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children. Baseball is also played in colleges and universities.
Outstanding college players often go on to play professionally.
Adults also play baseball for fun, sometimes with colleagues from
work, or against a team from a rival company. There are also
organized amateur baseball leagues around the country.
In terms of professional teams, there are two basic divisions,
the major and the minor leagues. The major leagues include the
American and the National Leagues. The season lasts from April
to October and the championship, or World Series, is played
between the champion teams from each league.
The baseball championship is the World Series, even though
the only international teams that play in the American baseball
leagues are Canadian. The basketball championship is the World
Championship, even though, again, the only non-U.S. teams play
in Canada.

FOOTBALL

The game known as football in the United States is not at all
like the game known as football in most other parts of the world.
Originally, it was similar to rugby football, which is where the
name came from. It's played by two teams of eleven players, most
of them very large men, wearing protective equipment that makes
them look even bigger.
Football is played by organized teams in schools, usually
starting in junior high school and high school, where being on a
sports team gives a kid a higher social status. College football is a
popular spectator sport and a huge source of income for colleges
and universities, due to sponsorship deals and TV broadcasting
revenues. The college football season ends around New Year's
Day with bowl games played by the best teams from around the
country.
Professional football is played by the teams of the National
Football League (NFL) in a season that runs from late summer to
January. The championship is called the Super Bowl.
While rugby is sometimes played in the United States, it is
probably the only former British colony where cricket has made no
impact whatsoever. Americans have baseball, after all.