Encyclopedia
Baseball is a
team sport popular in
North America, parts of
Latin America, the
Caribbean, and
East Asia. The modern game was developed in the
United States from an early bat-and-ball game called
rounders , and it has become the
national sport of the United States. It is a bat-and-ball game in which a
pitcher throws a hard, fist-sized
ball past the hitting area of a batter. The batter attempts to hit the baseball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical
bat made of wood or metal. A team scores only when batting, by advancing counter-clockwise past a series of four markers called
bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. Each base is 90 feet from the previous base.
Baseball is sometimes called
hardball to differentiate it from similar games such as
softball.
History of Baseball
Origins of Baseball
The distinct evolution of baseball from among the various bat-and-ball games is difficult to pin point. However, it is mainly agreed that modern baseball is a North American development from the earlier game
rounders.
The earliest known mention of the sport is in a 1744 British publication,
A Little Pretty Pocket-Book by John Newbery. It contains a wood-cut illustration of boys playing "base-ball" and a rhymed description of the sport.
The earliest known American reference to the game was published in a 1791 bylaw. The city statute proclaimed that the playing of baseball was prohibited within 80 yards of the new meeting house in
Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
The English novelist
Jane Austen made a reference to children playing "base-ball" on a village green in her book
Northanger Abbey was the first of Jane Austen [i]'s novels to be completed for publication, though s ...
, which was written between 1798 and 1803 .
The first full documentation of a baseball game in North America was that made by Dr. Adam Ford describing a baseball game that took place on June 4th, 1838 in Beechville, Ontario, Canada. Canada was a hotbed of early baseball development. Baseball grew quickly on both sides of the US-Canada border with strong players and teams in both countries.
Alexander Cartwright had a hand in compiling and publishing an early list of rules in 1845 to meet the demands of the already popular sport, and today's
have evolved from them.
History of baseball in the United States
As far back as the 1870s, American newspapers were referring to baseball as "The National Pastime" or "The National Game." An award-winning account of the origins of the game is David Block's
Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game . The publisher's description of the book notes that "David Block looks into the early history of the game and of the 150-year-old debate about its beginnings. He tackles one stubborn misconception after another, debunking the enduring belief that baseball descended from the game of rounders and revealing a surprising new explanation for the most notorious myth of all—the
Abner Doubleday–Cooperstown story." In short, the debate on the game's origins may never be settled to everyone's satisfaction.
Another early mention of the game can be found in an 1886 edition of
Sporting Life magazine, in a letter from Dr. Matthew Harris of
Boston, Massachusetts, formerly of
St. Marys, Ontario, who details a base ball game played in Beachville, Ontario, on June 4, 1838 -- Militia Muster Day.
Professional baseball started in the
United States in the 1860's, and began in earnest in 1869, when the first fully professional baseball club, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was formed and went undefeated against a schedule of semipro and amatuer teams, as there were no other fully professional baseball teams that year. The first
"major league" was the National Association which lasted from 1871 to 1875. The
National League was founded in 1876. Several other major leagues formed and failed, but the
American League, established in 1901 as a major league and originating from the minor Western League , did succeed. While the two leagues were rivals who actively fought for the best players, often disregarding one another's contracts and engaging in bitter legal disputes, a modicum of peace was established in 1903, and they began playing a
World Series that year. The next year however, John McGraw, manager of the National League Champion New York Giants refused to participate in the World Series against the American League champion Boston Americans, as McGraw refused to recognize the American League. The following year, McGraw relented and the Giants played the Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series.
Compared to modern times, games in the early part of the 20th century were lower scoring and pitchers were more successful. The "inside game", whose nature was to "scratch for runs", was played rather more violently and aggressively than it is today.
Ty Cobb said of his era especially, "Baseball is something like a war!" This period, which has since become known as the "dead-ball era", ended in the 1920s with several rule changes that gave advantages to hitters and the rise of the legendary baseball player
Babe Ruth, who showed the world what power hitting could produce and thus changed the nature of the game.
During the first half of the 20th century, a "gentlemen's agreement" in the form of the baseball color line effectively barred African-American players from the major leagues , resulting in the formation of several
Negro Leagues. Finally in 1947, Major League Baseball's color barrier was broken when
Jackie Robinson was signed by the National League's Brooklyn Dodgers . Although it was not instantaneous, baseball has since become fully
integrated.
Major league baseball finally made it to the West Coast of the United States in 1958, when the
Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants relocated to
Los Angeles and
San Francisco respectively. The first American League team on the West Coast was the
Los Angeles Angels, who were founded as an expansion team in 1961.
Pitchers dominated the game in the 1960s and early 1970s. In the early 1970s the designated hitter rule was proposed. The
American League adopted this rule in 1973, though pitchers still bat for themselves in the
National League to this day. The DH rule now constitutes the primary difference between the two leagues.
Despite the popularity of baseball, and the attendant high salaries relative to those of average Americans, the players have become dissatisfied from time to time, as they believed the owners had too much control. Various job actions have occurred throughout the game's history. Players on specific teams occasionally attempted strikes, but usually came back when their jobs were sufficiently threatened. The throwing of the
1919 World Series, the "
Black Sox scandal", was in some sense a "strike" or at least a rebellion by the ballplayers against a perceived stingy owner. But the strict rules of baseball contracts tended to keep the players "in line" in general.
This began to change in the 1960s when former
United Steelworkers president Marvin Miller became the Baseball Players Union president. The union became much stronger than it had been previously, especially when the reserve clause was effectively nullified in the mid-1970s. A series of strikes and lockouts began in baseball, affecting portions of the 1972 and 1981 seasons and culminating in the infamous 1994 baseball strike that led to the cancellation of the World Series and carried over into 1995 before it was finally settled.
The players typically got what they demanded, but the popularity of baseball diminished greatly as a result of the strike, and fans were slow to return. Cal Ripken's record-breaking 2131st consecutive game in 1995 was a feel-good moment that helped boost interest in the sport. The great home run race of 1998 between
Mark McGwire and
Sammy Sosa really turned things around, captivating fans all summer. As with other times when adversity threatened the game, positive on-field events triggered a renewed surge in baseball's popularity in America.
Professional baseball leagues began to form in
countries outside of America in the 1920s and 1930s, including the
Netherlands ,
Japan , and
Australia . Today,
Venezuela , the whole of
Europe ,
Italy ,
Korea ,
Taiwan , and
mainland China all have professional leagues as well .
Israel is trying to form a professional baseball league with the help of American emigres.
Canada has a franchise in
Major League Baseball as well. Competition between national teams, such as in the World Cup of Baseball and the Olympic baseball tournament, has been administered by the
International Baseball Federation since its formation in 1938.
As of 2004, this organization has 112 member countries. The new
World Baseball Classic, first held in March 2006, seems likely to have a much higher profile than previous tournaments, owing to the participation for the first time of a significant number of players from the United States Major Leagues.
The
117th meeting of the International Olympic Committee, held in
Singapore in July 2005, voted not to hold baseball and
softball tournaments at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, but they will remain Olympic sports during the
2008 Summer Olympic Games and will be put to vote again for each succeeding Summer Olympics. The elimination of baseball and softball from the 2012 Olympic program enabled the IOC to consider adding two other sports to the program instead, but no other sport received a majority of votes favoring its inclusion. While baseball's lack of major appeal in a significant portion of the world was a factor, a more important factor was the unwillingness of
Major League Baseball to have a break during the Games so that its players could participate, something that the
National Hockey League now does during the
Winter Olympic Games. Because of the seasonal nature of baseball and the high priority baseball fans place on the integrity of major-league statistics from one season to the next, however, it would be more difficult to accommodate such a break in MLB.
Gameplay
A simplified version of the rules of baseball is at
simplified baseball rules. The complete Official Rules can be found at the official web site of Major League Baseball in the United States.
General structure
Baseball is played between two teams of nine players each on a
baseball field, under the authority of one or more officials, called umpires. There are usually four umpires in major league games; up to six may officiate depending on the league and the importance of the game. There are four
bases. Numbered
counter-clockwise, first, second and third bases are cushions shaped as 15
in squares which are raised a short distance above the ground; together with
home plate, the fourth "base," they form a square with sides of 90
ft called the
diamond. Home base is a pentagonal rubber slab known as simply
home. The field is divided into two main sections:
- The infield, containing the four bases, is for defensive and offensive purposes bounded by the foul lines and the grass line . However, the infield technically consists of only the area within the bases, including the foul lines.
- The outfield is the grassed area beyond the infield grass line , between the foul lines, and bounded by a wall or fence. Again, there is a technical difference; properly speaking, the outfield consists of all fair ground beyond the square of the infield and its bases. The area between the foul lines, including the foul lines , is fair territory, and the area outside the foul lines is foul territory.
The game is played in nine innings in which each team gets one turn to bat and try to score
runs while the other pitches and defends in the field. An inning is broken up into two halves in which the away team bats in the top half, and the home team bats in the bottom half. In baseball, the defense always has the ball — a fact that differentiates it from most other team sports. The teams switch every time the defending team gets three players of the batting team
out. The winner is the team with the most runs after nine innings. If the home team is ahead after the top of the ninth, play does not continue into the bottom half. In the case of a tie, additional innings are played until one team comes out ahead at the end of an inning. If the home team takes the lead anytime during the bottom of the ninth or of any inning thereafter, play stops and the home team is declared the winner.
The basic contest is always between the
pitcher for the fielding team, and a
batter. The pitcher throws—
pitches—the ball towards home plate, where the
catcher for the fielding team waits to receive it. Behind the catcher stands the home plate umpire. The batter stands in one of the batter's boxes and tries to hit the ball with a bat. The pitcher must keep one foot in contact with the top or front of the pitcher's rubber—a 24" x 6" plate located atop the pitcher's mound—during the entire pitch, so he can only take one step backward and one forward in delivering the ball. The catcher's job is to receive any pitches that the batter does not hit and to "call" the game by a series of hand movements that signal to the pitcher what pitch to throw and where. If the pitcher disagrees with the call, he will "shake off" the catcher by shaking his head; he accepts the sign by nodding. The catcher's role becomes more crucial depending on how the game is going, and how the pitcher responds to a given situation. Each pitch begins a new
play, which might consist of nothing more than the pitch itself.
Each half-inning, the goal of the defending team is to get three members of the other team out. A player who is out must leave the field and wait for his next turn at bat. There are many ways to get batters and baserunners out; some of the most common are catching a batted ball
in the air, tag outs,
force outs, and
strikeouts. After the fielding team has put out three players from the opposing team, that half of the inning is over and the team in the field and the team at bat switch places; there is no upper limit to the number that may bat in rotation before three outs are recorded. Going through the entire order in an inning is referred to as "batting around". It is indicative of a high scoring inning. A complete inning consists of each opposing side having a turn on offense.
The goal of the team at bat is to score more runs than the opposition; a player may do so only by batting, then
becoming a base runner, touching all the bases in order , and finally touching home plate. To that end, the goal of each batter is to enable baserunners to score or to become a baserunner himself. The batter attempts to hit the ball into fair territory—between the baselines—in such a way that the defending players cannot get them or the baserunners out. In general, the pitcher attempts to prevent this by pitching the ball in such a way that the batter cannot hit it cleanly or, ideally, at all.
A baserunner who successfully touches home plate after touching all previous bases in order scores a
run. In an enclosed field, a fair ball hit over the fence on the fly is normally an automatic
home run, which entitles the batter and all runners to touch all the bases and score. A home run hit with all bases occupied is called a
grand slam.
Fielding team
The squad in the field is the defensive team; they attempt to prevent the baserunners from scoring. There are nine defensive positions, however, only two of the positions have a mandatory location , the locations of the other seven fielders is not specified by the rules, except that at the moment the pitch is delivered they must be positioned in fair territory and not in the space between the pitcher and the catcher. These fielders often shift their
positioning in response to specific batters or game situations, and they may exchange positions with one another at any time. The nine positions most commonly used are: pitcher, catcher, first baseman, second baseman, third baseman, shortstop, left fielder, center fielder, and right fielder. Note that, in rare cases, teams may use dramatically differing schemes, such as switching an outfielder for an infielder. Scorekeepers label each position with a number starting with the pitcher , catcher , first baseman , second baseman , third baseman , shortstop , left fielder , center fielder , right fielder . This convention was established by
Henry Chadwick. The reason the shortstop seems out of order has to do with the way fielders positioned themselves in the early years of the game.
The battery
The
battery is composed of the
pitcher, who stands on the rubber of the mound, and the
catcher, who squats behind home plate. These are the two fielders who always deal directly with the batter on every pitch, hence the term "battery", coined by
Henry Chadwick and later reinforced by the implied comparison to
artillery fire.
The pitcher's main role is to pitch the ball toward home plate with the goal of getting the batter out. Pitchers also play defense by fielding batted balls, covering bases , or backing up throws. The catcher's main role is to receive the pitch if the batter does not hit it. Together with the pitcher and coaches, the catcher plots game strategy by suggesting different pitches and by shifting the starting positions of the other fielders. Catchers are also responsible for defense in the area near home plate.
The infielders
The four infielders are the
first baseman,
second baseman,
shortstop, and
third baseman. Originally the first, second and third basemen played very near their respective bases, and the shortstop generally played "in" , covering the area between second, third, and the pitchers box, or wherever the game situation required. As the game evolved, the fielding positions changed to the now-familiar "umbrella", with the first and third baseman generally positioned a short distance toward second base from their bases, the second baseman to the right side of second base standing farther away from the base than any other infielder, and the shortstop playing to the left of second base, as seen from the batter's perspective, filling in the gaps.
The
first baseman's job consists largely of making
force plays at first base on ground balls hit to the other infielders. When an infielder picks up a ball from the ground hit by the batter, he must throw it to the first baseman who must catch the ball and maintain contact with the base before the batter gets to it for the batter to be out. The need to do this quickly often requires the first baseman to stretch one of his legs to touch first base while catching the ball simultaneously. The first baseman must be able to catch the ball very well and usually wears a specially designed
mitt. The first baseman also fields balls hit near first base. The first baseman also has to receive throws from the pitcher in order to tag runners out who have reached base safely. The position is less physically challenging than the other positions, but there is still a lot of skill involved. Infielders don't always make good throws to first base, so it is the first baseman's job to field any ball thrown toward him cleanly. Older players who can no longer fulfill the demands of their original positions also often become first basemen. The second baseman covers the area to the first-base side of second base and provides backup for the first baseman in
bunt situations. He also is a cut-off for the outfield. This is when the outfielder doesn't have to throw the full distance from him/her to the base, but just to the cut-off. The shortstop fills the critical gap between second and third bases—where right-handed batters generally hit ground balls—and also covers second or third base and the near part of
left field. This player is also a cut-off for the outfield. This position is the most demanding defensively, so a good shortstop doesn't need to necessarily be a good batter. The third baseman's primary requirement is a strong throwing arm, in order to make the long throw across the infield to the first baseman. Quick reaction time is also important for third basemen, as they tend to see more sharply hit balls than the other infielders, thus the nickname for third base as the "hot corner."
The outfielders
The three outfielders,
left fielder,
center fielder, and
right fielder 
