Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league, consisting of teams that play in the American League and the National League. The two leagues merged in 2000 into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball, after 100 years as separate legal entities.

MLB constitutes one of the major professional sports leagues of the United States and Canada. It is composed of 30 teams — 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. With the International Baseball Federation, MLB also manages the World Baseball Classic. With an average attendance of 30,352 people per game, Major League Baseball has the fifth highest average attendance of any sports league behind the NFL, Bundesliga, AFL, and Premier League.

MLB is governed by the Major League Baseball Constitution that has undergone several incarnations since 1875 with the most recent revisions being made in 2012. Under the direction of the Commissioner of Baseball (currently Bud Selig), Major League Baseball hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts.

Giancarlo Cruz Michael Stanton (born November 8, 1989 in Panorama City, Los Angeles, California) is an outfielder for the Miami Marlins. He began his career in 2010. Prior to the 2012 season, he was known publicly as "Mike" Stanton.

Stanton attended Verdugo Hills High School in Tujunga before he left and went to Notre Dame High School (Sherman Oaks) in Los Angeles. There he was a three-sport athlete, he had accepted a scholarship to play baseball for USC, and was receiving offers from UCLA and UNLV to play football.^{[citation needed]} However he opted to go pro after being drafted in the second round (76th overall) in the 2007 amateur draft by the Florida Marlins.

Stanton is of Irish, African-American, and Puerto Rican descent. He is of Puerto Rican heritage on his mother's side and looks up to Iván Rodríguez and Roberto Clemente as his favorite baseball players. To celebrate this, the Marlins will give a Giancarlo Stanton Bobblehead figure to the first 15,000 fans to arrive to the stadium on August 29, 2012, which is Puerto Rican Heritage Night. He also belongs to the Criollos de Caguas in the Puerto Rico Baseball League.

Hunter Andrew Pence (born April 13, 1983, in Fort Worth, Texas) is a Major League Baseball outfielder with the Philadelphia Phillies. Pence stands 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm) tall and weighs 210 pounds (95 kg). He bats and throws right-handed.

Pence attended Arlington High School in Arlington, Texas. After playing outfield his first three years, he moved to shortstop his senior year, and wore #8.He attended Texarkana College for a year and was DH on the baseball team. He transferred to the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) where he returned to the outfield. He hit .347 as a sophomore in 2003 and was named a first-team all-conference outfielder. Despite missing 15 of UTA's 30 Southland Conference games the following year due to an injury at mid-season—he was still named the 2004 Southland Conference player of the year, leading the league with a .395 batting average. Pence still holds the conference record for doubles in a single series, with 5.

Pence was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers but didn't sign. But, then, in the first year player draft, Hunter was drafted in the second round (64th pick) of the 2004 draft by the Houston Astros out of the University of Texas–Arlington. In 2006 with the AA Corpus Christi Hooks, Pence batted .283 and hit 28 home runs, with 95 RBIs. He had 17 stolen bases, while being caught stealing only 4 times. In 2006, he was one of three outfielders named to the Baseball America Minor League All-Star Team. Pence began the 2007 season as the AAA Round Rock Express' center fielder, though he made a serious run to make the big league club out of spring training.