Our unique baseball gifts Christmas ornaments are 7.5 inches long. The unique baseball gifts Christmas ornaments consist of two, crossed baseball bats with a baseball glove resting on top of them. There is a baseball shoe, a baseball helmet and a tiny baseball diamond with a baseball in the center, hanging from the baseball bats and glove. The baseball shoe is red on the toe with blue in the center and green on the sides with yellow edging and white laces. The baseball helmet is green in back and red in front and on the brim, with yellow edging. The baseball diamond is off white and has a white baseball in the center with red lacing. The unique baseball gifts Christmas ornaments hang from a 3 inch loop of red cord.
Professional Baseball.
All early baseball players were amateurs. In 1869 the Cincinnati Red Stockings decided to pay all its players and became the first professional baseball team. Many other teams then turned professional. In 1876, eight professional teams formed the National League, the first major league. Eight teams formed the American League in 1900. The American League became the second major league in 1901.
The cities represented by major league teams changed often. By 1900 the National League had teams in Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. By 1903 the American League teams represented Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, New York city, Philadelphia, St Louis and Washington D.C. The same 16 teams made up the major leagues and played in the same cities for 50 years.
Jackie Robinson.
Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born January 31, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia. He moved, with his mother and siblings to Pasadena, California and attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was a football, basketball, track and baseball star. His brother Mack competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics, finishing second in the 100 meter sprint behind Jesse Owens.
After UCLA, in 1942, Robinson enlisted in the US Army during World War II. He trained with the segregated U.S. 761st Tank Battalion. He was initially refused entry to Officer Candidate School, but fought for it and eventually was accepted, graduating as a second lieutenant.
After his honorable discharge from the military in 1944, Jackie played baseball for a while for the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro American League where he caught the eye of Clyde Sukeforth, a scout working for Branch Rickey. Branch Rickey was the club president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers and had the secret goal of signing the Negro Leagues’ top players to the team. Although there was no official ban on blacks in organized baseball, previous attempts at signing black ballplayers had been thwarted by league officials and rival clubs in the past and so Rickey operated undercover. His scouts were told that they were seeding players for an new all black league Rickey was forming; not even the scouts knew his true objective.
Robinson drew national attention when Rickey selected him from a list of promising candidates and signed him. In 1946, Robinson was assigned to play for the Dodgers’ minor league affiliate in Montreal, the Montreal Royals. Although that season was very tiring emotionally for Robinson, it was a spectacular success in a City that treated him with wild fan support.
Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play modern league baseball. Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and played all 10 years of his major league career with them. The significance of this event in U.S. history is observed by the retirement, by each Major League team, of his uniform number, 42.
Robinson started as a first baseman for the Dodgers but gained his greatest fame playing second base. Robinson was an outstanding hitter and finished with a .311 lifetime batting average. He was also a superior runner and base stealer, he was among the few players to “steal home” frequently. During his rookie season, he played 151 games, hit .297 and was the league leader in stolen bases with 29. In 1947, Robinson was named Rookie of the Year. In 1949, he won the national League’s Most Valuable Player award, as well as the league’s batting championship with a .342 average. He not only contributed to Brooklyn pennants in both years, but his determination and hustle kept the Dodgers in pennant races in 1950 and 1951.
Robinson’s Major League career was fairly short. He did not enter the majors until he was 28 and retired at age 37. But in his prime, every opposing team in the league respected him. Robinson’s overall talent was such that he is often cited as among the best players of his era. It is also frequently claimed that Robinson was one of the most intelligent baseball players ever, a claim that is well supported by his home plate discipline and defensive prowess. Robinson was regarded as a fierce competitor in the truest sense: he never game up