Baseball

Baseball is one of the most popular sports games in certain areas of the world. It is, for example, considered to be one of the national sports in the USA and the game is also widely played in Canada, Central and South America and in parts of Asia. It is thought that baseball as we know it today in the USA began to be played in the mid 1800s. The game was probably derived as a form of rounders or cricket or from similar games played with a bat and ball.

A baseball match is played by two competing teams with 9 players on each side. The game is played on a baseball field which is usually known as a diamond due to its shape. The aim here is to have one team bat and one team ‘pitch’ or throw. The pitching team has the aim of preventing the batting team from scoring ‘runs’ by getting them ‘out’ and the batting team needs to try and score runs.

To score runs a batting player has to run round the baseball diamond touching four bases at the corners of the field. The player can run round the entire field at once or he can stop at any base and aim to complete the run over stages as his team mates bat.

Baseball games are divided into nine innings - an inning is measured by one team taking a turn to bat. If three players on the batting team are caused to be ‘out’ then the play swaps and the other team will come into bat.

Nowadays the biggest and best known baseball league is probably the Major League Baseball organisation in the USA. In this country baseball teams play in geographical leagues and all have the chance to reach the play-offs from which point they could play in the prestigious World Series.