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William Hulbert

Baseball is an outdoor sport in which a pitcher pitches a hard, fist sized ball to the hitting area of a batter. The batter hits the hard ball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat made up of wood or metal. The batsman scores by running counter-clockwise within the four markers called the bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. Baseball is sometimes called hardball to differentiate it from similar games such as softball.

William Hulbert was born 23 October 1832, in Burlington Flats, New York. He was elected to Hall of Fame by Veterans Committee in 1995 and died on 10 April 1882, in Chicago, Illinois.

William Hulbert was a silver-tongued executive and an energetic, influential leader. While part owner of Chicago's National Association team, he and Albert Spalding founded the National League in 1876. He was elected National League president later that year and is credited with establishing respectability, integrity and a sound foundation for the new league with his relentless opposition to betting, rowdiness and other prevalent abuses that threatened the sport. Hulbert induced several stars from eastern teams, including Philadelphia's Cap Anson and Boston's Al Spalding, to jump to his team for the 1876 season. The NA, the National Association was a weak league, beset by gamblers, failing franchises, and rowdy and drunken behavior among players.

Hulbert avoided any action by the NA over his pirating of players by convening several responsible team owners and founding the National League. Although Hartford owner Morgan Bulkeley was the figurehead president in the NL's first year, Hulbert was actually in charge. In 1877, he officially took over as president. He introduced regular schedules, banned alcoholic beverages from ball parks, and worked to eliminate gambling on games.

In 1877, when the Louisville club began to fritter away a 3-1/2 game lead in August, Hulbert supported an investigation that uncovered evidence of game-fixing. Four players were banned for life. When Hulbert died in 1882, he left a league firmly established.

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