Baseball

This article is about the game of baseball. For other uses, see Baseball (disambiguation)

A professional baseball game at Busch Memorial Stadium, St. Louis, Missouri.

Baseball is an outdoor sport played between two teams of nine players each, with the object of the game for the offensive player to hit the ball with a wooden bat in such a manner as to allow that player to successfully touch each base on a running circuit and scoring a point at the run's completion at home plate. Extremely popular within the United States, Japan, and Latin America, baseball is played everywhere from neighborhood sandlots and city streets to its culmination in a best-of-seven championship World Series between two professional teams of the American and National Leagues of Major League Baseball.

Baseball has been intertwined within American life and culture like no other sport has. It has given us record-setting heroes, many of which are still talked about over a century later. It has given rise to movies, songs, books, magazines, and a lexicon of words and phrases which are part of everyday life.

Description

Diagram of a baseball field

Baseball is played on a field which is roughly diamond-shaped, with the wide end serving as the outfield. The infield consists of a square, each side of the square 90 feet long. The narrow end of the square is the point furthest from the outfield fence at center field, which can be anywhere from 250 to 400 feet away; this point on the square serves as home plate. The remaining corners serves as first, second, and third bases, running counterclockwise from home plate. Within the center of the square - 60 feet, 6 inches away - is the pitcher's mound.

Baseball is one of the very few sports in which the defense controls the ball. All nine defensive players are on the field during play: three in the outfield (left, center, and right fields); four in the infield (first, second, and third basemen, and shortstop); the catcher behind home plate, and the pitcher on the mound. The single offensive player takes his place within a batter's box on either side of home plate, and with a bat attempts to hit the ball thrown to him by the pitcher into "fair" territory such that it is not caught in the air and gives the batter time to run to a base. The offense strives to advance these baserunners until they circle the three infield bases in order and get back to home plate, resulting in the scoring of a run. The only offensive players on the field at any other time besides the batter are those who successfully made it onto one of the three bases.

A baseball game is divided into nine innings; each inning consists of both teams having their turns at bat. A "strike" is called when the batter swings and misses a fairly-thrown ball; three strikes results in an "out", which in its basic description means the failure of the batter to reach base. Three outs ends that team's attempt during the inning, and they must go to the field for defense. The game is over when one team has a greater score than the other at the end of the ninth inning; if the game is tied after nine innings, additional innings are played until there is a winner.

Equipment

A well-used baseball

The baseball itself is 9-9.25 inches in circumference, and weighs between 5-5.25 oz. The core is made of rubber and cork, wound tightly with woolen yarn, and sealed with a two-piece leather casing closed off with 108 double-stitches in waxed red thread^[1].

The bat is made of wood - primarily ash - and is up to 2.75 inches thick at the striking end, and up to 42 inches long. At one time in professional games aluminum bats were used; they have since been removed, and are sometimes used during amateur games. In a version of baseball known as "stickball" played by kids in some inner cities, the bat consists of little more than a broom handle.

Defensive players wear a baseball glove, or mitt. Made of leather, seven players wear a version with looks like an over-sized hand with the fingers sewn together, and a basket of leather between the first finger and thumb. Fingerless, rounded versions are worn by the first baseman and catcher; the catcher's mitt having the addition of heavy padding within the glove. That, plus the chest and knee protectors, and steel face mask, ensures the catcher has protection against the pitcher's fastball, which can be in excess of 90 miles per hour.

History

In 1905 a commission was created to determine baseball's origins. Named for a former colonel in the Civil War, the Mill's Commission ultimately centered on the testimony of a mining engineer from Denver, Colorado named Abner Graves, who claimed he was with Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York in 1839, when Doubleday wrote the rules to the game; his testimony, plus the discovery of several artifacts nearby, helped to establish in the committee's - and public's - mind that the game had originated in Cooperstown^[2].

This particular story of baseball's origins is completely false, despite the romance of the Doubleday tradition. He was never involved with baseball at all, and probably never observed a game being played. In 1839, Doubleday - rather than being at a school in Cooperstown - was a cadet at West Point, and would graduate in 1842; he would see distinguished service during the Civil War. And even though the report was flawed, the Mill's Commission would discover that baseball had its roots in other bat-and-ball games earlier than in the nineteenth century^[3].

Two games stand out as being the forebears of baseball, and both British in origins. In the game of rounders, a ball is tossed to a batter wielding a 12-inch bat, who must round and touch several bases in order to score. As in baseball, rounders is played with nine players on a field, and the game is divided into innings. Originating in Tudor times and played principally by school-age boys, rounders has the distinction of bearing the first direct reference to the title of "base-ball" in 1744, from the pages of publisher John Newbery's Little Pretty Pocket-Book^[4].

The other, somewhat older game is cricket, a game played on a short field in which the pitcher (called a "bowler" in this game) attempts to dismiss a batter ("batsman"); unlike baseball the game involves the bowler attempting to knock over a set of wooden pegs ("wicket") behind the batsman. Like baseball, cricket play involves runs and outs.

Modern Baseball

The game of baseball is now played the world over. In North America, the primary governing body at the professional level is Major League Baseball, which consists of thirty clubs. Major League Baseball is divided into two groups; The American League and The National League. Every year, all of the MLB clubs from each league battle to earn a place in the World Series, the pinnacle of the sport. To date the New York Yankees of the American League have won the most World Series titles with 26 followed by the St. Louis Cardinals of the National League with 10 wins. College baseball in the United States is governed primarily by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

In Japan, professional baseball is primarily governed by Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). There are a total of 12 teams. The association is divided into two leagues of six teams each, the Central League and the Pacific League. With 21 overall titles since the league's inception, the Yomiuri Giants have been the most successful Japanese club since the NPB's beginnings in 1958.^[5]

Miscellaneous

The baseball as we know it—or at least the familiar "figure-eight" stitched cover—was invented in the 1840s by Ellis Drake of Stoughton, Massachusetts.^[6]

The umpire's hand signals for "strike" and "out" were invented by deaf baseball player William "Dummy" Hoy (1861-1961)^[7]

References and notes

External links

The Official Site of Major League Baseball
Minor League Baseball
BASEBALL HISTORY Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association.
Stats
Hall of Fame National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc.

Baseball

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