Baseball
... Texas Rangers. The AL expanded to 14 teams for the 1977 season with the Seattle Mariners and the Toronto Blue Jays. For the 1993 season the NL added teams in Denver and Miami--the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins. Two changes affected major league play. A number of stadiums replaced grass with artificial turf, which probably benefits hitters. In 1973 AL teams began using a designated hitter to bat for the pitcher, usually the team's weakest hitter. The historical 1972 player walkout for pension increases delayed opening day until mid-April. A strike that lasted for seven weeks in mid-1981 resulted from a player-management dispute over compensation for athletes who switch teams as free agents. There was a 22-day owners' lockout in 1976, and a similar lockout in 1990 delayed spring training for 32 days. Baseball was shaken by its first major scandal when eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of accepting bribes to intentionally lose the 1919 World Series to Cincinnati. All eight, including the legendary Shoeless Joe Jackson, were later banned from the game for life. In 1989 another baseball idol, Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds, received a lifetime suspension for gambling (See Rose, Pete). ...