Major League Baseball rivalries

Rivalries in Major League Baseball (MLB), like in other sports, have occurred between many teams and cities. Rivalries have arisen for many different reasons, the primary ones include geographic proximity, familiarity with opponents, violence, and cultural, linguistic, or national pride.

Interleague rivalries can be inconsistently scheduled during the regular season and generally tend to be based on geographic proximity and previous World Series matchups. An exception to this inconsistent scheduling is the eleven pairs of teams which meet six times a year during interleague play.

Background

In the "Original 16" era (1901–60), there were eight teams in each league and teams in each league played each other 22 times a season. With the Washington Senators (now the Texas Rangers) and Los Angeles Angels (now the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) entering play as expansion teams in 1961, MLB increased the total number of games American League teams played to 162, which meant teams would play each other 18 times a season. The National League did not implement this until the following year when the New York Mets and Houston Colt 45's (now the Houston Astros) entered play.

Border

Borders are geographic boundaries of political entities or legal jurisdictions, such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Some borders—such as a state's internal administrative border, or inter-state borders within the Schengen Area—are open and completely unguarded. Other borders are partially or fully controlled, and may be crossed legally only at designated border checkpoints and border zones may be controlled. Mostly contentious, borders may even foster the setting up of buffer zones.

Borders

In the past, many borders were not clearly defined lines, but were neutral zones called marchlands. This has been reflected in recent times with the neutral zones that were set up along part of Saudi Arabia's borders with Kuwait and Iraq (however, these zones no longer exist). In modern times, the concept of a marchland has been replaced by that of the clearly defined and demarcated border. For the purposes of border control, airports and seaports are also classed as borders. Most countries have some form of border control to regulate or limit the movement of people, animals, plants, and goods into or out of the country. Under international law, each country is generally permitted to define the conditions that have to be met by a person to legally cross its borders by its own laws, and to prevent persons from crossing its border when this happens in violation of those laws.

Battle

Generally, a battle "is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, or combatants. A war sometimes consists of many battles. Battles generally are well defined in duration, area, and force commitment.

Wars and military campaigns are guided by strategy, whereas battles take place on a level of planning and execution known as operational mobility. German strategist Carl von Clausewitz stated that "the employment of battles ... to achieve the object of war" was the essence of strategy.

Etymology

The definition of a battle cannot be arrived at solely through the names of historical battles, many of which are misnomers. The word battle is a loanword in English from the Old French bataille, first attested in 1297, from Late Latin battualia, meaning "exercise of soldiers and gladiators in fighting and fencing", from Late Latin (taken from Germanic) battuere "beat", from which the English word battery is also derived via Middle English batri, and comes from the staged battles in the Colosseum in Rome that may have numbered 10,000 individuals.

Emily Blunt

Emily Olivia Leah Blunt (born 23 February 1983) is an English-born British-American actress. She made her professional debut alongside Judi Dench in The Royal Family, for which she was named Best Newcomer by Evening Standard. Her screen debut came with the 2003 television film Boudica and she delivered her breakout performance in the 2004 drama film My Summer of Love, for which she received the Evening Standard British Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer. She received critical praise for her performance in the television film Gideon's Daughter (2006), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film, and the same year, she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture and a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for The Devil Wears Prada.

In 2009, Blunt received the BAFTA Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year. She garnered further acclaim for portraying Queen Victoria in The Young Victoria (2009), for which she received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. She found commercial success for roles in the romantic science-fiction thriller The Adjustment Bureau (2011), the science fiction action thriller Looper (2012), and the science fiction film Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Blunt received her fourth and fifth Golden Globe Award nominations for her roles in the romantic comedy-drama Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2012) and the musical fantasy Into the Woods (2014) in the Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical category. She has also starred in Gulliver's Travels (2010), Gnomeo & Juliet (2011), The Five-Year Engagement (2012), Sicario (2015), and will appear in the upcoming dark fantasy film The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016).

United States national team

Team USA or United States national team may refer to any of a number of sports team representing the United States in international competitions.

Olympic teams

Additionally, these teams may compete in other international competitions such as the FIBA Basketball World Cup and World Championship for Women, the Ice Hockey World Championships, the FIFA World Cup, or the World Figure Skating Championships. The list includes sports that have Olympic competitions, even if the United States team has never participated (marked with an asterisk *).