Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team (the batting team) take turns hitting against the pitcher of the other team (the fielding team), which tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the batting team can stop at any of the bases and later advance via a teammate's hit or other means. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team records three outs. One turn at bat for each team constitutes an inning; nine innings make up a professional game. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins. Evolving from older bat-and-ball games, an early form of baseball was being played in England by the mid-eighteenth century. This game and the related rounders were brought by British and Irish immigrants to North America, where the modern version of baseball developed. By the late nineteenth century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball on the professional, amateur, and youth levels is now popular in North America, parts of Central and South America and the Caribbean, and parts of East Asia. The game is sometimes referred to as hardball, in contrast to the derivative game of softball. In North America, professional Major League Baseball (MLB) teams are divided into the National League (NL) and American League (AL). Each league has three divisions: East, West, and Central. Every year, the major league champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series. Four teams make the playoffs from each league: the three regular season division winners, plus one wild card team. Baseball is the leading team sport in both Japan and Cuba, and the top level of play is similarly split between two leagues: Japan's Central League and Pacific League; Cuba's West League and East League. In the National and Central leagues, the pitcher is required to bat, per the traditional rules. In the American, Pacific, and both Cuban leagues, there is a tenth player, a designated hitter, who bats for the pitcher. Each top-level team has a farm system of one or more minor league teams. These teams allow younger players to develop as they gain on-field experience against opponents with similar levels of skill.

Strategy and tactics

Many of the pre-game and in-game strategic decisions in baseball revolve around a fundamental fact: in general, right-handed batters tend to be more successful against left-handed pitchers and, to an even greater degree, left-handed batters tend to be more successful against right-handed pitchers.[97] A manager with several left-handed batters in the regular lineup who knows the team will be facing a left-handed starting pitcher may respond by starting one or more of the right-handed backups on the team's roster. During the late innings of a game, as relief pitchers and pinch hitters are brought in, the opposing managers will often go back and forth trying to create favorable matchups with their substitutions: the manager of the fielding team trying to arrange same-handed pitcher-batter matchups, the manager of the batting team trying to arrange opposite-handed matchups. With a team that has the lead in the late innings, a manager may remove a starting position player—especially one whose turn at bat is not likely to come up again—for a more skillful fielder.

Pitching and fielding tactics

The tactical decision that precedes almost every play in a baseball game involves pitch selection. Among the wide variety of pitches that may be thrown, the four basic types are the fastball, the changeup (or off-speed pitch), and two breaking balls—the curveball and the slider.[99] Pitchers have different repertoires of pitches they are skillful at throwing. Conventionally, before each pitch, the catcher signals the pitcher what type of pitch to throw, as well as its general vertical and/or horizontal location.[100] If there is disagreement on the selection, the pitcher may shake off the sign and the catcher will call for a different pitch. With a runner on base and taking a lead, the pitcher may attempt a pickoff, a quick throw to a fielder covering the base to keep the runner's lead in check or, optimally, effect a tag out. If an attempted stolen base is anticipated, the catcher may call for a pitchout, a ball thrown deliberately off the plate, allowing the catcher to catch it while standing and throw quickly to a base.[101] Facing a batter with a strong tendency to hit to one side of the field, the fielding team may employ a shift, with most or all of the fielders moving to the left or right of their usual positions. With a runner on third base, the infielders may play in, moving closer to home plate to improve the odds of throwing out the runner on a ground ball, though a sharply hit grounder is more likely to carry through a drawn-in infield.

Equipments:Baseball bat

In professional baseball, only wooden bats are permitted. They are not allowed to be hollowed or corked — that is, filled with an alien substance such as cork which reduces the weight. This corking is thought to increase bat speed without greatly reducing hitting power; but this idea was "busted" on MythBusters; see Mythbusters, season 5 (Corked Bat). In amateur baseball, both wooden and metal alloy bats are generally permitted. Recently there have been increasing numbers of "wooden bat leagues" and the trend back to wood seems to be accelerating due to safety concerns regarding the speed of a batted ball hit directly toward the pitcher's head. Metal (generally aluminum) alloy bats are generally regarded as being capable of hitting a ball faster and farther than wooden bats swung with the same power. Some amateur baseball organizations enforce bat manufacturing and testing standards which attempt to limit maximum ball speed for wood and non-wood bats.[2][3][4] Aesthetically, wooden bats are generally agreed to be superior to metal bats, both because of their more traditional appearance and because a ball hit with a wooden bat makes a loud "crack" sound, while metal alloy bats have a "ping" sound. Most wooden bats are made from ash. Other natural materials used include maple tree wood, hickory wood, and bamboo. Hickory has fallen into disfavor because it is much heavier than other woods, while maple bats have become more popular recently. This ascent in popularity followed the introduction of the first major league sanctioned maple baseball bat in 1997, by craftsman Sam Holman, founder of Sam Bat. The first player to use it was Joe Carter of the Toronto Blue Jays.[5] Barry Bonds used the bats the season that he broke Mark McGwire's single-season home run record in 2001 and Hank Aaron's career home run record in 2007.[5] Recently, Major League Baseball has debated whether maple bats are safe to use, due to the tendency for them to shatter.

Baseball glove

The shape and size of a glove is described by its "pattern". Modern gloves have become quite specialized, with position-specific patterns:

* Catcher's mitts are called "mitts" because they lack individual fingers, like mittens. They have extra padding and a hinged, claw-like shape that helps them to catch 90+-mile-per-hour fastballs, and provide a good target for pitchers. If required to catch a knuckleball, a catcher will typically use an even larger mitt. Sizes of catcher's mitts, unlike those of other gloves, are measured around the circumference, and they typically have 32- to 34-inch patterns.

* First basemen's mitts also lack individual fingers. They are generally very long and wide to help them "pick or scoop" badly thrown balls from infielders. These mitts usually have 12.5- to 12.75-inch patterns, measured from wrist to the tip. Note that, because first basemen are often left-handed, first basemen's mitts are readily available to fit on a right hand. Hank Greenberg is often credited as the first to wear this style of glove in the field.[4]

* Infielders' gloves, unlike the first baseman's mitt, tend to be smaller. They have shallow pockets to allow fielders to remove the ball easily in order to make a quick throw to a base. Often the webbing will be open to allow dirt to move through the glove so that the infielder does not pull out a handful of dirt when trying to remove the ball from the glove. Infielder's gloves typically have 11- to 12-inch patterns, measured from the wrist to the tip.

* Pitchers' gloves usually have a closed, opaque, webbing to allow pitchers to conceal their grip on the ball (which, in part, determines the behavior of the pitch in flight) from the batter. * Outfielder's gloves are usually quite long with deep pockets, to help with catching fly balls on the run or in a dive, and to keep outfielders from having to bend down as far to field a ground ball. These gloves typically have 12- to 12.75-inch patterns, measured from wrist to the tip. They are frequently worn-in differently than those of infielders, with a flatter squeeze rather than the infielder's rounded style.

* Switch-thrower's gloves are gloves with a second thumb pocket on the opposite side of the glove to allow it to be worn on either side of the hand, as used by switch-pitcher Pat Venditte.