Baseball is for everyone: what you need to know about America’s premier sport

Baseball History

It is known that baseball appeared in the United States in the early XIX century, and the first official match was held in New York in 1820. Today, baseball is played in more than 120 countries around the world. The game was listed as an Olympic sport, then dropped after the Beijing Olympics as not popular enough among most IOC member countries, but baseball could be back on the list of Olympic sports in time for the 2020 Olympics.

Rules

Each game involves two teams taking turns playing offense and defense.

They play with a ball the size of a fist, which is covered with white leather with red stitching and weighs no more than 150g.

The object of the game is to score more points (runs) than the opposing team. A point is scored if a player on the offensive team takes turns running all the bases (they are square pads attached to the ground) in the infield.

The game centers on the pitcher’s (thrower) and batter’s (batter) duels.

A pitcher is the person who throws the ball. His team is defensive, and the better he is at throwing and knocking opponents out of the game with “outs,” the quicker his team will transition to offense.

The pitcher must hit the ball into a strictly limited rectangle, the so-called “strike zone” (it is above the “home plate”, above the batter’s knee but below his chest). There’s a special judge overseeing it. The pitcher’s task is to leave the batter out.

A strike is a lucky shot.

If the ball goes in the “strike zone” and the batter fails to hit it or ignores it, the umpire calls a strike. If the ball goes outside the “strike zone” and the batter doesn’t hit it with the bat, it’s a strike again.

A batter (or batter) is a person who bats the ball with a bat. His team is on offense and trying to score points. With the ball out, the batter throws the bat and runs around the perimeter of the square. Once he reaches 1st base, he becomes a runner (runner). And now the batter becomes his teammate, and the ex-batter as a runner trying to get from 1st base to 2nd base, then to 3rd base and then back “home”.

There’s a catcher with a trap sitting behind the batters back. It’s a man from the same team as the pitcher. His job is to catch the ball thrown by the pitcher if it is not picked off by the opposing batter.

Other players on defense either guard their base (three men on each base and a shortstop between 2nd and 3rd base) or catch the ball in the infield (three men).

There are many different ways a defensive team can take an offensive player to the sidelines. Here are five of the most popular ways:

Strikeout: The batter was unable to earn the right to run to first base as the pitcher had three strikeouts in one series of innings pitched.

Groundout: The batter fielded the ball, but a defensive player picked it up and threw it to a player standing on 1st base before the batter could touch it.

Force Out: The offensive player should have run to a base (by rule), but the defensive player got on that base with the ball in his hand before he could do so. Groundout is one of many variations of a force-out.

Fly-out: A defending player catches the kicked ball before it touches the ground.

“Tag-out”: a defensive player touched the ball to an offensive team runner while the runner was between the bases.

Each game is divided into periods called “innings,” in each of which a team plays offense and defense once per game. Every time three players on the offensive team went for an out, the teams switch places (so there are six outs in each inning – three for each team). A game usually consists of 9 innings. In the event of a tie at the end of the last inning, extra innings shall be ordered. A baseball game cannot end in a tie, and extra innings are scheduled until a winner is determined.

Terms you need to know to play baseball

An out is a situation in which an offensive player in a given inning is taken out of the game.
An outfielder is a defensive player patrolling the outfield: right fielder, center fielder and left fielder.
Umpire – Umpire (in baseball there are 4 umpires, one at each “base” and one at “home”).
Bock – an umpire’s command signifying a pitcher’s error.
Ball – A ball pitched by a pitcher out of the strike zone and not batted away by the batter’s bat.
Grand Slam – a hit in which a team scores 4 points (when there are runners on all four bases).
The double was a hit that resulted in the batter managing to run to second base.
Double play – a play that resulted in the defense earning two outs.
An Inside-the-Park Home Run is a hit in which the ball did not leave the field of play, but the batter managed to run all the bases and return to
home plate, earning a point.
Judged meeting – a meeting finished with the score 9:0 by the referee’s decision as a punishment to the team that grossly violated the rules.
Run – point scored by an offensive player.
A single is a hit that resulted in the batter managing to run to first base.
Safe – a situation that occurs when a runner reaches the base before the ball and takes over the base.
Time – the referee’s command, by which the game is immediately stopped and resumed only after the command “play”.
Triple was a hit that resulted in a runner reaching third base by the batter.
Flyball – A ball kicked high above the field of play and caught by defensive players before it touches the ground.
A foul is a kick that sends the ball over the touchline.
Shortstop is the player between 2nd and 3rd base.
A home run is a hit in which the ball travels all the way around the infield and out of bounds.

7 interesting facts about baseball

Team USA has won the Baseball World Cup only 4 times, while Cuba has won it 25 times.
All balls used for MLB (Major League Baseball) games are wiped down with a specific dirt that only one person knows the location of, and he sells it every game season.
In MLB, all umpires are required to wear only black underwear, per the rules.
During the Battle of the Ardennes, American soldiers used their knowledge of baseball to identify German saboteurs disguised in American uniforms.
Approximately 160,000 balls are used during the MLB season.
There is a version of baseball for the blind that goes by the name “Fan Baseball”. This game has its own World Series, its own Hall of Fame and 27 teams.
In 1996, famous actor Charlie Sheen paid $6,537 for 2,615 tickets to an MLB game to catch a game ball. The actor and three of his friends sat proudly alone on 20 rows, but the coveted ball did not fall into their hands.