The Complete History of MLB: 150 Years in 16 Minutes

Baseball wasn't invented by Abner Doubleday, and the real story is better. In 16 minutes, this documentary traces Major League Baseball from the first openly all-professional team in 1869 and the birth of the National League in 1876 to the pitch clock and Shohei Ohtani's 50/50 season. The Black Sox scandal, Babe Ruth and the live-ball era, the Negro Leagues and the color line, Jackie Robinson, the move west, Curt Flood and free agency, the 1994 strike, the steroid era, Moneyball and Statcast: 150 years of glorious, shameful and complicated history. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Game Before MLB 1:35 Two Leagues, One Championship 2:22 Scandal and the Home Run 3:56 The Negro Leagues and the Color Line 6:08 War, Television and the Westward Move 7:37 New Legends, New Horizons 9:12 Labor and the Price of a Player 11:01 The Home Run Era and Its Shadow 12:23 Data, Technology and a Global Game 13:39 The Modern Game 15:11 The Legacy SOURCES Every claim in this video is sourced. The full list, chapter by chapter, is in the pinned comment. ARCHIVAL CREDITS Photographs and films courtesy of the Library of Congress; the National Archives (Universal Newsreel, Ford Motor Company Collection, U.S. Army Signal Corps); the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture; the National Portrait Gallery; the Boston Public Library / Digital Public Library of America; the Prelinger Archives; the Internet Archive; and Wikimedia Commons contributors. Film excerpts: Edison, "The Ball Game" (1898); Kinograms newsreel (1924); "Headin' Home" (1920); Oakland Oaks opening day (1918); Detroit Tigers opening day (1929); Army-Navy Screen Magazine (1945); Universal Newsreel (1949–1956); "The Jackie Robinson Story" (1950, shown as a labeled dramatization).