Talk:Timeline of Major League Baseball

Important update

Please soon update the timeline because the Oakland Athletics will be in Sacramento for a few years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.60.183.4 (talk) 15:49, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

We will do this at the end of the current season, as is standard with timeline updates. NocoRoads 16:43, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Okay thanks for informing me! 66.60.183.4 (talk) 14:53, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

A Note on Dates

A team's bar begins with the season that team played its first game, and ends with the season 'after' that team played its last game. For example, the Cincinnati Red Stockings played their first game in 1876, the first season of the National League, and played their last game in 1880. Therefore, their bar goes from 1876 to 1881. shaggy (talk) 23:04, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Sources

Most of the information used to construct this comes from 19th century National League teams, History of baseball in the United States, and the individual team pages. shaggy (talk) 23:04, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Other Timelines

Other timelines I have created: NL Timeline (1855-Present), NL Timeline (1855-1910), NL Timeline (1915-Present), AL Timeline (1890-Present, Includes Western League teams). shaggy (talk) 23:04, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

@The shaggy one Would you mind updating these timelines? They are very helpful by providing a visual of each team's history. Alielmi1207 (talk) 03:54, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

The Cubs

Not quite sure how this was made, but the Cubs are missing a season. They played in 1871, finishing the season after the Great Chicago Fire on the road with loaned uniforms. This graph makes it appear as if they did not play in 1871 at all. Whoever knows how it was made, please fix it! ToddC4176 (talk) 21:09, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

They were still the White Stockings, but you're right. They did play that season before the franchise was inactive for two years. I've fixed the error. shaggy (talk) 07:48, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

St Louis Maroons / Indianapolis Hoosiers

The timeline has the St Louis Maroons and Indianapolis Hoosiers as two separate franchises. The timeline needs to be corrected as the St Louis Maroons relocated to Indianapolis in 1887. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Maroons_/_Indianapolis_Hoosiers

St. Louis Perfectos

In 1899 the St Louis Brown Stockings changed their name to the St. Louis Perfectos. The timeline needs to be corrected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1899_St._Louis_Perfectos_season

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Major League Baseball which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 14:04, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Non-MLB timelines should be moved to their own page

This page should only be about the leagues (AL and NL) that formed MLB and not include other major leagues that did not. As it stands, it's too confusing with the history of the other leagues listed.

As an example of how this page should be, the Timeline of the NBA page only mentions the four ABA teams that joined the NBA, but does not include their prior history, nor the teams that did not join. The same is true with the History of organizational changes in the NHL page, where only the four WHA teams that joined the NHL are mentioned.

Likewise, the Timeline of the National Football League page only mentions the three AAFC teams that joined the NFL. The exception is the AFL, but that's because this was a true merger, which included their history and recrds, as opposed to only certain teams from an upstart league joining the more established league.

So, the histories of all the other major baseball leagues should be moved to their own page. For example, since there is a specific Timeline of Negro league baseball teams page, then all of the Negro leagues should be moved to this page. The result would be a page that is more legible. Alielmi1207 (talk) 05:15, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

The timelines of the Negro Leagues should be left in this article, in my view. The MLB has recognized the Negro Leagues as major leagues, and is updating the MLB stats to include those of the Negro Leagues. One article that explains this is this one, published by NPR on May 29th. It says, "The MLB announced on Wednesday that it has incorporated the statistics of more than 2,300 Negro Leagues players from 1920 to 1948 into its records, which are now available in a newly integrated online database.... It follows nearly four years of research and a move the league made in December 2020. That year saw both the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues and nationwide protests against racial injustice. The MLB said at the time that it was “correcting a longtime oversight” by officially elevating the Negro Leagues to Major League status and including their stats in its history books...." — Mudwater ^(Talk) 16:38, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@Mudwater Thank you for your feedback. I'm not questioning the fact that MLB has recognized the Negro Leagues as major leagues, nor whether their stats should be included with MLB's or not. What I'm saying is that this article is specifically about Major League Baseball, not major baseball leagues in general, and since none of the teams from the Negro leagues joined MLB (not to mention teams from other leagues as well, such as the PL), then they shouldn't be included here. Alielmi1207 (talk) 17:22, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support the split, 1) this article is getting bulky, 2) NgL weren't part of MLB so in order to be included here, the article title should be lower-case mlb, but then it would become even bulkier with the additions of PL UL AA etc.; 3) MLB doesn't get to decide who is and who is not up to their standards retroactively, nor who was and was not major league-caliber. The NgL timeline won't be hinder by MLB's exclusion of pre-league or proto-league teams nor will it be hindered by MLB's exclusion of southern teams (NSL).

Please note, Alielmi1207, when doing the splits give proper attribution in the edit summary. Rgrds. --BX (talk) 01:06, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

@BX Thank you for the feedback. I have already moved the Negro leagues to the Timeline of Negro league baseball teams page. Please review both pages and provide additional feedback if necessary. Thanks. Alielmi1207 (talk) 01:38, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

I've reverted as per WP:BOLD. I strongly oppose this idea, and any changes should be further discussed. MLB as a formal organization technically only began in 2000, and is when "Major League Baseball" became a proper noun. "Major league baseball" as a term wasn't in existence prior to 1966. At the time, they used the now-outdated term "Organized Baseball". The National and American Leagues were separate legal entities until 2000, albeit with a lot of cooperation from 1903 on. They even operated in different buildings prior to 1984! The page (before the ongoing changes) consisted of all leagues that MLB considers of major league quality. Any removal of the seven major Negro Leagues should also mean the removal of the American Association, Union Association, Players' League, and Federal League. The seven major Negro Leagues and four white major Leagues are, as MLB sees it, of equal classification; that is they are major leagues that have ceased operations. I'm not for the removal of the four white leagues either. This article from SABR gives a good idea of how gray the history of "MLB" is. Spesh531^{(talk, contrib., ext.)} 18:04, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

@Spesh531 In my opinion, the purpose of this page should be to focus on the leagues and teams that make up the current MLB and should be similar to timeline pages for the other major professional leagues. For example, the Timeline of the National Football League page only mentions the three AAFC teams that joined in 1950 and the fourth iteration of the American Football League, which merged with the NFL in 1970, but makes no mention of the previous three AFL's.

Including the Negro leagues only makes it more difficult to highlight the fact that there was stability in the AL and NL during that era (1920–1946). Note that none of their teams relocated and only a few changed names. That was the reason for moving the Negro leagues to the Timeline of Negro league baseball teams page.

I considered removing the Players' League and Federal League as well, since none of their teams joined the AL or NL, but it was more difficult to do so, which is why I left them. Alielmi1207 (talk) 19:33, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

IMO it has to be either a page, strictly with AL & NL, or it's a page that includes all other major leagues. I think the difference between the NFL and MLB is that baseball's professional history is longer and blurrier than NFL. If one were to look up, say, players stats on MLB's website, there are stats which go back to 1876 and include all the current white and Negro leagues on the page. Meanwhile, on NFL's player stat page, records are only there to 1970, the year of the AFL/NFL merger. This would be like MLB only showing stats going back to only 2000. Both leagues treat their professional sport's history differently. MLB's is very intertwined with all major-leagues, while NFL's is very strictly the current, post-1970 iteration of NFL.

Granted, Wikipedia is neither MLB nor NFL. We're also inconsistent with league inclusion (such as the FL being in the 1915 season page, but the NNL I not being in 1920 season page). I've tried to bring up this inconsistency before (in the context of non-AL/NL leagues in MLB season page infoboxes), but it falls on mostly deaf ears (the section had only 5 people in the discussion and quickly died).

Not that I particularly agree with this, but perhaps each league and/or era should have their own page? One page for 1876 to 1900, two separate AL & NL pages from 1901 to either 1999 or present-day, in addition to the already existing Negro League timeline page? (Though where does this leave the FL?) Meanwhile, a master page (this one) could still exist? Spesh531^{(talk, contrib., ext.)} 22:42, 14 November 2024 (UTC)