Statistics play an important role in summarizing baseball performance an evaluating players in the sport. Since the flow of baseball has natural breaks to it, the game lends itself to easy record keeping and statistics. This makes comparisons between players' on field performance relatively easy, and therefore gives statistics more importance in baseball than in most other sports. Statistics have been kept for professional baseball since the creation of each league. Many statistics are also available from outside of Major League Baseball, from leagues such as the National Association and the Negro Leagues.