Baseball Major leagues

Major League Baseball (MLB) is the highest level of play in professional baseball in North America, and likely the world. More specifically, Major League Baseball ("MLB") refers to the entity that operates North America's two top leagues, the National League and the American League, by means of a joint organizational structure which has existed between them since 1920.

Major League Baseball is governed by the Major League Constitution, an agreement that has undergone several incarnations since 1920, with the most recent revisions being made in 2001. Major League Baseball, under the direction of its Commissioner, hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts.

MLB also 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 which declared baseball is not considered interstate commerce (and therefore not subject to federal antitrust law), despite baseball's own references to itself as an "industry" rather than a "sport."

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Current Major Leagues

The Major League season generally runs from early April through the end of September. Players and teams prepare for the season in spring training, primarily in Florida and Arizona, during February and March.

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Teams and schedule

In all there are 30 teams in the two leagues: 16 in the elder National League ("NL") and 14 in the American League ("AL"). Each has its teams split into three divisions grouped generally by geography and styled "Eastern," "Central," and "Western," respectively.

Each team's regular season consists of 162 games, a duration established in 1961. From 1898 to 1960, a 154-game schedule was played. Games are played predominantly against teams within each league through an unbalanced schedule which heavily favors divisional play. In 1997 Major League Baseball introduced interleague play, which was criticized by the sport's purists but has since maintained popularity with casual fans.

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All-Star game

In July, a three day break is taken during which the Major League Baseball All-Star Game is staged. The All-Star game pits players from the NL, headed up by the manager of the previous NL World Series team, against players from the AL, similarly managed, in an exhibition game. The league which wins the game receives the benefit of having four of the seven games of that year's World Series take place at their home park. Since the 1970s, the eight position players for each team who take the field initally have been voted into the game by fans. The remaining position players, and all of the pitchers, on each league's roster are solely at the discretion of that team's manager. By MLB regulation, every team in the majors must have at least one designated all-star player, regardless of voting. This rule sometimes allows into the game players who don't necessarily "deserve" to be all-stars.

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Post-season

At the conclusion of the regular season, the three division champions from each league, together with the non-division champion with the best regular season record ("Wild Card") qualify for post-season playoffs. The post-season currently consists of three rounds:

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

At the time of writing the Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig, has often floated the idea of international expansion and realignment of the major leagues. At the moment, however, the major leagues are each split into three divisions, and structured as follows:

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Current teams of Major League Baseball

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American League

West	Central	East
Anaheim Angels	Chicago White Sox	Baltimore Orioles
Oakland Athletics	Cleveland Indians	Boston Red Sox
Seattle Mariners	Detroit Tigers	New York Yankees
Texas Rangers	Kansas City Royals	Tampa Bay Devil Rays
	Minnesota Twins	Toronto Blue Jays

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National League

West	Central	East
Arizona Diamondbacks	Chicago Cubs	Atlanta Braves
Colorado Rockies	Cincinnati Reds	Florida Marlins
Los Angeles Dodgers	Houston Astros	Montreal Expos
San Diego Padres	Milwaukee Brewers	New York Mets
San Francisco Giants	Pittsburgh Pirates	Philadelphia Phillies
	St. Louis Cardinals

In 2002, Major League Baseball, through a subsidiary (Baseball Expos, L.P.), acquired the National League's Montreal Expos franchise with the intent of ceasing its operations. However, a new collective bargaining agreement with the powerful baseball players union in effect stopped that maneuver. The team is widely expected to be relocated in 2005 to the Washington D.C. area while MLB searches for someone to acquire the franchise.

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Historical Major Leagues

In 1969, the centennial of professional baseball, a commission chartered by Major League Baseball identified the following leagues as "major leagues". The list is sometimes disputed by baseball researchers. The MLB list included the following:

1876-present: National League of Professional Baseball Clubs
1882-1891: American Association
1884: Union Association
1890: Players League
1901-present: American League
1914-1915: Federal League

Some researchers contend that the National Association (1871-1875), the Negro Leagues (primarily during the years from 1921-1946), and the first year of the American League (1900) deserve consideration as major leagues due to the caliber of player and the level of play exhibited. However, game and statistical records for these particular leagues were not kept in a consistent manner.

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