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Articles

Yankees success

The Yankees and are one of the best baseball teams there is. The team has the most number of championships in baseball history. They have earned thirty-nine American League banners and they also have a total of twenty-six World Series titles.

The team has a rich history before becoming one of the most envied teams in the Major league Baseball. It started when the National League hindered the American League from putting a team in New York. Because of this, the American League opted to establish the team in Baltimore instead. This gave birth to the Baltimore Orioles.

John McGraw was part owner of the Orioles. He was also assisting the Giants at that time and has slowly gained control. He caused conflicts when he started to raid for players, the American League has to look into the matter. In order to settle the issue, a conference with the National League took place. This led to an agreement that allowed the AL to have a team in New York. As a result, the Orioles moved to New York, thus the New York Highlanders emerged. However, the name New York Yankees would pop up from time to time until it became the popular name of the team.

After moving to New York in 1903, the team had several encounter with the AL pennant. However, it was not only in 1921 that they finally earned their first. This also marked their first World Series Appearance where they faced their rival, the New York Giants. The Giants took home the World Series. The same scenario occurred in 1922, again, the Yankees failed to win the World Series. They faced the Giants for the third consecutive time in 1923. This time, they successfully took home the championship. It marked the beginning of their domination.

Many take into account the success of the team to the purchase of one of the greatest baseball players of all time, Babe Ruth. The Boston Red Sox sold him to the Yankees in 1919. The sale has even given birth to one of the most popular sports curses, the curse of the Bambino.

Ruth has helped the Yankees travelled a successful route. Many would say that Babe Ruth is accountable for the building of the Yankee stadium since it was his impressive home runs that draw people to watch the game. Some would call the stadium as the House that Ruth Built.

However, no baseball team is a one-man team. Although Babe Ruth is very talented, his team should get credit as well. The Yankees team gave birth to the Murderer's Row. This was a name given to the strong lineup of the New York Yankees led by Babe Ruth. Many said that their lineup in 1927 was the strongest in baseball history.

After Babe Ruth, several talented players played for the team. Some of them were Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Yogi Berra.

The team holds the records for the most number consecutive years of World Series won. This took place in 1949 to 1953.

Most of the greatest players in baseball history played with the team. No wonder why they keep on winning championship titles even after Ruth retired.

(ArticlesBase ID #589775)
Rick Grantham
Rick Grantham is an expert on sports equipment, specially on New York Yankees Merchandise for more information on Major League Merchandise, visit BooYah Village.




Phillies Baseball...what a Great Phillies World Series Win

The Phillies baseball club took home the prize of 2008 world series.Baseball Champions and the pitching of Joe Blanton and Jamie Moyer was for me the difference maker of the World Series.

Going into the series I thought that the Tampa Bay Rays pitching would be too strong. On paper most felt that the Rays would win the match ups of Matt Garza vs. Jamie Moyer and Andy Sonnanstine vs. Joe Blanton, with Kazmir and Shields winning a game each, but it didn't pan out that way.

Both Moyer and Blanton are not renowned for throwing strikeouts yet combined they managed to strike out twelve Tampa Bay rays batters over 12 innings of pitching. When you couple that with the fact they only walked three batters between the two of them it was no wonder the Phillies where able to win both games. Not just against Blanton and Moyer but through out the series the Rays top order seemed to be rushing too much and not waiting for the ideal pitch. The allowed Blanton and Moyer to get ahead, and you just can't afford to do that against those two as their off speed pitches become more powerful.

Unfortunately for the Rays the bats got cold during the World Series. This was a surprise after they where able to overpower the White Sox and the Red Sox in the previous two match ups with their bats. During the World Series the Phillies hit nine home runs to the Rays four. Luckily for the Phillies this helped overcome their poor hitting with runners in scoring position.

I thought Cole Hamles was a worthy MVP recipient after his awesome pitching performances in Games 1 and 5 against Rays ace Scott Kazmir. The fact that Kazmir was unable to win either of those two match ups was another key reason for the Phillies winning it all. Moyer and Blanton clearly required recognition as they, for me, where the two players that stood up during the key middle stages of the series.

Questions will always be asked did the Rays choke on the big stage or where they simply just out played. When a team doesn't lose a post season game at home they are going to be pretty tough to beat and when you look back at all three opponents for the Phillies their pitching was dominant.

So now the question gets asked can the Phillies Baseball Club repeat? Cole Hamels and Brad Lidge are staying put and with Ryan Howard , Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins also coming back you would have to raise a case that the Phillies have enough pieces in place to be more than a one season wonder. Statistically the Phillies will be up against it as only the Blue Jays and Yankees have repeated in the last thirty years.

Only Pat Burrell and Jamie Moyer will be free agents in the off season. Both will probably get bigger offers to play somewhere else but the lure of Moyer finishing hise career in the town he grew up in may give him a reason to stay for less.

The Phillies will have a tough job of keeping their payroll at $104.5 million with players such as Howard, Hamels, Shane Victorino, Jayson Werth, Ryan Madsen and Chad Durbin all eligible for arbitration.

At the beginning of 2008 the players made a statement by walking around the clubhouse during spring training wearing t shirts that stated “Winning Starts Now”. The mindset was clearly where it needed to be for the Phillies from start until finish in 2008. The question will now be asked.

Can they do it again in 09?

 
(ArticlesBase ID #641721)
OT Sportswear

Overtime Sportswear is one of the leading fan apparel sellers on the web
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The company also has it's own blog which covers the latest news in the World
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Phillies World Series
win, but sport from around the world.

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Season structure of Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball (MLB) is the highest level of play in North American professional baseball. Specifically, Major League Baseball refers to the organization that operates the National League and the American League, by means of a joint organizational structure that has developed gradually between them since 1903 (the National League having been in existence since 1876). In 2000, the two leagues were officially disbanded as separate legal entities with all their rights and functions consolidated in the commissioner's office. MLB effectively operates as a single league and as such it constitutes one of the major professional sports leagues of the United States. It is currently composed of 30 teams—29 in the United States and 1 in Canada (the Toronto Blue Jays).

Each season consists of 162 games (with an additional game, or games, in case of a tie breaker needed to determine postseason participation), which generally begins on the first Sunday in April and ends on the first Sunday in October, with the postseason played in October and sometimes into early November. The same rules and regulations are played between the two leagues with one exception: the American League operates under the Designated Hitter Rule, while the National League does not. Utilization of the DH Rule in interleague play, the All-Star and World Series games is determined by the home team's league rules.

MLB is controlled by the Major League Baseball Constitution that has undergone several incarnations since 1876 with the most recent revisions being made in 2005. Under the direction of Commissioner of Baseball (currently Bud Selig), Major League Baseball hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts. As is the case for most of the sports leagues in the United States and Canada, the "closed shop" aspect of MLB effectively prevents the yearly promotion and relegation of teams into and out of the Major League by virtue of their performance. Major League Baseball maintains a unique, controlling relationship over the sport, including most aspects of minor league baseball. This is due in large part to a 1922 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Federal Baseball Club v. National League, which held that baseball is not interstate commerce and therefore not subject to federal antitrust law. This ruling has been weakened only slightly in subsequent years.

The production/multimedia wing of MLB is New York-based MLB Advanced Media, which oversees MLB.com and all 30 of the individual teams' websites. Its charter states that MLB Advanced Media holds editorial independence from the League itself, but it is indeed under the same ownership group and revenue-sharing plan. MLB Productions is a similarly-structured wing of the league, focusing on video and traditional broadcast media.

 Spring training

Spring training is a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spring training allows new players to audition for roster and position spots, and gives existing team players practice time prior to competitive play. Spring training has always attracted fan attention, drawing crowds who travel to the warmer climates to enjoy the weather and watch their favorite teams play, and spring training usually coincides with spring break for many college students.

Spring training typically lasts almost two months, starting in mid February and running until just before the season opening day (and often right at the end of spring training, some teams will play spring training games on the same day other teams have opening day of the season), traditionally the first week of April. Pitchers and catchers report to spring training first because pitchers benefit from a longer training period due to the exhaustive nature of the position. A week or two later, the position players arrive and team practice begins.

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All-Star Game

In early July — the midway point of the season — a three-day break is taken and the Major League Baseball All-Star Game is held. The All-Star game features a team of players from the National League (NL) — led by the manager of the previous NL World Series team — and a team of players from the American League (AL), similarly managed, in an exhibition game. Since 1989, the designated-hitter rule is used when the game is played in an AL ballpark; formerly no designated hitters played in the All-Star game. The 2002 contest ended in an 11-inning tie because both teams were out of pitchers, a result which proved highly unpopular with the fans. As a result, for a two-year trial in 2003 and 2004, the league which won the game received the benefit of home-field advantage in the World Series (hosting the first two games at one's own ballpark and playing no more than three games on the road, out of a possible seven). That practice has since been extended indefinitely. The practice has upset purists, because previously the two leagues alternated home-field advantage for the World Series, whereas now the NL has not had home-field advantage in the World Series since 2001. The Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox (both AL) took some advantage of the rule in 2004 and 2005, respectively (against the St. Louis Cardinals and the Houston Astros), as each team started the Series with two home victories, giving them good momentum for a four-game sweep. In 2007, the Red Sox again swept all four Series games (this time against the Colorado Rockies). However, the American League's winning of home-field advantage was not enough to save the New York Yankees in 2003 (when they lost to the Florida Marlins, NL, in six games), the Detroit Tigers in 2006 (when they lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, NL, in five games) or the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008 (when they lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, NL, in five).

The first All-Star Game was held as part of the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois, and was the brainchild of Arch Ward, then sports editor for The Chicago Tribune. Initially intended to be a one-time event, its great success resulted in making the game an annual one. Ward's contribution was recognized by Major League Baseball in 1962 with the creation of the "Arch Ward Trophy", given to the All-Star Game's most valuable player each year. (This eventually became the Ted Williams Award).

Since 1970, the eight position players for each team who take the field initially have been voted into the game by fans. The fan voting had been cancelled since 1957 as a result of the Cincinnati ballot-box-stuffing scandal (a local newspaper had printed pre-voted ballots for fans to send in, resulting in seven of the eight positions going to Cincinnati players). The league overruled the vote, adding St. Louis' Stan Musial and Milwaukee's Henry Aaron to the team, and fan voting was eliminated until the 1970 season. In more recent years, Internet voting has been allowed.

From the first All-Star Game, players have worn their respective team uniforms rather than wearing uniforms made specifically for the game, with one exception: In the first game, the National League players wore uniforms made for the game, with the lettering "National League" across the front of the shirt.

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Post-season

When the regular season ends after the first Sunday in October (or the last Sunday in September), eight teams enter the post-season playoffs. Six teams are division champions; the remaining two "wild-card" spots are filled by the team in each league that has the best record but is not a division champion (best second-place team). Three rounds of series of games are played to determine the champion:

  1. American League Division Series and National League Division Series, each a best-of-five-games series;
  2. American League Championship Series and National League Championship Series, each a best-of-seven-games series played between the surviving teams from the ALDS and NLDS; and
  3. World Series, a best-of-seven-games series played between the champions of each league.

Within each league, the division winners are the #1, #2 and #3 seeds, based on win/loss records. The wild-card team is the #4 seed — regardless of its record — and is paired against the highest seed outside of its own division in the first round of the playoffs, while the remaining two division champions play each other. In the first two rounds, the better-seeded team has home-field advantage, regardless of record.

The team belonging to the league that won the mid-season All-Star Game receives home-field advantage in the World Series.

Because each postseason series is split between the two teams' home fields, "home-field advantage" theoretically does not play a significant role unless the series goes to its maximum number of games, in which case the final game takes place on the field of the team holding the advantage. In reality, however, "home-field advantage" can play a role, if the team with home-field advantage wins the first two games (at home), thereby gaining some "momentum" for the rest of the Series.


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Major League Baseball Links

MLB Official Website
The official Website of Major League Baseball

MLB Scores
Scores from the official website of Major League Baseball

MLB Team page
The official teams section of the Major League Baseball website

MLB News page
Official news from the Major League Baseball website

MLB Schedule
Official schedule from the Major League Baseball website

MLB Players
Official players section of the Major League Baseball website

MLB Stats
Stats and other information from the official Major League Baseball website

MLB Standings
Standings from the Official Major League Baseball website

MLB Webpage

Wikipedia's Major League Baseball page

MLB Webpage
Great baseball page from www.baseball-reference.com

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