Welcome to our second update for FanSeeStats. Updates are shared across the four websites of Blog.FanSeeStats.com, IceHockeyLeagues.com, Major-Leagues.com, and Minor-Leagues.com. Here are the update details:
Alpha Version 0.2
Major League Sports Update
Years, Events, Baseball, Hockey added between 1857 to 1899
Located at Major-Leagues.com
With this update we find the beginnings of organized sport with Baseball leading the way for the first twenty-five years. Then in the 1880s we see Hockey and then Football establish themselves with their own leagues. It isn’t until the very end of the century that we see Basketball get its first league.
I made the decision to not include the first professional Football and Basketball leagues as part of the Major-Leagues.com as I consider them to be instead Top Player Leagues, that belong to the Minor-Leagues.com.
It is amazing to think back about the humble and tentative roots of Baseball and Hockey as they establish their leagues. Both of these sports started off as pure amateur endeavors then struggled with the rise of professionalism in their sport. As the professional teams came to dominate play, other teams were forced to also adopt professionalism to keep up. Professional teams then only wanted to play against worthy competition since it was competitive games between great athletes that fans were willing to pay to watch. This lead to the first professional leagues that are still in existence today.
From 1857 to 1899 we see the two streams of sports being developed. We see Proto-Leagues emerging into Elite Leagues, then we see Top Player Leagues where the teams were just focused on winning and did not really care about setting up sustainability in the form of stronger league. The Top Player Leagues are interesting and worthy of note but do not fit my criteria for being included as a Major League and more information will be found in the future at Minor-Leagues.com.
There are many more updates to come!
-AY
