Baseball is known as "America's national pastime", and has been played for more than 150 years now, thanks to a West Point Cadet by the name of Abner Doubleday who is credited with having invented the game in the year of 1839.


To understand baseball, you must first know the basics of how the game is played. The game is played on a baseball field or diamond. There is the home plate, where each batter stands when it is their turn at bat, the first base, second base, and third base. There are two teams which consist of nine players each. The player's positions are the pitcher, the catcher, the first baseman, the second baseman, the third baseman, the shortstop, the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder, when tha t team is playing on the field. When one team is on the field, the other team takes turns among its members, at batting the ball. The object of the game is to score runs or keep the other team from scoring runs. Runs are scored by the batter hitting the ball any place inside the foul lines and then running to first, second, and third bases, consecutively, and then returning to home base.


This whole thing may sound easy, but there is a trick to this. For while the batter is running, the opposing team is chasing after the ball. When it is caught, it is immediately thrown to the baseman where the runner is heading to. If the baseman catches the ball before the runner touches or tags the base, then an "out" is called against the runner and his team. Each team, while at bat, gets a total of three outs before they lose their batting privilege.


A ball hit far enough for the batter to reach first base safely without being tagged out is called a single. If the ball is hit and two bases are reached safely, its called a double. And when a ball is hit far enough for all three bases to be reached, it is called a triple, or triple play. When a ball is hit out of the playing field, which is every batter's dream, it is called a home run and all three bases are run, then the batter returns to the home plate. The batter's team then scores a point.


Another key figure in the game of baseball is the umpire. The umpire is positioned behind the batter and "calls" or judges every ball that is pitched to the batter. They also rule on the plays. That is, the umpire decides whether a runner has safely reached a base without being tagged out. This is called being "safe." If the runner fails to reach the base before begin tagged, the umpired calls the player "out". A strike is called every time the batter swings at the pitched ball and nicks it or misses it. A ball hit outside of the foul lines is called a foul ball.


Finally, a normal game consists of nine innings, or nine rounds of play in which each team has a turn at bat. In the case of a tied score at the end of nine innings, additional innings are played until one team wins.


Once you watch the action on a few baseball games, either on television, or at your local ball park, you will begin to understand even more about this widely-popular game of skill.

The History of Baseball Bats
Baseball bats in the early days of baseball came in all shapes and sizes. In the 1850"s baseball was an extremely young sport and batters made their own bats and experimented with bats of all varieties (long, short, flat, heavy). They quickly learned that bats with rounded barrels seemed to work the best. more...