Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league. A total of 30 teams now play in two divisions, the American League (AL) and National League (NL), with 15 teams in each. The AL and NL operated as separate legal entities from 1901 and 1876 respectively, until 2000, when they were merged into a single organization known as Major League Baseball. After cooperating but remaining legally separate entities since 1903, in 2000 the leagues merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball. The organization also oversees minor league baseball leagues, which comprise about 240 teams affiliated with the major-league clubs. With the World Baseball Softball Confederation, MLB manages the international World Baseball Classic tournament.

Baseball's first professional team was founded in Cincinnati in 1869. The first few decades of professional baseball were characterized by rivalries between leagues and by players who often jumped from one team or league to another. The period before 1920 in baseball was known as the dead-ball era; players rarely hit home runs during this time. Baseball survived a conspiracy to fix the 1919 World Series, which came to be known as the Black Sox Scandal. The sport rose in popularity in the 1920s, and survived potential downturns during the Great Depression and World War II. Shortly after the war, baseball's color barrier was broken by Jackie Robinson.

Major League

Major League may also refer to:

Sport

World Series

The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in North America, contested since 1903 between the American League (AL) champion team and the National League (NL) champion. Prior to 1969, the team with the best win-loss record in each league automatically advanced to the World Series; since then each league has conducted a championship series (ALCS and NLCS) preceding the World Series to determine which teams will advance. As of 2015, the World Series has been contested 111 times, with the AL winning 64 and the NL winning 47. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and the winning team is awarded the Commissioner's Trophy. As the series is played in October (and occasionally November), during the autumn season in North America, it is often referred to as the Fall Classic.

The 2015 World Series took place between the New York Mets and the victorious Kansas City Royals. Five games were played, with the Royals victorious after game five, played in New York. The final score was 7-2; the game went into extra innings after a tied score of 2-2. This was the second World Series won by the franchise and the first in 30 years.

CBS

CBS (an initialism of the network's former name, the Columbia Broadcasting System) is an American commercial broadcast television network that is the flagship properties of CBS Corporation. The company is headquartered at the CBS Building in New York City with major production facilities and operations in New York City (at the CBS Broadcast Center) and Los Angeles (at CBS Television City and the CBS Studio Center).

CBS is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network", in reference to the company's iconic logo, in use since 1951. It has also been called the "Tiffany Network", alluding to the perceived high quality of CBS programming during the tenure of its founder William S. Paley. It can also refer to some of CBS's first demonstrations of color television, which were held in a former Tiffany & Co. building in New York City in 1950.

The network has its origins in United Independent Broadcasters Inc., a collection of 16 radio stations that was purchased by Paley in 1928 and renamed the Columbia Broadcasting System. Under Paley's guidance, CBS would first become one of the largest radio networks in the United States, and eventually one of the Big Three American broadcast television networks. In 1974, CBS dropped its former full name and became known simply as CBS, Inc. The Westinghouse Electric Corporation acquired the network in 1995, renamed its corporate entity to the current CBS Broadcasting, Inc. in 1997, and eventually adopted the name of the company it had acquired to become CBS Corporation. In 2000, CBS came under the control of Viacom, which was formed as a spin-off of CBS in 1971. In late 2005, Viacom split itself into two separate companies, and re-established CBS Corporation – through the spin-off of its broadcast television, radio and select cable television and non-broadcasting assets – with the CBS television network at its core. CBS Corporation is controlled by Sumner Redstone through National Amusements, which also controls the current Viacom.

All-star game

An all-star game is an exhibition game that purports to showcase the best players (the "stars") of a sports league. The exhibition is between two teams organized solely for the event, usually representing the league's teams based on region or division, but sometimes dividing the players by an attribute such as nationality. Selection of the players may be done by a vote of the coaches and/or news media; in professional leagues, fans may vote on some or all of the roster. An all-star game usually occurs at the midpoint of the regular season. An exception is American football's Pro Bowl, which occurs at the end of the season.

All-star games are organized like regular games, but are often played with less emphasis on victory. Competing goals are to give many players time in the game and to avoid injury. In hockey, for example, there is no serious checking, while in football no blitzing is allowed. In basketball, there is virtually no defense played until the final quarter. However, the Australian State of Origin series does involve physicality that often leads to on-field scuffles.