pro ball, when he took the field as a sub in an 1879 game.
3- The MLB has a long tradition of cheatingHow much is cheating a part of the national pastime? The National League was formed in 1876 as an honorable, upright response to the ongoing problem of gambling and cheating in pro ball. One year later, in 1877, the league had to ban four players from Louisville for throwing the pennant. In other words, the players couldn’t play honorably for even a single year.
We bring you a few more things you didn't know about the MLB...
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