Baseball

Baseball is a sport in which two teams, generally consisting of nine players per team, compete for nine innings with the goal of scoring the most points, known as runs. According to recent scholarship, the origins of baseball can be linked to a long line of bat and ball games that can be traced back not only to Britain but also to other cultures dating back to the Egyptians.

The sport was popularized during the American Civil War where it gained appeal over the sport of cricket. The labeling of baseball as the American National Pastime coincides with late 19th-century competition between modern nation-states and the consequent desire to claim cultural, social, ideological, economic and political phenomena as unique to a particular nation. The United States has not been alone in claiming baseball as its National Pastime as the sport has had over a century long history in Cuba, Japan, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Canada, Korea and Taiwan. The game has received international recognition, first as an Olympic sport, and more recently through the World Baseball Classic (WBC) and various regional tournaments.

Terminology

• run - Point scored when a base runner touches home plate.
• inning - A section of the baseball game in which both teams have an opportunity to bat. The "top half" of the inning the visiting team bats until they receive three outs and in the "bottom half" the home team has the same opportunity. A standard game lasts nine innings.
• out - An out occurs whenever one of the following conditions are met: 1) A hit ball is caught in the air, 2) A hit ball is retrieved and beats the base runner to the base, 3) a base runner is tagged with the ball while not on a base, 4) a strikeout.
• strike - A pitch that is either swung on and missed by the batter, or the batter fails to swing at a pitch located in the strikezone.
• ball - A pitch that is thrown outside of the strikezone that the batter does not swing at.
• strikeout - When a batter receives three strikes in an at bat, which is recorded as an out.
• home run - A batted ball that is hit outside of the playing field, while not in foul territory. This results in the current batter and all runners on base being allowed to score a run with no interference from the other team.
• foul ball - A batted ball that is hit outside of the 1st and 3rd baselines. Foul balls are counted as a strike against the batter, but the batter cannot strike out via a foul.

Rules

The goal of the game is to score the most runs by the end of the game. In the event of a tie, additional innings are played until there is a winner with the home team batting in the bottom of each extra inning. In each inning a team is given 3 outs. The field of play in baseball consists of an infield and an outfield. The infield has 3 bases and a home plate. Play starts at home plate. The opposing pitcher throws the ball toward home plate where the batter tries to put the ball into play. When the ball is put into play, the batter tries to advance to 1st base. If the batter gets to first base before the opposing team can throw the ball there and secure it, then he is safe. If the opposing team throws and secures the ball before the batter arrives at first base, then the batter is called out. The idea for the offensive (batting) team is to continue around the basepath in a counterclockwise motion and get to each base (1st, 2nd & 3rd) without getting thrown out or tagged out. The final touch is to make it back to home plate without getting thrown out or tagged out. Once a batter crosses home plate, the offensive team is awarded a run. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins. It is the only popular sport where the defense is in possession of the ball.

History

Origins

Baseball can trace its origins back to the English stick and ball games of cricket and rounders, arriving in America with the early colonists. Baseball mythology attributes the creation of the game to Abner Doubleday in 1839, who is said to have come up with the rules and the name "baseball" during a game of "town ball" in Cooperstown, New York. The "creation myth" associated with Doubleday is credited to Albert Spalding and the Mills Commission whose controversial ruling in 1905 solidified the myth that baseball was created by the Civil War General in his youth in Cooperstown, New York. Subsequent research has proven that Doubleday was not in Cooperstown, NY in 1839, nor had he ever mentioned baseball in any of his subsequent memoirs. Spalding and Harry Wright had a friendly bet over the origins of the sport. Wright claimed the origins of baseball to be in the British game rounders, while Spalding and his strong sense of nationalism claimed that the sport and its attributes matched the character of Americans. Spalding's Mills Commission attributed the founding of the sport to Doubleday through the supposed testimony of Abner Graves, who claimed to have seen Doubleday write the rules of the sport in a schoolyard in Cooperstown, New York sometime in the late 1830's or early 1840's. It was Spalding who pinpointed the exact date of the genesis of baseball to 1839. However, it can be more accurately attributed to Alexander Cartwright. In 1845, at the urging of Cartwright, a group of young gentlemen from Manhattan formerly organized themselves as the New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club. At the time, baseball had no standard set of rules and could be played differently from game to game. The Knickerbockers developed the first formal set of rules for the game, including establishing foul lines, the strikeout, and runners now were to be tagged or thrown out instead of being thrown at. The Knickerbockers played their first game on July 19, 1846 at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, against the New York Base Ball Club, losing by a score of 23 to 1. New York City was growing rapidly and new clubs continued to be created, leading to more formal games. In 1857, the 16 organized clubs formed he National Association of Base Ball Players, which played under Knickerbocker rules. The 1850's also saw the adoption of more modern rules; nine players on each team, the bases moved to 90 feet apart, the ball was modified from the current lightweight ball to a harder, horsehide covered rubber ball designed to be hit and thrown harder and faster, and declaring the team with the most runs at the end of nine innings the winner.

The popularity of baseball spread rapidly, reaching most of American in the 1860's. Up until 1869, baseball was played as an amateur game. That changed with the Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional team, which was financed by Harry Wright.

Statistics

Baseball is a sport driven by statistics, with records kept for every facet of a players career from batting average to innings pitched. The all-time leaders in areas such as home runs and strikeouts are revered by fans of all teams.

Statistics are deemed to be so important to the game of baseball that in the 1970's statisticians developed a method for objectively analyzing baseball statistics. Pioneered by Bill James, the study of sabermetrics has become a popular tool used by general managers in Major League Baseball to fill out their rosters with players that bring the greatest value to the team.