Cincinnati Red Stockings in the context of "Major League Baseball"

Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league in North America composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and is considered the premier professional baseball league in the world. Each team plays 162 games per season, with Opening Day held during the last week of March or the first week of April. Six teams in each league then advance to a four-round postseason tournament in October, culminating in the World Series, a best-of-seven championship series between the two league champions first played in 1903. MLB is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.

Formed in 1876 and 1901, respectively, the NL and AL cemented their cooperation with the National Agreement in 1903, making MLB the oldest major professional sports league in the United States and Canada. They remained legally separate entities until 2000, when they merged into a single organization led by the commissioner of baseball. Baseball's first all-professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was founded in 1869. The first few decades of professional baseball saw rivalries between leagues, and players often jumped from one team or league to another. These practices were essentially ended by the National Agreement of 1903, in which AL and NL agreed to respect each other's player contracts, including the contentious reserve clause, which bound players to their teams.