Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball are the highest levels of baseball in the United States and Japan, respectively. Major League Baseball (MLB) started in 1876, whilst Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) was not formed until 1950, following reorganisation of the Japanese Baseball League, which had been in existence since 1936. Though ostensibly the same game, baseball, is played in both MLB and NPB there are a number of differences between the game in the two regimes.