The history of baseball in the United States can be traced to the 18th century, when amateurs played a baseball-like game by their own informal rules using improvised equipment. The popularity of the sport inspired the semipro and professional baseball clubs in the 1860s.

The earliest known mention of baseball in the United States was a 1791 Pittsfield, Massachusetts, ordinance banning the playing of the game within 80 yards (73 m) of the town meeting house. In 1903, the British sportswriter Henry Chadwick published an article speculating that baseball derived from a British game called rounders, which Chadwick had played as a boy in England. But baseball executive Albert Spalding disagreed. Baseball, said Spalding, was fundamentally an American sport and began on American soil. To settle the matter, the two men appointed a commission, headed by Abraham Mills, the fourth president of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs. The commission, which also included six other sports executives, labored for three years, after which it declared that Abner Doubleday invented the national pastime. This would have been a surprise to Doubleday. The late Civil War hero "never knew that he had invented baseball. [But] 15 years [after his death], he was anointed as the father of the game," says John Thorn.Thorn, the official historian of Major League Baseball, has just written Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game, about the sport's earliest days. He says the myth about Doubleday inventing the game of baseball actually came from a Colorado mining engineer.</ref> url= http://www.npr.org/2011/03/16/134570236/the-secret-history-of-baseballs-earliest-days Another early reference reports that "base ball" was regularly played on Saturdays in 1823 on the outskirts of New York City in an area that today is Greenwich Village.

Douglas Metunwa Glanville (born August 25, 1970 in Hackensack, New Jersey) is a former American Major League Baseball outfielder who played for the Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs, and the Texas Rangers.

In 1999 Glanville batted .325, and placed second in the National League to Luis Gonzalez in hits, with 204. Glanville was also known as an exceptional fielder, reaching double-digit outfield assists on three separate occasions. He also ended his career going 293 consecutive games without a fielding error. In game 3 of the 2003 NL Championship series, Glanville hit the game-winning triple in the 11th inning for the Chicago Cubs.

In 2005, with no immediate prospects of joining a major league roster, Glanville signed a one-day minor league contract with Philadelphia, then retired, having collected exactly 1100 career hits. He stated he wanted to leave baseball wearing the uniform of the team that he grew up a fan of, and to which he gave most of his playing career.

Glanville is currently a consultant with Baseball Factory, a high-school player development program. He writes guest columns for The New York Times and ESPN.com on baseball and sports in general. On April 1, 2010, Glanville joined ESPN as a baseball color analyst. He contributes to Baseball Tonight, ESPN Radio, ESPN.com, and ESPN The Magazine.

Cornelius Clifford Floyd, Jr. (born December 5, 1972 in Chicago, Illinois) is a former Major League Baseball outfielder and is currently a co-host on Sirius XM Radio .

Floyd was born to parents Cornelius Clifford Floyd, Sr. and Olivia Floyd. After spending 13 years as an only child, Floyd was joined by brother Julius. Sister Shanta was later adopted when the Floyds noticed her as a six-year old classmate of Julius' who had been troublesome for her then adoptive parents. The three siblings were raised in Markham, Illinois, a small suburb south west of Chicago. Floyd's father, a former Marine, worked double shifts at a U.S. Steel plant in Chicago to allow the family to live in a safe and stable neighborhood.

At Thornwood High School in South Holland, Illinois, Floyd was a three-sport star in baseball, football, and basketball. In basketball, he led his high school to the Class AA Sectional Playoffs. In leading his team to the Illinois state baseball championship as a senior, he hit .508 with 130 RBI during the final two years of his high school prep career. He was heavily recruited by Arizona State University, Stanford, and Creighton University, but when the Montreal Expos drafted him as the 14th pick in the 1st round of the 1991 Major League Baseball Draft, Floyd made no hesitation and chose to go to the minor leagues.

Kevin Edmund Youkilis ( /ˈjuːkəlɪs/; born March 15, 1979), also known as "Youk" ( /ˈjuːk/), is an American professional baseball player with the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, he was drafted by the Red Sox in 2001 after playing college baseball at the University of Cincinnati.

Known for his ability to get on base, Youkilis (while still a minor leaguer) was nicknamed "Euclis: The Greek God of Walks" in the best-selling book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. A Gold Glove Award-winning first baseman, he once held baseball's record for most consecutive errorless games at first base (later broken by Casey Kotchman). He is also a three-time MLB All-Star, two-time World Series Champion, and winner of the 2008 Hank Aaron Award.

An intense performer on the playing field, Youkilis is known for his scrappiness, grittiness, dirt-stained jerseys, and home-plate collisions. He has excelled despite a physique that led many observers to underestimate his athletic ability: he was called "roly-poly" by his high school coach, "pudgy" by his college coach, a "fat kid" by general manager Billy Beane, and a "thicker-bodied guy" by the Red Sox scout who recruited him. Or, as Jackie MacMullan wrote for the Boston Globe: "He does not look like an MVP candidate; more a refrigerator repairman, a butcher, the man selling hammers behind the counter at the True Value hardware store." Youkilis was named to the Sporting News' list of the 50 greatest current players in baseball, ranking No. 36 on the list in 2009, No. 38 in 2010, and No. 35 in 2011.

John Loy Rocker (born October 17, 1974) is a retired American Major League Baseball relief pitcher who played for the Atlanta Braves, the Cleveland Indians, the Texas Rangers, and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as well as the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. He threw left-handed and batted right-handed.

Rocker is a native of Macon, Georgia and lives in Atlanta.

John Rocker was a star pitcher for First Presbyterian Day School in Macon, Georgia. Rocker threw three no-hitters during his high school career. He was soon drafted by the Atlanta Braves.

The next year, he was promoted to the major league club and named their closer after an injury to regular closer Kerry Ligtenberg.In Rocker's first season in the Major Leagues, he was 1–3 with a 2.13 ERA in 38 innings pitched. The following year, an injury put Atlanta closer Kerry Ligtenberg on the DL, moving Rocker into the role, where he was 4–5 with 38 saves and a 2.49 ERA. In 2000, he was 1–2 with 24 saves, posting a 2.89 ERA, but in June 2000, Rocker was demoted for threatening a reporter.