A team game played on a wedge-shaped field, with a diamond-shaped infield (the diamond), by two sides of players with a bat and ball. One team, on offence or at bat, tries to score the most runs by having their players circle the bases before they are put out by the other team which is in the field. An out is made when the batter fails to hit a legally pitched ball on three successive occasions (a strikeout, see below), or when the fielding team catches a batted ball before it touches the ground, tags a member of the offensive team between the bases, or touches a base before an offensive player reaches that base. The defensive team is aided in stopping the offensive team by fielding batted balls with an oversized glove or mitt. Each game is made up of nine innings unless the score is tied, in which case the game is extended into extra innings until one team outscores the other in a particular inning. Each inning is divided into two parts - the top and bottom. The visiting team always bats first (the top) and the home team always bats last (the bottom). Each team at bat is allowed three outs in its half inning.
The major confrontation of the game centres on the pitcher and batter. The pitcher hurls the ball (at upwards of 145 kph/90 mph) towards the batter, who stands alongside the home plate poised to strike the ball. If the batter swings at the ball and fails to hit it, or if the pitcher throws the ball into a designated strike zone without the batter swinging at the ball, a strike is called. Three strikes causes a batter to be declared out. Conversely, if the pitcher fails to throw the ball into the strike zone and the batter does not swing, a ball is called. Four balls allow the batter to take first base. The home plate umpire, who stands behind the catcher, determines if the ball is within the strike zone (which comprises the area over home plate extending from the midway point between the top of the batter's shoulders to the top of his pants, down to the top of his knees). If the batter slices the ball outside the foul lines, the umpire call a ball. If the batter strikes the ball beyond the playing area's limits (within the foul lines), or if he circles the bases before being put out, he has hit a home run (or homer).
Baseball is called the national pastime in the USA. Professional teams usually consist of 25 players. The Major League of North America is divided into the American League and National League, each consisting of an Eastern, Western, and (since 1994) Central division. In the National League 9 players can participate at one time for each team, while in the American League 10 take part because that league employs the designated hitter rule allowing a team to replace the pitcher in its batting order with a player who bats but does not play the field. The culmination of the season, which runs from April through October, is a best-of-seven game World Series between the champions of each league.
The origins of the game are unclear. The person most widely cited as the game's inventor is a West Point cadet, Abner Doubleday, who in 1839 laid out a diamond at Cooperstown, NY, where the modern day Baseball Hall of Fame stands. However, there is evidence that the game was played much earlier, and gradually evolved into its present form. The first formal set of baseball rules were drawn up by Alexander Cartwright in 1845. Baseball is becoming increasingly popular in Japan and Latin America, and in 1992 a Canadian team (the Toronto Blue Jays) won the World Series for the first time.
For other uses, see Baseball (disambiguation).Baseball is a sport played between two teams usually of nine players each. It is a bat-and-ball game in which a pitcher throws (pitches) a hard, fist-sized, leather-covered ball toward a batter on the opposing team. The batter attempts to hit the baseball with a tapered cylindrical bat, made of wood (as required in professional baseball) or a variety of other materials (as allowed in many nonprofessional games). A team scores runs only when batting, by advancing its players—primarily via hits—counterclockwise past a series of four markers called bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or "diamond." In each inning, both teams are given the opportunity to bat and score runs;
Baseball on both the professional and amateur levels is popular in North America, Central America, parts of South America, the Caribbean, and East Asia. By the late nineteenth century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States.
History of baseball
Origins of baseball
The distinct evolution of baseball from among the various bat-and-ball games is difficult to trace with precision. While there has been general agreement that modern baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, the 2005 book Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game, by David Block, argues against that notion. The earliest known American reference to the game was published in a 1791 Pittsfield, Massachusetts, statute that prohibited the playing of baseball within 80 yards of the town's new meeting house.
The first full documentation of a baseball game in North America is Dr. Adam Ford's contemporary description of a game that took place in 1838 on June 4 (Militia Muster Day) in Beachville, Ontario; Canada was a hotbed of early baseball development and the sport grew quickly on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border, with strong players and teams in both countries. While there are reports of Cartwright's club, the New York Knickerbockers, playing games in 1845, the game now recognized as the first in U.S. history to be officially recorded took place on June 19, 1846, in Hoboken, New Jersey, with the "New York Nine" defeating the Knickerbockers, 23–1, in four innings.
History of baseball in the United States
Semiprofessional baseball started in the United States in the 1860s; in 1869, the first fully professional baseball club, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was formed and went undefeated against a schedule of semipro and amateur teams. By the following decade, American newspapers were referring to baseball as the "National Pastime" or "National Game."
Compared with the present day, games in the early part of the 20th century were lower scoring and pitchers were more successful. This period, which has since become known as the "dead-ball era", ended in the 1920s with several rule changes that gave advantages to hitters and the rise of the legendary baseball player Babe Ruth, who showed the world what power hitting could produce and thus changed the nature of the game. An injury ended Walker's major league career, and by the early 1890s, a "gentlemen's agreement" in the form of the baseball color line effectively barred African-American players from the majors and their affiliated minor leagues, resulting in the formation of several Negro Leagues. Finally, in 1947, Major League Baseball's color barrier was broken when Robinson debuted with the Dodgers. Although the transformation was not instantaneous, baseball has since become fully integrated.
Major league baseball finally made it to the West Coast of the United States in 1958, when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants relocated to Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively.
Pitchers dominated the game in the 1960s and early 1970s. The American League adopted this rule in 1973, though pitchers still bat for themselves in the National League to this day.
Despite the popularity of baseball, and the attendant high salaries relative to those of average Americans, the players have become dissatisfied from time to time, as they believed the owners had too much control. But the strict rules of baseball contracts tended to keep the players "in line" in general.
This began to change in the 1960s when former United Steelworkers president Marvin Miller became the Baseball Players Union president. The so-called 1994 baseball strike (which was technically a a lockout) led to the cancellation of the World Series, and was not settled until the spring of 1995.
Professional baseball leagues began to form in countries outside of America in the 1920s and 1930s, including the Netherlands (formed in 1922), Japan (1936), and Australia (1934). Today, Venezuela (1945), the whole of Europe (1953), Italy (1948), Korea (1982), Taiwan (1990), and mainland China (2003) all have professional leagues as well (however, the leagues in Australia, Italy and the United Kingdom have generally had a niche appeal compared to the leagues in Asia and Venezuela and only now is the sport beginning to broaden in scope in those nations, most notably in Australia, who won a surprise silver medal in the 2004 Olympic Games). Canada has a franchise in Major League Baseball as well. Competition between national teams, such as in the World Cup of Baseball and the Olympic baseball tournament, has been administered by the International Baseball Federation since its formation in 1938. The new World Baseball Classic, first held in March 2006, seems likely to have a much higher profile than previous tournaments, owing to the participation for the first time of a significant number of players from the United States Major Leagues.
The 117th meeting of the International Olympic Committee, held in Singapore in July 2005, voted not to hold baseball and softball tournaments at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, but they will remain Olympic sports during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games and will be put to vote again for each succeeding Summer Olympics. The elimination of baseball and softball from the 2012 Olympic program enabled the IOC to consider adding two other sports to the program instead, but no other sport received a majority of votes favoring its inclusion. While baseball's lack of major appeal in a significant portion of the world was a factor, a more important factor was the unwillingness of Major League Baseball to have a break during the Games so that its players could participate, something that the National Hockey League now does during the Winter Olympic Games. Because of the seasonal nature of baseball and the high priority baseball fans place on the integrity of major-league statistics from one season to the next, however, it would be more difficult to accommodate such a break in MLB.
Gameplay
A simplified version of the rules of baseball is at simplified baseball rules. The complete Official Rules can be found at www.mlb.com, the official web site of Major League Baseball in the United States.
General structure
Baseball is played between two teams of nine players each on a baseball field, under the authority of one or more officials, called umpires.
The game is played in nine innings (although it can be played with fewer, such as it is in little league games) in which each team gets one turn to bat and try to score runs while the other pitches and defends in the field. An inning is broken up into two halves in which the away team bats in the top (first) half, and the home team bats in the bottom (second) half. In baseball, the defense always has the ball — a fact that differentiates it from most other team sports. The teams switch every time the defending team gets three players of the batting team out. The batter stands in one of the batter's boxes and tries to hit the ball with a bat. The pitcher must keep one foot in contact with the top or front of the pitcher's rubber—a 24" x 6" (~ 61 cm x 15 cm) plate located atop the pitcher's mound—during the entire pitch, so he can only take one step backward and one forward in delivering the ball. The catcher's job is to receive any pitches that the batter does not hit and to "call" the game by a series of hand movements that signal to the pitcher what pitch to throw and where. some of the most common are catching a batted ball in the air, tag outs, force outs, and strikeouts. After the fielding team has put out three players from the opposing team, that half of the inning is over and the team in the field and the team at bat switch places;
The goal of the team at bat is to score more runs than the opposition; a player may do so only by batting, then becoming a base runner, touching all the bases in order (via one or more plays), and finally touching home plate. The batter attempts to hit the ball into fair territory—between the baselines—in such a way that the defending players cannot get them or the baserunners out. In general, the pitcher attempts to prevent this by pitching the ball in such a way that the batter cannot hit it cleanly or, ideally, at all. In an enclosed field, a fair ball hit over the fence on the fly is normally an automatic home run, which entitles the batter and all runners to touch all the bases and score.
Fielding team
See also: Baseball positions and Baseball positioningThe squad in the field is the defensive team; There are nine defensive positions, however, only two of the positions have a mandatory location (pitcher and catcher), the locations of the other seven fielders is not specified by the rules, except that at the moment the pitch is delivered they must be positioned in fair territory and not in the space between the pitcher and the catcher. These are the two fielders who always deal directly with the batter on every pitch, hence the term "battery", coined by Henry Chadwick and later reinforced by the implied comparison to artillery fire.
The pitcher's main role is to pitch the ball toward home plate with the goal of getting the batter out. Pitchers also play defense by fielding batted balls, covering bases (for a potential tag out or force out on an approaching runner), or backing up throws. The catcher's main role is to receive the pitch if the batter does not hit it. Together with the pitcher and coaches, the catcher plots game strategy by suggesting different pitches and by shifting the starting positions of the other fielders. Originally the first, second and third basemen played very near their respective bases, and the shortstop generally played "in" (hence the term), covering the area between second, third, and the pitchers box, or wherever the game situation required. As the game evolved, the fielding positions changed to the now-familiar "umbrella", with the first and third baseman generally positioned a short distance toward second base from their bases, the second baseman to the right side of second base standing farther away from the base than any other infielder, and the shortstop playing to the left of second base, as seen from the batter's perspective, filling in the gaps.
The first baseman's job consists largely of making force plays at first base on ground balls hit to the other infielders. When an infielder picks up a ball from the ground hit by the batter, he must throw it to the first baseman who must catch the ball and maintain contact with the base before the batter gets to it for the batter to be out. Outfielders also run to back up infielders on batted balls and thrown balls, including pick-off attempts from the pitcher or from the catcher.
Defensive strategy
Pitching
Effective pitching is vitally important to a baseball team, as pitching is the key for the defensive team to retire batters and to preventing runners from getting on base. A full game usually involves over one hundred pitches thrown by each team. With new advances in medical research and thus a better understanding of how the human body functions and tires out, starting pitchers tend more often to throw fractions of a game (typically 6 or 7 innings depending on their performance) about every five days (though a few complete games do still occur each year).
Multiple pitchers are often needed in a single game, including the starting pitcher and relief pitcher(s). Pitchers are substituted for one another like any other player (see below), and the rules do not limit the number of pitchers that can be used in a game; If it then becomes necessary to use a "position player" as a pitcher, major league teams generally have certain players pre-designated as emergency relief pitchers, to avoid the embarrassment of using a less skillful player. In baseball's early years, squads were smaller, and relief pitchers were relatively uncommon, with the starter normally remaining for the entire game unless he was either thoroughly ineffective or became injured; today, with a much greater emphasis on pitch count (100 being the "magic number" in general), over the course of a single game each team will frequently use from two to five pitchers.
To illustrate pitching strategy, consider the "fastball/change-up" combination: The average major-league pitcher can throw a fastball around 90 miles per hour (145 km/h), and a few pitchers have even exceeded 100 miles per hour (161 km/h). Since the batter's timing is critical to hitting a pitch, a batter swinging to hit what looks like a fastball, would be terribly fooled (swing and miss, hopefully) when the pitch turns out to be a much slower change-up. True underhanded pitching is permitted in Major League Baseball.
Fielding strategy
Only the pitcher's and catcher's locations are fixed, and then only at the beginning of each pitch. Circumstances such as the number of outs, the count (balls and strikes) on the batter, the number and speed of runners, the ability of the fielders, the ability of the pitcher, the type of pitch thrown, and the inning cause the fielders move to more strategic locations on the field. Common defensive strategies include: playing for the bunt, trying to prevent a stolen base, moving to a shallow position to throw out a runner at home, playing at "double play depth", and moving fielders to locations where hitters are most likely to hit the ball.
Team at bat
Batters and runners
The ultimate goal of the team at bat is to score runs. To accomplish this feat, the team at bat successively (in a predetermined order called a lineup or batting order) sends its nine players to the batter's box (adjacent to home plate) where they become batters. (Each team sets its batting lineup at the beginning of the game. Changes to the lineup are tightly limited by the rules of baseball and must be communicated to the umpires, who have the substitutions announced for the opposing team and fans. See Substitutions below.)
A batter's turn at the plate is called a plate appearance or an "at-bat." When the batter hits a fair ball, he must run to first base, and may continue or stop at any base unless he is put out. A successful hit occurs when the batter reaches a base: reaching only first base is a single; and a hit that allows the batter to touch all bases in order on the same play is a home run, whether the ball is hit over the fence. Once a runner is held to a base, he may attempt to advance at any time, but is not required to do so unless the batter or another runner displaces him (called a force play). A batter always drops his bat when running the bases— otherwise, the bat would slow him down and could give rise to a call of fielder to catch it on its descent. A batted ball which is not hit into the air, and which touches the ground within the infield before it can be caught, is called a ground ball. When a ball is hit outside the foul line, it is a foul ball, requiring the batter and all runners to return to their respective bases.
Once the batter and any existing runners have all stopped at a base or been put out, the ball is returned to the pitcher, and the next batter comes to the plate. After the opposing team bats in its own order and three more outs are recorded, the first team's batting order will continue again from where it left off.
When a runner reaches home plate, he scores a run and is no longer a base runner.
Batting
Each plate appearance consists of a series of pitches, in which the pitcher throws the ball towards home plate while a batter is standing in the batter's box. With each pitch, the batter must decide whether to swing the bat at the ball in an attempt to hit it. The pitches arrive quickly, so the decision to swing must be made in less than a tenth of a second, based on whether the ball is hittable and in the strike zone, a region defined by the area directly above home plate and between the hollow beneath the batter's knee and the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants. In addition to swinging at the ball, a batter who wishes to put the ball in play may hold his bat over home plate and attempt to tap a pitch lightly;
On any pitch, if the batter swings at the ball and misses, he is charged with a strike.
If the batter swings and makes contact with the ball, but does not put it in play in fair territory—a foul ball—he is charged with an additional strike, except when there are already two strikes. (However, a noted exception to this rule is that a ball bunted foul with two strikes always counts as a strike.) If a pitch is batted foul or fair and a member of the defensive team is able to catch it, before the ball strikes the ground, the batter is declared out. In the event that a bat contacts the ball, but the ball continues sharply and directly to the catcher's mitt and is caught by the catcher, it is a foul tip, which is same as an ordinary strike.
When three strikes occur on a batter, it is a strikeout and the batter is automatically out unless the pitch is not caught by the catcher or if the pitch bounces before it is caught. (This is a violation of the third strike rule.) If the catcher drops the third strike the batter is permitted to attempt to advance to first base. The catcher can try to get the batter out by tagging him with the ball or throwing the ball to first base and forcing him out. (See Doug Eddings/2005 ALCS and Mickey Owen/1941 World Series for famous examples of dropped third strikes that dramatically altered the course of post-season series'.)
On the fourth ball the batter becomes a runner, and is entitled to advance to first base without risk of being put out, called a base on balls or a walk (abbreviated BB). If a pitch touches the batter, the umpire declares a hit by pitch (abbreviated HBP) and the batter is awarded first base, unless the umpire determines that the ball was in the strike zone when it hit the batter, or that the batter did not attempt to avoid being hit. In practice, neither exception is ever called unless the batter obviously tries to get hit by the pitch; If the catcher's mitt, catcher's mask, or any part of the catcher comes in contact with the batter and/or the batter's bat as the batter is attempting to hit a pitch, the batter is awarded first base, ruled "catcher's interference."
Baserunning
Once a batter becomes a runner and reaches first base safely, he is said to be "on" that base until he attempts to advance to the next base, until he is put out, or until the half-inning ends. Runners may attempt to advance from base to base at any time (except when the ball is dead), but must attempt to advance when forced--when all previous bases are occupied and the batter becomes a runner. When a ball is hit in the air, a fly ball, and caught by the defending team, runners must return and touch the base they occupied at the time of the pitch—called tagging up—after the ball is first touched. if two runners are touching a base at once, the trailing runner is in jeopardy and will be out if tagged, unless he was forced--in which case the lead runner is out when tagged for failing to reach his force base.
Baserunners may attempt to advance, or steal a base, while the pitcher is throwing a pitch. The pitcher, in lieu of delivering the pitch, may try to prevent this by throwing the ball to one of the infielders in order to tag the runner; An illegal attempt by the pitcher to deceive a runner, among other pitching violations, is called a balk, allowing the runners to advance one base without risk of being put out.
Another fundamental tenet of the rules of baseball is that a runner originally ruled out can subsequently be ruled safe, but once a runner is ruled safe he cannot be called out on the same play. A runner initially called out can be subsequently ruled safe if the fielder putting the runner out drops the ball (on either a tag or force play), pulls his foot off the base (in the case of a force play), or otherwise illegally obstructs a runner from reaching a base that he otherwise would have reached safely.
Batting and base running strategy
The goal of each batter is to become a base runner himself (by a base hit, a base on balls, being hit by the pitch, a fielding error, or fielder's choice) or to help move other base runners along (by sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly, or hit and run).
Batters attempt to "read" pitchers through pre-game preparation by studying the tendencies of pitchers and by talking to other batters that previously faced the pitcher. While batting, batters attempt to "read" pitches by looking for clues that the pitcher or catcher reveal. The count is considered to be in the batter's favor when there are more balls than strikes (e.g.two balls and no strikes). This puts pressure on the pitcher to throw a strike to avoid a walk so the batter is more likely to get an easier pitch to hit and can look for a particular pitch in a particular zone or take a riskier or bigger swing. This gives the pitcher more freedom to try enticing the batter to swing at a pitch outside the strike zone or throwing a pitch that is harder to control (e.g. A major strategy in batting at competitive levels of baseball is patient hitting. An example of patient hitting is when a batter has a zero strike count the batter will almost always look for his perfect pitch. One strike hitting is very similar to no strike hitting and the batter usually is still looking for a good pitch to hit. Two strike hitting, the strategy is changed where the batter will protect the plate by fouling off pitches until the batter is able to find a pitch to hit. This style of hitting allows the hitter to look for a good pitch to hit and make the pitcher throw more pitches so that the pitcher will tire out faster. This is critical if the batting team is facing a very skilled pitcher who if allowed to will take over the game with his ability to get batters to do what he wants them to do with the pitches that he makes.
In general, base running is a tactical part of the game requiring good judgment by runners (and their coaches) to assess the risk in attempting to advance. Managers will sometimes simultaneously send a runner and require the batter to swing (a hit-and-run play) in an attempt to advance runners. Often, on a hit-and-run play the batter will try to "hit behind the runner" by hitting the ball to right field which makes it more likely that the runner will be able to make it to third base, thus taking an extra base. This can be done by bunting the ball, hitting a fly ball far enough in the air that a baserunner can advance after the catch, or simply making contact with the ball on a hit-and-run play.
During the course of play many offensive and defensive players run close to each other, and during tag plays, the defensive player must touch the offensive player. Although baseball is considered a non-contact sport, a runner may be allowed to make potentially dangerous contact with a fielder as part of an attempt to reach base, unless that fielder is fielding a batted ball. The most common occurrence of contact of this nature is at home plate between the runner and the catcher, as the catcher is well padded and locked into position that completely blocks home plate from the runner, and the runner will often try to knock the ball out of the catchers hand by running him over.
Innings and determining a winner
An inning consists of each team having one turn in the field and one turn to hit, with the visiting team batting before the home team. A standard game lasts nine innings, although some leagues (such as high school baseball and Little League) play fewer. If the home team is trailing or tied in the ninth inning or beyond and they score to take the lead, the game ends as soon as the winning run touches home plate; however, if the last batter hits a home run to win the game, he and any runners on base are all permitted to score.
If both teams have scored the same number of runs at the end of a regular-length game, a tie is avoided by the addition of extra innings. In theory, a baseball game could go on forever; In addition to that rule, a game might theoretically end if both the home and away team were to run out of players to substitute (See Substitutions). In Major League Baseball the longest game played was a 26-inning affair between the Brooklyn Robins and Boston Braves on May 1, 1920.
In Major League Baseball, games end with tie scores only because conditions have made it impossible to continue play. Inclement weather may also shorten games, but at least five innings must be played for the game to be considered official;
In Japanese baseball, if the score remains tied after nine innings, up to three extra innings may be played before the game is called a tie. Some youth or amateur leagues will end a game early if one team is ahead by ten or more runs, a practice known as the "mercy rule" or "slaughter rule". A batter who replaces another batter is referred to as a pinch hitter;
It is common for a pitcher to pitch for several innings and then be removed in favor of a relief pitcher.
Many amateur leagues allow a starting player who was removed to return to the game in the same position in the batting order under a re-entry rule.
A few leagues, notably Major League Baseball's American League, allow a designated hitter, a player whose sole purpose is to hit when it would normally be the pitcher's turn. A designated hitter does not play in the field on defense and may remain in the game regardless of changes in pitchers. Many baseball traditionalists consider having a designated hitter to be a unequal way to play, as the designated hitter does not field a position.
Rosters
The number of players on a Major League roster is dictated by the labor agreements worked out between players and management. According to Major League Baseball, a team may have a maximum of 25 men on a roster from Opening Day until August 31.
Other personnel
Any baseball game involves one or more umpires, who make rulings on the outcome of each play. In Major League Baseball, four umpires are used for each game, one near each base.
Baseball's unique style
Baseball is unique among American sports in several ways. Many people believe that baseball is the ultimate combination of skill, timing, athleticism, and strategy. Yogi Berra (a Hall of Fame baseball player) once said, "Baseball is 90% mental—the other half is physical." Although these elements all contribute to baseball's appeal in American culture, they are also shared by its cousin game cricket.
The lure of baseball is in its subtleties: situational defense, pitch location, pitch sequence, statistics, ball parks, history, and player personalities. It's been noted that the game itself has no time limit, and its playing surface, rather than rigidly rectangular and standardized, extends theoretically to eternity from a single point (home plate) to beyond its own fences (if only a batter could hit a ball hard enough to break the escape velocity of Earth). Therefore, a full appreciation of baseball naturally requires some knowledge of the rules;
Time element
Basketball, ice hockey, American football, and soccer all use a clock, and games often end by a team killing the clock rather than competing directly against the opposing team.
In recent decades, observers have criticized professional baseball for the length of its games, with some justification as the time required to play a baseball game has increased steadily through the years. in 2004, the average major league baseball game lasted 2 hours and 47 minutes.
In response, Major League Baseball has instructed umpires to be stricter in enforcing speed-up rules and the size of the strike zone.
Individual and team
Baseball is fundamentally a team sport—even two or three Hall of Fame-caliber players are no guarantee of a pennant—yet it places individual players under great pressure and scrutiny. While their respective managers and/or coaches can sometimes signal players regarding the strategies the manager wants to employ, no one can help the pitcher while he pitches or the hitter while he bats. If the batter hits a line drive, the outfielder, as the last line of defense, makes the lone decision to try to catch it or play it on the bounce. Baseball's history is full of heroes and goats—men who in the heat of the moment (the "clutch") distinguished themselves with a timely hit or catch, or an untimely strikeout or error.
The uniqueness of each baseball park
Unlike the majority of sports, baseball parks do not have to follow a strict set of guidelines. This rule (a footnote to official rule 1.04) was passed specifically in response to the fence at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which was not originally designed for baseball, and thus was only 251 feet (77 m) to the left field pole (1 foot (0.3 m) over the bare minimum required by the rules). All of these factors, as well as local variations in altitude, climate and game scheduling, can affect the nature of the games played at those ballparks, and a park may be referred to as either a "pitcher's park" or a "hitter's park", depending on which side benefits more from the unique factors present. Anytime the wind blows in, it causes drag on the baseball leading to more fly ball outs.
Statistics
As with many sports, and perhaps even more so, statistics are very important to baseball. General managers, baseball scouts, managers, and players alike study player statistics to help them choose various strategies to best help their team.
Traditionally, statistics like batting average for batters—the number of hits divided by the number of at bats—and earned run average—approximately the number of runs given up by a pitcher per nine innings—have governed the statistical world of baseball.
Some sabermetrics have entered the mainstream baseball statistic world. It combines the hitter's on base percentage—hits plus walks plus hit by pitches divided by at bats plus bases on balls plus hit by pitches plus sacrifice flies—with their slugging percentage—total bases divided by at bats.
Popularity
Baseball is most popular in East Asia and the Americas, although in South America its popularity is mainly limited to the northern portion of the continent. The United States is the birthplace of baseball, where it has long been regarded as more than just a "major sport"; for many decades, it has been popularly referred to as the "national pastime" and Major League Baseball has been given a unique monopoly status by the United States Congress. Although the three most popular professional team sports in the United States are ball games—baseball, basketball and American football—baseball's historical popularity was so great that even today the word "ballgame" in the United States almost always refers to a game of baseball (except in the South, where the word is also used in association with football), and "ballpark" invariably refers to a baseball field.
Baseball has often been a barometer of the fabled American "melting pot", as immigrants from different regions have tried to "make good" in various areas including sports. In the 19th century, baseball was populated with many players of Irish or German extraction.
While baseball is perhaps the most popular sport in the United States and is certainly one of the two most popular along with football, it is difficult to determine which is more popular because of the wide discrepancy in number of games per season. For example, the total attendance for major league games is roughly equal to that of all other American professional team sports combined,but football gets higher television ratings, both a function in part of the long (162-game) baseball season and short (16-game) football season. According to Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig both revenue and attendance are currently higher than at any previous point in the history of the game.
Organized leagues
Baseball is played at a number of levels, by amateur and professionals, and by the young and the old. Youth programs use modified versions of adult and professional baseball rules, which may include a smaller field, easier pitching (from a coach, a tee, or a machine), less contact, base running restrictions, limitations on innings a pitcher can throw, liberal balk rules, and run limitations, among others.
Following is a list of organized leagues:
Youth Leagues Little League Pony Baseball, a youth program, headquartered in Washington, Pennsylvania (USA). American Legion Baseball, a youth program, headquartered in Indianapolis, IN. High School In the USA, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) and each state association governs the play of baseball at the high school level. Collegiate Level NCAA, including NCAA Division I and the College World Series NAIA, including the NAIA Baseball World Series List of Collegiate Summer Baseball Leagues National Club Baseball Association (NCBA) International Competition Many international baseball events are coordinated by the International Baseball Federation, including The World Cup and The World Baseball Classic. As an Olympic sport, see earlier section on the status of baseball in the Olympic games, and the article "Baseball at the Summer Olympics." Semi-professional baseball National Semi-Pro Baseball Association Professional baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada; Minor League baseball in the United States and Canada; Independent Baseball Negro League baseball, defunct since 1958, in the United States. All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Greek Baseball British Baseball Federation Irish Baseball Mexican Baseball Nicaraguan Professional Baseball League Japanese Baseball China Baseball Association Taiwan professional baseball Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) Australian Baseball Israel Baseball League There are also smaller professional leagues in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and many others.Culture
| English language idioms derived from baseball Ceremonial first pitch List of baseball jargon "Casey at the Bat" "Curse of the Bambino" "Curse of the billy goat" | "Who's on First?" Rawlings (company) Baseball superstition Baseball card Baseball movie Fantasy baseball Cuban Baseball Baseball Metaphor |
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