History Of Baseball Essays (1008 words) - Jackie Robinson

History Of Baseball History of Baseball Baseball seems always to have lived more in myth that in history. Children in England and the United States had been playing variants of the game for years such as rounders, one o cat, and base. In 1845, some young men in Manhattan organized themselves into the Knickerbockers BaseBall Club and wrote down the rules of the game they were playing. Twenty years later dozens of baseball clubs in New York and Brooklyn, and their journalist brethren, had made what they called the national pastime more popular than cricket, and the metropolis had become the countrys first baseball powerhouse. As baseball clubs were transformed into entertainment businesses and instruments of civic boosterism, so grew their need for first-rate players who could attract paying crowds. The remarkable undefeatable season of the national touring Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1869 paved the way for baseballs full-blown professionalization in the 1876 formation of the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs. Although distinctions between players and their clubs (now really small businesses) had been hardening for years, the National League formalized the division, which has continued until today. (Leal, 7-27) Baseball soon outdistanced other spectator sports in popularity and contributed to the sports boom of the 1880s and 1890s. Late nineteenth-century baseball resembled the Gilded Age business world. Owners moved the clubs frequently, while rival leagues sprung up and competed for players and spectators. The National League either defeated its opponents outright or incorporated them into a subordinate national structure of minor leagues. Not until 1901 was the National League force to accept the American League, the only other surviving major league. Leagues controlled access to spectators by granting franchises. Owners and leagues controlled the players through labor practices that combined elements of chattel slavery (the infamous reserve rule) and freewheeling industrial capitalism: blacklisting, fines, salary limits, and reductions, even the use of Pinkerton spies. The reserve clause, initiated in 1879 and inserted into every players contract, gave his employer the right to reserve his services for the following year, unless the player was traded, sold, or released from his contract. Players fought the reserve rule, most notably when the Brotherhood of Professional BaseBall Players launched its own Players League in 1890. When the players financial backers sold them out to the National League, baseball owners triumphed and ruled organized baseball virtually unchallenged for eighty-five years. They were aided by a series of bizarre Supreme Court rulings that baseball was not interstate commerce and therefore not bound by federal antitrust law. In 1975 and arbitrator ruled that the reserved clause applied for only one year and players, as free agents, regained their negotiating power; salaries quickly reached unheard-of levels. Owners retaliated in 1981 but were soundly defeated by a players strike. (Smith, 124) Then in the late 1980s they conspired (illegally, an arbitrator held) to limit salary offers to free agents. After a twenty-year period of franchise movement, league expansions, and the creation of divisions within leagues, baseball became organizationally stable again in the late 1970s. Attendance grew dramatically throughout the 1980s, more people attended major league baseball games (over 50 million per year at the end of the decade) than at any other time in the games history. Baseball has been Americas most popular sport for so long mainly because it has successfully straddled some of the nations most important cultural divisions. Though it was born among the respectable working class and sporting middle class, the games cultural antecedents lay in the boisterous street culture of saloon-based volunteer fire companies, militias, theater partisans, street gangs, and political factions. The National League explicitly appealed to more middle-class audiences by requiring its teams t o charge fifty cents, ban the sale of alcohol, and refuse to play Sundays. ( Leal ,44) The rival American Association appealed to immigrant and working class audiences by charging a quarter, selling liquor, and playing Sunday ball. Despite the outrage with which baseball officials and writers treat baseballs occasional betting scandals (in 1865 and 1877 as well as more famously in the 1919 Black Sox scandal and the 1989 banishment of Pete Rose), the game has never been completely free of the sporting underworld of gambling and low life. Even though

3 Steps to Acing Your Upcoming Group Interview

3 Steps to Acing Your Upcoming Group Interview You’ve been asked in for a panel interview. Maybe you’re intimidated. Maybe terrified. Maybe you’re not even sure you know what that actually entails. Whatever your level of trepidation, here are three easy steps to getting through your panel interview calmly and in one piece. Step 1: BEFOREYou have the right to ask who will be on your panel. Do this. Then research each panel member to the best of your ability. You’ll be able to figure out quite a bit and prepare better for what each might be most keen to ask you. What does this particular group of people tell you about what the company is trying to assess?You can also ask how long (roughly) the interview should last. This will give you a good feeling for how much back-and-forth discussion will be possible, how much space you’ll be given to ask questions, how long your answers can be, etc.Step 2: DURINGTreat each person on the panel like a person- not just another nameless face. This is not an imper sonal wall asking you questions. Each interviewer on your panel is another opportunity to make a human connection and convince that many more people in the company what a great fit you would be.Be sure to take note of everybody’s name as they are introduced. Write each one down if that helps you remember. When answering questions, speak directly to the individual who asked, but then try and broaden your answer out to make the rest of the panel feel included in the discussion.Step 3: AFTERYou’ve learned their names and made an effort to connect with each panel member- now thank each one of them sincerely with  solid eye contact and a quality handshake. After that, it’s the usual post-interview follow-up procedure. But remember that you need to write one thank you note for each panel member. It seems like a pain, but it’s these little touches that will help set you apart.The panel interview: 6 tips for before, during, and after