Major League Baseball

Overview

Major League Baseball is the highest-level professional baseball organization in America and the oldest professional sports league in the US, dating back to the Civil War. It generates the second-highest revenue among the Big Four US sports organizations and features the longest season in professional sports.

The league has endured numerous controversies and changes: the freewheeling (and dangerous) 19th-century Deadball Era, Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier in the mid-20th century, and the performance-enhancing controversies of the 1980s and 1990s. In 2023, MLB implemented rule changes to speed up the game, drawing renewed interest in the sport.

The 2026 season is the first to use Automated Ball Strike technology—first tested in the minor leagues and in MLB's 2025 spring training and All-Star Game—that defines the strike zone rather than relying on individual umpires' interpretations of it. Instead of allowing ABS to determine every ball or strike, though, each team now has a limited number of in-game challenges to umpires' calls, which will be settled by ABS.

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