First Written Records Of Baseball Games example essay topic

Thesis Statement: Babe Ruth has had a long lasting, positive affect on Baseball. Baseball has been a big influence in the world. In the early years of baseball the game, which was once a children's game has developed into a business. The game has developed immensely from what it used to be from rules, to equipment, to different leagues. Along the way many people and teams have captured the hearts of many fans.

One person that sticks out in our minds is George Herman Ruth. Many people don't know him as George Herman Ruth. They only know him by his many nicknames given to him. Whether you know him as Babe, The Great Bambino, or the Sultan of Swat most people know his heroic story. No matter the nickname it means one thing "Baseball". He has had great positive impact on the game of Baseball.

There is a controversy over who invented the game of baseball. Some people say that Abner Doubleday invented it, and others say he didn't. Abner Doubleday was a West point cadet. Suppose ably he invented baseball in the summer of eighteen thirty nine in Cooperstown New York. "The tale that he invented the game was on the account of Abner Graves a retired mining engineer, it is now thought of as a myth". (Voigt 8).

The first league was, started by the Knickerbocker baseball club out of New York City. They also proposed the first set of rules for the game of baseball on the second of September eighteen fourty-five. The Knickerbockers Baseball Club is thought of as the founders of modern day baseball. (Chadwick 12). They were thought of as one of the first gentleman's clubs to propose a set of rules for the game of baseball. (Chadwick 12).

The first written records of baseball games were in Egypt. It was hard to imagine cavemen passing time by hitting stones with clubs. The game of baseball reached Europe from Egypt, which was transmitted by the Muslim empire. When Islam retreated from Europe, baseball games had been played in Christian ceremonies from Austria to France.

In the middle ages, during Easter celebration ball games were played where the ball was kicked or swatted with a stick. Still many ways of the game formed over time. There were still many inconsistencies. Baseball evolved from being ball a ball and stick game played in many places in the world since the beginnings of recorded history. (Voigt 8). In eighteen thirty four a book was published with illustrations, and instructions of the game of baseball.

Many factors influenced the success of organized baseball. They were turning a boys game into a million dollar industry. (Chadwick 14). From the time of the first World Series in nineteen three, at Huntington Avenue baseball grounds in Boston, baseball entered a remarkable stage of growth.

(Chadwick 2). The seats were jam packed with all men for the first World Series. Baseball was booming during the eighteen eighty's but whites were still segregating blacks from baseball, and continued to do it until nineteen fourty-seven. (Chadwick 22). This era was also the era of the building of the ballparks. Previously the parks were in horrible condition.

Then they started building them with concrete and steel. (Chadwick 28). Many club teams started playing up to sixty games. They formed the National Association of Baseball Players a strictly amateur league. Then the civil war caused the New York Clubs to disappear.

All the attention shifted to the war. The knowledge of the game was spread around. The South picked up on it. In nineteen eight the lyrics to the anthem Take Me Out to the Ballgame, by lyricist Jack Nor worth, and composer Albert Vontilizer.

(Chadwick 32). This convinced ten businessmen that baseball could be a big money maker, so they created a professional league. They were the first to create a professional league. This was called National Association of Professional Baseball Players. It was created on March seventeenth in eighteen seventy-one. The year eighteen eighty-six was the year of the baseball card.

They were initially intended for adults, and issued by Old Judge cigarettes. (Chadwick 18). Professional teams started to encourage women to come to the games. Women were called "krankets". The Orioles and the Athletics were the first teams to designate Thursday night as ladies night (Berl age 4). During the eighteen eighty's rule changes also made the game more exciting.

From eighteen seventy-one to present day Major League Baseball has influenced changes in rules and style of play. (Chadwick 10). With the changes in rules came the changes to the equipment and salary. Abraham G. Mills "Bismark of Baseball" issued the National Agreement of eighteen eighty-three. (Chadwick 34). This guaranteed that players were at least going to get one thousand dollars at minimal per season.

This also created an ill player reserve list. The newspapers started publicizing the baseball games and it started to become a well-known sport. In eighteen seventy-five the first unp added mitts, and catchers gloves were used. The catchers mask was also invented in the same year. Other changes were also made to speed up the pace of the game and balance the offense and defense. In the eighteen eighty's mitts, catchers' masks, and chest protectors for umpires and catchers began to be used.

The gloves of then and the gloves of now are immensely different. In eighteen eighty-seven they took away the batters right to call a high or low pitch. Also in eighteen eighty-seven they made a new rule. If a pitch hit you, you automatically got to take first base.

Also in that year a strikeout was 4 strikes, it was changed to 3 strikes where the rule remains today. The distance from the pitcher to home plate was set at sixty feet six inches where it present day. (Chadwick 18, 19). Adrian Anson has been credited with innovations such as Spring Training in the South. Also, the hit and run play. He was also known for banning blacks from the Major Leagues.

(Chadwick 21). Roger Breshran brought out the batting helmet, and shin guards. He did not start the use of shin guards he borrowed the idea from black players. (Chadwick 32). Babe Ruth led the league in homeruns for a total of twelve years. One period was 5 years in a row, and another 4, year period.

In nineteen eighteen and nineteen nineteen he led the league with Boston he hit 11 homeruns in nineteen eighteen, and In nineteen nineteen he hit 29 homeruns. The other ten years that he led the league in homeruns he was with The New York Yankees. Over this twelve, year period that he led the league in homeruns he hit an astonishing 496 homeruns. Nineteen ten was known as "The year batting averages skyrocketed". A year after the first record breaking homerun duel, Saint Louis Cardinal's Mark McGwire, and Chicago Cubs. Sammy Sosa recaptured the hitting race and had the baseball world drawling in awe.

In nineteen ninety-eight, McGwire hit seventy homeruns. In ninety-eight Sammy Sosa hit sixty-six homeruns. They both shattered the previous single season home run record of sixty-one homeruns by Roger Maris set in nineteen sixty-one. In nineteen ninety-nine Sosa got off to a fast start in the homerun race. He lead Mark McGwire thirty homeruns to McGwires twenty-three homeruns at the end of June. On July 26th Mark McGwire pulled even with Sosa at thirty-six homeruns.

Slamming Sammy Sosa entered the record books be becoming the first player to hit sixty homeruns in consecutive seasons on September 18th. Mark McGwire followed Sammy Sosa with sixty homeruns. On September 26th McGwire hit number sixty. Three days later he hit his sixty-second and sixty-third homeruns. McGwire finished the season with sixty-five homeruns and a consecutive season homerun record of one hundred and thirty-five. Sosa finished that year with sixty-three homeruns and a 1998-1999 total of 129 homeruns.

McGwires 128 in (1997-1999), and Babe Ruths 114 in (1927-1928) are the next highest. In the mid to early sixties on September 9th, nineteen sixty-five after Sandy Koufax the Los Angeles Dodgers ace pitcher, pitched a perfect game. Less than a month later he refused to pitch the opening game of the World Series. Sandy Koufax was Jewish, and the game happened to fall on a Jewish holiday.

It was the Jewish Holiday Yom Kippur the holiest day of any Jewish Holiday. Coincidentally it was on the game was September 9th; Major League Baseball announced that the World Series would start on October 6th. One of the most well known players in the history of baseball was Babe Ruth. He was born George Herman Ruth, Jr. on February 6th, 1895.

(Macht 13). He was born in the crowded streets of Baltimore Maryland riverfront. He had seven other siblings. (Macht 19). Babe Ruth once admitted that he was a bum when he was a kid. His parents never had time for him cause they worked long hard hours and they signed over custody to a Catholic reform school.

He never considered baseball as a career. The man who had taught him everything Brother Matthias encouraged him at a young age that he could make baseball a profession someday. Baseball was a big recreational sport around the school so they all played. (Macht 19). He displayed his talents at a young age. By age 19 he was a major league prospect.

He was a self described "bad kid" at age seven he was sent to Saint Mary's Industrial School, where he met Brother Matthias, which was his most positive accomplishment at the school he had a great impact on Ruth's life. This explains his love for kids and helping out kids. Brother Matthias helped him through his troubled life. The school he attended was a combination of a vocational, boarding, and reform school. There were four dormitories in the school, and each dormitory held two hundred kids. No one ever came to visit him at the school.

He was periodically sent back and forth from his family back to the school. He was George Ruth when he left his hometown. When he left his hometown he was George Ruth. When he reached Fayetteville, North Carolina where he went to a baseball camp for the first time, He was Babe Ruth. At the camp he showed off his true talents. Even though Babe Ruth was young he was still a complete player.

He could hit the ball harder then anyone else in camp. He has already been signed to a major league contract. Because his parents signed over his custody to the school he had to remain at the school until he was twenty-one, so Jack Dunn the manager of the Baltimore Orioles minor-league team took over custody of "the Babe". In nineteen fourteen he joined the Baltimore Orioles a minor-league team. Where he acquired his famous nickname. One of his teammates said", He was the managers newest Babe".

Just five months after being signed by the Baltimore Orioles, Babe Ruth was sold to the Boston Red Sox. He made his debut as a major leaguer in Fenway Park on July 11, 1914, pitching against the Cleveland Indians. Not many people know that not only was he one of the best hitters he was also a pretty good pitcher. He soon became the best left-hander in the American League. That year the Red Sox won the pennant but Ruth didn't pitch in the World Series.

In the mornings, Ruth would go to a Coffee Shop in Boston, and it is there that he met Helen Woodford, a seventeen-year-old waitress. They married on October 17, 1914 at St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church in Ellicott City, Maryland. As Babe's career began to bloom and his salary increased, he started to make$10,000 per year; he and Helen were able to buy a home outside of Boston. His team then won the pennant again in nineteen sixteen he pitched in the second game of the series. The first person he pitched to in the second game of the series hit and inside-the-park homerun.

Babe didn't get that rattled though he ended up coming back to win that game. He showed great poise. In December of 1919 Babe was sold to the New York Yankees. Babe Ruth's debut with the Yankees wasn't great.

They didn't know the team's fortune, and the entire game of baseball was about to change forever. He did not hit a homerun until May 1st, nineteen seventy. Before Ruth arrived in New York, the team never won a pennant. With Ruth on the team they became a dominant force in major league baseball, winning seven pennants and four World Championships from 1920 to 1933. Babe Ruth used a fifty-two ounce bat. He believed that the heft of the bat made the ball travel farther, and he was strong enough to use it.

He also gripped the bat very tight. (Macht 33). When the Yankees stadium was built in nineteen twenty-three they named it " The house that Ruth built". The Babes greatest year with the Yankees came when he hit sixty homeruns. The record stood until Roger Maris broke it hitting sixty-one in nineteen sixty-one.

Some pitchers would only throw slow breaking pitches to him, he would get so frustrated that he would yell to them " put something on the ball". (Macht 34). On July seventh 1920 there was a rumor going around that Babe Ruth had died in a car crash. He actually climbed out of the wreckage.

(Macht 34). On January 11th, nineteen twenty- nine, at the age of 31, Helen died of suffocation in a fire. Babe met, and became seriously interested in a young widow, Claire Hodgson, who was an actress and a model. She had a young daughter July. In October nineteen thirty, Babe formally adopted Claire's daughter Julia, while Claire did the same with Dorothy. One of Babe Ruth's biggest passions in sports was golf.

"The belly ache heard round the world". On April ninth nineteen twenty-five Ruth was lifted into an ambulance, which would take him to New York street to Vincent's Hospital. Everyone heard about this and was worried. Babe Ruth had become a huge star in baseball and a hero in Baseball.

(Macht 34). Everyone liked the Babe even players on apposing rival teams. Where ever Babe went a swarm of kids followed behind him, trying to get close enough to touch him. Babe Ruth was a real crowd pleaser. Babe never complained about the lack of privacy that came with his fame, he loved every minute of it.

He also loved children. His most publicized young pal was Johnny Sylvester an eleven year old boy who was bed ridden with a bone disease. Babe once also told the young kid that he would hit a homerun for him in his next game, after he had given him an autographed ball. That game he went out and hit three homeruns.

(Macht 39). In nineteen sixty-four, Babe was diagnosed with throat cancer. Even though doctors performed surgery and received radiation treatments, the cancer could not be stopped. They released Babe from the hospital, because there was nothing more they could do for him.

April twenty-seventh was declared " Babe Ruth Day" in every ballpark in the United States and Japan. Although he was to weak to even put on his old uniform he attended Yankee Stadium that day. His final appearance at Yankee Stadium came later, on June thirteenth 1948, during the twenty-fifth anniversary of "The House that Ruth built". During the celebration the Yankees also retired his uniform, number three, and for that reason Babe put on his uniform one more time.

At 8: 01 p.m. On August 16, nineteen forty-eight he lost his battle with cancer. For two days his body laid at the main entrance of Yankee Stadium in a cough fin. Hundreds of thousands of people stood in line to pay their last respects. Babe's funeral was on August nineteenth at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York. He is buried in Hawthorne New York.

After his wife Claire's death in nineteen seventy-six she was buried right next to him. (Macht 45, 46, 47). His grave is often decorated with fresh flowers, letters, and even plates of food. (O'Keefe 24).

Even after death Ruth has cast a long shadow. He has a ten-foot high granite tombstone at the Cemetery in Hawthorne New York. Babe Ruth was willing to tell his homerun secrets to a March nineteen twenty-eight article " Babe Ruth's Homerun Secrets". (Seel horst 60).

Babe Ruth was not just the greatest American sportsman of all time; he also was one of the best American eaters. He had an overgrown childs personality. The Babe liked to have something in his mouth at all times. Wether it was chewing gum, a cigar, or a strong mixed drink. Most of the time it was food.

(Wilson 36). Babe Ruth made the All Century Dream Team in his position as an outfielder. Babe Ruth was the great American pastime's greatest player, a legendary slugger. He became the first sports superstar. Another key sports figure in baseball was Jackie Robinson. Who was African American.

Jackie Robinson, born as Jack Roosevelt Robinson. He was born in Cairo, Georgia in nineteen nineteen to a family of sharecroppers. His mother, M allie Robinson, single-handedly raised Jackie and her four other children. They were the only black family on their block... Who knew he would be the first baseball player to break Major League Baseball's color barrier that segregated major league baseball for more than 50 years. Growing up in a large, single-parent family, Robinson excelled early at all sports and learned to make his own way in life.

At UCLA, Robinson became the first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports: baseball, basketball, football, and track. In 1941, he was named to the All-American football team. After his college education was left incomplete, Robinson enlisted into the U.S. Army. After two years in the army, he was second lieutenant.

His army career was cut short due to a court-martial sparked by Robinson's objections to racial discrimination. In the end, Jackie left the U.S. Army with an honorable discharge. In 1945, there were few career opportunities open to a black man, even to those who had attended college. Jackie played one season in the Negro Baseball League, traveling all over the Midwest with the Kansas City Monarchs. In 1947, when Jackie Robinson first wore a Brooklyn Dodger uniform, he started the integration of professional athletics in America. By breaking the color barrier in baseball, the nation's most liked sport at the time; he challenged the customs of racial segregation in both the North and the South.

He went through a lot of pain and struggle to accomplish his goals and he came out on top. He put up with a lot of stuff from everyone and it was all worth it to him in the end..