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Baseball is called America's pastime and looking at it one can see that the modern sport of baseball not only developed in the United States but it continues to be associated with the United States, similar to iconic places such as the Statue of Liberty or the Grand Canyon. The path baseball took to becoming the sport it is today started in the early Medieval period, where it was a very different game. As with other major American sports, key developments occurred in Great Britain before then developing differently in the United States.

Even during the Civil War, both sides were actively playing the game and some of the prisoner camps had developed baseball diamonds, with the diamond now standardized by the 1857 rules. In fact, it was Union prisoners of war that are credited with spreading the popularity of baseball in the South (Figure 1). The New York rules developed in 1857 were now becoming widespread as men were stationed in different parts of the country or were even prisoners in the South, where they taught this game to fellow prisoners and their guards.<ref>For more on the spread of baseball during the Civil War, see: Kirsch, G.B. (2003) Baseball in Blue and Gray: the National Pastime During the Civil War. [Online]. Available from: http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1422511</ref>

In the 1860s, the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) developed, which was an amateur association for players and clubs. By the late 1860s, the popularity of baseball led to the development of the first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. Even before the development of the Red Stockings, some of the best amateur players were now getting paid to play for specific clubs, indicating the increasingly competitive nature of baseball. Soon in the 1870s other teams followed, including the Chicago White Stockings and Boston Red Stockings and a league of professional teams playing each other was formed. The first professional association was called the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, although it only lasted from 1871-1875. With the professionalization of baseball, players now had contracts and given strict rules to follow.<ref>For more on the early professional development of baseball, see: Furst, R.T. (2014) Early professional baseball and the sporting press: shaping the image of the game. [Online]. Available from: http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1664166.</ref> Unfortunately, this was also the beginning of open racism, where African American players were excluded from playing in the early professional teams. Although the convention is Jackie Robinson was the first African American player to play professional Major League baseball after this ban was lifted in 1947, in actuality several African American players played professional baseball either before the ban or as pretending to be Native Americans. In the 1880s, several leagues were emerging but it was the major cities that developed the most popular and appealing leagues. These teams eventually formed what became the National League, which was a league of eastern cities. A Western League of western cities emerged in 1893 and ultimately became the American League. This created a situation of somewhat two major leagues that were parallel or similar to each other, although the style of play was slightly different in that the Western league was considered more novel in its style. By 1902, the two leagues signed an agreement to play each other in a World Series contest. This now formed what became the American and National leagues and conception of the World Series as we know it today.

==The Sport Today==

By the first decade of the 20th century, players were now becoming national superstars. This included Honus Wagner, who was adept at stealing bases as well as hitting.<ref>For more on the early 20th century development of baseball, see: Ritter, L.S. (1992) OCLC: 24792523. The glory of their times: the story of the early days of baseball told by the men who played it. New York, Quill, William Morrow.</ref> One major difference in the game was the ball itself. Baseballs in the early 20th century were expensive, making a single ball often used in an entire game. Even hitting the baseball out of the park required the ball to be retrieved if possible. This allowed pitchers to use this to their advantage, as they contributed to disfiguring the ball, making it harder to hit. Pitchers such as Cy Young began to dominate the game. This was also the period when larger ballparks were now being built, accommodating the much larger audiences coming to games. In the 1910s, new hitters, such as Ty Cobb, emerged and made the game now more offensive-oriented. However, the biggest event was the so-called Black Socks scandal of 1919 between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds. The Chicago White Sox were by far the best team but purposely lost the World Series by taking bribes.

The big turnaround though came with the Babe Ruth era, as his slugging and popularization of the home run in the 1920s now made baseball an internationally known game and synonymous with the United States.<ref>For more on the Golden Age of baseball, see: Frommer, H. (2004) New York City baseball: the last golden age, 1947-1957. Madison, Wis, University of Wisconsin Press.</ref> The combination of radio, increased offense, and the larger than life appearance of Babe Ruth popularized the game to a level unseen for any other sport in the United States. This was time commonly called as the "Golden Age" of baseball, as its popularity was at a frenzy level across the country. Parallel to the Major League teams was the Negro League created by Rube Foster (Figure 2). It was a league of originally eight teams for African Americans and also Latino players. Earlier manifestations of the Negro League existed, but those folded quickly. The Negro National League and Eastern Colored League formed the two mains leagues that played in their own World Series in the 1920s. Players just as skillful as Major League players emerged, such as Satchel Paige, who became a Major League rookie in 1948 at the age of 42.

Financial problems occurred soon after, however, with a new Negro league forming in the 1930s. In World War II, many African American players were older and so they did not serve in the war effort. They remained and played in the United States, where African Americans working in factories and other work increasingly came to watch their games. In effect, as World War II limited the Major League because so many players left for the war effort, the Negro league proved to be a diversion for those in the home front, including many whites. This likely helped setup the stage for the integration and raising of the ban on African American players in baseball in 1947.<ref>For a history on the Negro league and the African American experience with baseball in the early 20th century, see: Hogan, L.D. (2014) The forgotten history of African American baseball. Santa Barbara, California, Praeger, ABC-CLIO, LLC.</ref>