Evolution Of Baseball Research Paper

The MLB didn’t start until 1876 with the National league and then they brought in the American league in 1901. The first World Series was held in 1903 with the Boston Americans beating the Pittsburg pirates 5-3. Baseball hasn’t always been glorified as it was though. It experienced rough times in the 1940’s when African Americans weren’t allowed to play in the major league but thanks to Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby, they eliminated the racial discrimination in baseball and outside the baseball world. Baseball has also experienced rough times during the WWII and Vietnam era. During the time of war, players would go and serve in the military and baseball would have to replace them with less talented players. But Upon return, baseball returned to its once prestige self.

The development of baseball solidified the significance of organized team sport in American culture beginning in 1845. While baseball was originally played solely by amateurs, on oddly shaped fields, and with not an incredible amount of action outside of the infield, baseball encompassed the reasons behind the importance of organized team sport. Not only do team sports encourage self-government, they also unite the community through

Like the bald eagle, baseball has become an icon for the term “American”. It was the nation’s first major sport and quickly was coined America’s pastime. It was created from a combination of other games during the 1840’s and became increasingly popular during the years of the Civil War (Brinkley 392). In their

The game of baseball became an organized sport in 1840 and 1850. Baseball is becoming more popular in America. For example, by 1860 the sport took the crown of America favorite sport over England cricket.

Like any other sport, baseball developed over an extended period of time spanning way back to the 1600’s. The first evidence

Baseball did exactly what Billy Beane had said they would do, they erased them. The Oakland A’s are starting from scratch the same way they did in the 2002 season. It all begins in the small scout room. Billy Beane tried to repeat and go farther beyond what he did the past two years with this team, which was to bring them to the playoffs. Billy knows he has a chance to redefine the way baseball people think, and that is his goal… “I don’t play this game for records, I want what we do to make an impact and change the game” Billy said to Paul Depodesta. When Billy enters the little room, he sees all the scouts talking and catching up, but they all shut up when Billy takes his seat. As the discussion begins, they keep coming to the question they

The Oakland A’s were a poor team. They could not afford to shop for costly players like teams who were considered “rich” did. So, the A’s were bound by money to find “bargain” athletes. This problem repeatable showed up in baseball’s history and baseball management continued to handle the problem the same way- by blindly trusting the system. The overall question was how could a poor team improve their standings? How can they overcome the biggest hurdle of money without being financially unstable? Can a team win games without any big names in baseball? Billy Beane, a fruitless baseball player turned thriving general manager, revolutionized the baseball industry by finding a new solution to an old problem.

Another staffing strategy is the case of Scott Hatteberg. Hatteberg plays with the Boston Rex Sox. He was injured and was never signed up by Sox. Oaklands A's did not waste time and hired Hatteberged. A's has done this because Hatterberg's has an on-base scoring record. According to A's, Hatteberg filled up what is missing in the team.

The earliest known reference to baseball as we know it in America was in 1791 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. There was an ordinance banning the play of the sport within 80yds a town meeting center. No one is exactly sure of the origins of baseball but many believe it to be a variation of the English game of “rounders”. The very first team to play the sport of baseball

The beginning of baseball has had it twist on who started the game and who made the rules to the game. The sport we know as baseball was original name stickball before it became an organized sport. Baseball was a game that many just played as part of their moderate exercise for recreational purpose or time and they used the game to stay in shape. It was usually a middle class white -collar worker who played the game.

The A's recent success is attributed to the innovative approach taken by Billy Beane in assembling a baseball team with a very limited amount of financial resources. Billy Beane has built a successful ball club because he has found an efficient and cost effective way of measuring baseball talent thus essentially creating a loophole in this unfair game because winning percentage is a result of talent not

Lewis overstates Billy’s case. In fact, Lewis’ main character is not an interesting character. Beane is presented as a talented ballplayer from Southern California. He had all it took to be the best player. Lewis describes him as fast, good looking with a strong arm, and was considered as a “Major League all-star” in high school. However, Lewis presents his decisions as unimaginable, and stunning. Billy was talented and he could use his talent to become more famous as a great baseball player other than quitting to train other players. Lewis praises Billy a lot, for instance he writes, “It was hard to know which of Billy’s qualities was most important to his team’s success: his energy, his resourcefulness, his intelligence or his ability to scare…very large professional baseball players.” As much as Billy did all his best to his team and made them successful, he could have continued with his career instead of quitting. In addition, the author overstates Billy’s case of the success of the team. The success of the team was also based on the three pitchers Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder. These three pitchers were top first round picks in top college programs and they highly contributed to the success of the team.

Beane finds the source of his alternative that meets all these criteria in Peter Brand, a Yale graduate who majored in economics. Beane learns of Brand while Brand is working as an executive assistant for scouting on another team, Beane realizes he's found the man who offers a new radical way to evaluate players. Moving away from traditional recruiting and scouting practices that focused on intuition and intangibles, Brand focused more on statistics, specifically on base percentage (OBP). By finding players with a high OBP but with characteristics that are traditionally perceived has unfavorable, Beane and Brand are able to assemble a team of undervalued players with far more potential than A’s could afford if they continued without their traditional recruiting practices. Finding, recruiting and signing these undervalued players was the solutions to the A’s problems, and the final step for the organization was to fully implement their plan and start producing results. Implementation of the plan was not immediate, so the solution of the plan did not yield results

George et al.,(2007) provide the importance of an authentic leadership. A key focus of the article is that the leader should not only understand his values, but practice them as well. One of the most interesting values described by Billy Beane is his value of education. Major League Baseball would recognize him as one of the top high school talents in the country during his youth. He valued education so much, that he informed all Major League Baseball teams that he would not sign any professional contract so that he could attend Stanford. Even upon being convinced to sign with the New York Mets, he made his intentions of taking classes in the off season quite clear. This may have been his undoing as a player, as he did not value where his natural talents could take him in baseball. This would lead him to develop values regarding life decisions. He swore after that sequence of events he would never make a decision based on money ever again. This is a value he has stayed true to, as he turned down the opportunity to be the highest paid

One of the most notable executives inspired by Beane is Theo Epstein, a Yale graduate who talked with Beane as much as possible when he was the assistant general manager in the Red Sox franchise and due to his frequent conversations with Beane, Epstein becomes obsessed with high on-base percentage players, such as Kevin Youkilis (Lewis 211). Inspired by Billy Beane, Theo Epstein leads the Boston Red Sox to two World Series titles in nine years, placing a heavy emphasis on on-base percentage; The Red Sox never placed below second in annual on-base percentage during Epstein’s tenure as general manager, and now Epstein is recreating the same philosophy in Chicago (ESPN). Another baseball general manager who was tremendously influenced by Billy Beane was Andrew Friedman; facing a tight budget in Tampa Bay much like Beane in Oakland, he drafted many college players and he led a mediocre franchise to four playoff appearances through following Billy Beane’s philosophy (Vice Sports). The Pittsburgh Pirates and their general manager, Neal Huntington have taken Beane’s philosophy to a whole different level; he hired people out of Ivy League schools just like Beane, however Huntington hired many more specific analysts. Huntington hired Baseball Prospectus’s Dan Fox to build the structure of their proprietary database, while also being an analyst for the Pirates, also Mike Fitzgerald was hired as an analyst who even traveled with the team on the road; over the years the Pirates’ analytical team built a relationship with the players and the coaching staff, to the point where the analytical group became a key part of the team, even more so than the Oakland A’s and Billy Beane (Sloan Sports Conference). Billy Beane’s impact has spread even beyond baseball; it has spread to soccer, american football, and basketball, one example of a soccer team following Beane’s philosophy is FC