The highest play level of North American professional baseball is called Major League Baseball. The MLB, as Major League Baseball is also referred to, has two teams called the National League and the American League each having three divisions called East, West and central divisions. The National League was founded in 1876 and was run along with the American League by a joint organizational structure. It was in the year 2000 that the two teams were given their separate legal entities. All the major professional sports leagues of the United States are constituted within the MLB, currently consisting of 30 teams - 29 from the United States and 1 from Canada called the Toronto Blue Jays.
Each baseball season sees 169 games being played. The baseball season begins on the first Sunday of April and continues until the first Sunday of October. The post season games happen in October and sometimes spill over to November as well.
The most recent revision in the MLB was made in 2005 under which MLB is directed to negotiate contracts for marketing, television and labor as well as hire and maintain umpiring crews for the sport.
Baseball game broadcasting rights preference is first given to the local broadcaster over the national broadcasters. Amongst national broadcasters FOX Sports Net and TBS has shown several games in their respective networks and outside as well. FOX Sports broadcasts the baseball games throughout the season on FOX Saturday Baseball and has also acquired the rights for the All Star Game. ESPN, TBS and FOX continue to broadcast news, games, and reviews of the Major League Baseball games.
Owing to the games popularity daily news and reports are sought by baseball fans. From the latest news on teams, daily news updates, play off prospects, live games, injury reports and information on the players is easily available online.
Although baseball is considered as America's favorite past time, it has found itself a solid fan base in other countries as well. The closest to home is Canada where baseball in 1877 a professional league was formed. Following closely was Cuba where in 1878 the first baseball league outside of the United States and Canada was formed. The baseball fever continued to spread across boundaries, nations and continents all the way to Australia. Australia also went on to win silver for baseball in the 2004 Olympics.