Baseball is America’s national pastime. It’s a sport with a deep tradition, and it became an important unifier in the wake of our country’s darkest days.
The basic rules of the game are simple: a field contains four bases and nine players on each team. The teams take turns batting and fielding. The batters try to score runs by putting the ball in play and safely running around all four bases. The defense tries to prevent this by recording outs. The team that has more outs at the end of nine innings is declared the winner.
Each time the batter comes up to bat, the umpire will throw a pitch at him. If the pitch is in the strike zone, the batter gets a strike. If the pitch is outside the strike zone or isn’t in the strike zone at all, the batter gets a ball. The batter can get a maximum of three strikes during an at-bat. If he gets three strikes, the inning ends and the other team takes over to bat.
If a player hits a fair ball over the fence, they have hit a home run and have scored a run for their team. A team can only have one runner on each base at any given moment, and only the first runner can reach home. The other runners must wait until a teammate hits the ball over the fence and onto the bases, or until they get tagged out by the fielding team.
A force out happens when the fielding team throws the ball to a base that a runner is trying to reach, and that runner gets to the base before the fielder catches it. A double play is when two force outs are made on the same play, and a triple play occurs rarely.
Baseball is a game of skill and strategy, and understanding the positions on a baseball team helps you understand not just how the game is played but why it is played that way. The position chart is like baseball’s chessboard, and knowing the different roles can help you appreciate what the players are doing on the field.
There are eight fielding positions on the defensive side of the ball and a pitcher. A player who is good at playing multiple positions is referred to as a utility player, and someone who can pitch is called a Closer. The starting pitcher usually pitches for the first half of the inning, and when he finishes the game, he is said to have pitched a Complete Game. In some games, the starter may be replaced by a relief pitcher. Then the other team’s starting pitcher will start the second half of the inning. This process continues until both teams have a full roster of outs, or until the tenth or eleventh inning is played and the game is tied. At this point, a tie game is decided by extra innings.