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.
History
Origins of baseball
The evolution of baseball from older bat-and-ball games is
difficult to trace with precision. A French manuscript from 1344
contains an illustration of clerics playing a game, possibly
la soule, with similarities to
baseball; other old French games such as
théque,
la
balle au bâton, and
la balle empoisonée also appear
to be related. Consensus once held that today's baseball is a North
American development from the older game
rounders, popular in Great Britain and Ireland.
Baseball Before We Knew
It: A Search for the Roots of the Game (2005), by David
Block, suggests that the game originated in England; recently
uncovered historical evidence supports this position. Block argues
that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of
each other, and that the game's most direct antecedents are the
English games of
stoolball and "tut-ball".
It has long been believed that
cricket also
descended from such games, though evidence uncovered in early 2009
suggests that the sport may have been imported to England from
Flanders.
The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British
publication,
A Little
Pretty Pocket-Book, by
John
Newbery. It contains a rhymed description of "base-ball" and a
woodcut that shows a field set-up somewhat
similar to the modern game—though in a triangular rather than
diamond configuration, and with posts instead of ground-level
bases.
English lawyer William Bray recorded a game
of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford, Surrey; Bray's
diary was verified as authentic in September 2008. This
early form of the game was apparently brought to North America by
English immigrants; rounders was also brought to the continent by
both British and Irish immigrants.
The first known American reference to
baseball appears in a 1791 Pittsfield, Massachusetts, town bylaw prohibiting the playing of the game
near the town's new meeting house. By 1796, a version of the
game was well-known enough to earn a mention in a German scholar's
book on popular pastimes. As described by Johann Gutsmuths,
"
englische Base-ball" involved a contest between two
teams, in which "the batter has three attempts to hit the ball
while at the home plate"; only one out was required to retire a
side.
By the early 1830s, there were reports of a variety of uncodified
bat-and-ball games recognizable as early forms of baseball being
played around North America. These games were often referred to
locally as "
town ball", though other names
such as "round-ball" and "base-ball" were also used.
Among the earliest
examples to receive a detailed description—albeit five decades
after the fact, in a letter from an attendee to Sporting
Life magazine—took place in Beachville, Ontario, Canada, in
1838. There were many similarities to modern baseball, and
some crucial differences: five bases (or
byes); first bye
just from the home bye; batter out if a hit ball was caught after
the first bounce.
The once widely accepted story that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in
Cooperstown, New
York, in 1839 has been conclusively debunked by sports
historians. In 1845,
Alexander Cartwright, a member of New
York City's Knickerbockers club, led the codification of the
so-called
Knickerbocker Rules.
The practice, common to bat-and-ball games of the day, of "soaking"
or "plugging"—effecting a
putout by hitting a
runner with a thrown ball—was barred. The rules thus facilitated
the use of a smaller, harder ball than had been common. Several
other rules also brought the Knickerbockers' game close to the
modern one, though a ball caught on the first bounce was, again, an
out and only underhand pitching was allowed.
While there are
reports that the New York
Knickerbockers played games in 1845, the contest now recognized
as the first officially recorded baseball game in U.S. history took
place on June 19, 1846, in Hoboken, New Jersey: the "New York Nine" defeated the Knickerbockers,
23–1, in four innings. With the Knickerbocker code as the
basis, the rules of modern baseball continued to evolve over the
next half-century.
History of baseball in the United States
The game turns professional
In the mid-1850s, a baseball craze hit the New York metropolitan
area. By 1856, local journals were referring to baseball as the
"national pastime" or "national game". A year later, sixteen area
clubs formed the sport's first governing body, the
National Association
of Base Ball Players. In 1863, the organization disallowed
putouts made by catching a
fair ball on
the first bounce. Four years later, it barred participation by
African Americans. The game's
commercial potential was developing: in 1869 the first fully
professional baseball club, the
Cincinnati Red Stockings, was
formed and went undefeated against a schedule of semipro and
amateur teams. The first professional league, the
National
Association of Professional Base Ball Players, lasted from 1871
to 1875; scholars dispute
its status as a major
league.
The more formally structured
National
League was founded in 1876. As the oldest surviving major
league, the National League is sometimes referred to as the "senior
circuit". Several other major leagues formed and failed. In 1884,
African American
Moses Walker
(and, briefly, his brother Welday) played in one of these, the
American
Association. An injury ended Walker's major league career, and
by the early 1890s, a
gentlemen's
agreement in the form of the
baseball color line effectively barred
black players from the white-owned professional leagues, major and
minor. Professional
Negro
leagues formed, but quickly folded; several independent African
American teams succeeded as
barnstormers. Also in 1884, overhand
pitching was legalized. In 1887,
softball,
under the name of indoor baseball or indoor-outdoor, was invented
as a winter version of the parent game. Virtually all of the modern
baseball rules were in place by 1893; the last major
change—counting
foul balls as
strikes—was instituted in 1901. The National
League's first successful counterpart, the
American League, which evolved from the
minor
Western League, was
established that year. The two leagues, each with eight teams, were
rivals that fought for the best players, often disregarding each
other's contracts and engaging in bitter legal disputes.
A modicum of peace was eventually established, leading to the
National Agreement of 1903. The pact formalized relations both
between the two major leagues and between them and the National
Association of Professional Base Ball Leagues, representing most of
the country's
minor professional
leagues. The
World Series, pitting
the two major league champions against each other, was inaugurated
that fall, albeit without express major league sanction: The
Boston Americans of the American
League defeated the
Pittsburgh
Pirates of the National League. The next year, the series was
not held, as the National League champion
New York Giants, under
manager John McGraw, refused to recognize the
major league status of the American League and its champion. In
1905, the Giants were National League champions again and team
management relented, leading to the establishment of the World
Series as the major leagues' annual championship event.
As professional baseball became increasingly profitable, players
frequently raised grievances against owners over issues of control
and equitable income distribution. During the major leagues' early
decades, players on various teams occasionally attempted strikes,
which routinely failed when their jobs were sufficiently
threatened. In general, the strict rules of baseball contracts and
the
reserve clause, which bound
players to their teams even when their contracts had ended, tended
to keep the players in check. Motivated by dislike for particularly
stingy owner
Charles Comiskey and
gamblers' payoffs, real and promised, members of the
Chicago White Sox conspired to
throw the
1919
World Series. The
Black Sox
Scandal led to the formation of a new National Commission of
baseball that drew the two major leagues closer together. The first
major league baseball
commissioner,
Kenesaw
Mountain Landis, was elected in 1920. That year also saw the
founding of the
Negro National
League; the first significant Negro league, it would operate
until 1931. For part of the 1920s, it was joined by the
Eastern Colored League.
Rise of Ruth and racial integration
Compared with the present, professional baseball in the early
twentieth century was lower scoring and pitchers, the likes of
Walter Johnson and
Christy Mathewson, were more dominant. The
"inside game", which demanded that players "scratch for runs", was
played much more aggressively than it is today; the brilliant, and
often violent,
Ty Cobb epitomized this
style. The so-called
dead-ball era
ended in the early 1920s with several changes in rule and
circumstance that were advantageous to hitters. Strict new
regulations governing the ball's size, shape and composition,
coupled with superior materials available after World War I,
resulted in a ball that traveled farther when hit. The construction
of additional seating to accommodate the rising popularity of the
game often had the effect of bringing the outfield fences closer
in, making
home runs more common. The rise
of the legendary player
Babe Ruth, the
first great power hitter of the new era, helped permanently alter
the nature of the game. The club with which Ruth set most of his
slugging records, the
New York
Yankees, built a reputation as the majors' premiere team. In
the late 1920s and early 1930s,
St.
Louis Cardinals general
manager Branch Rickey invested in
several
minor league clubs and
developed the first modern "farm system". A new
Negro National
League was organized in 1933; four years later, it was joined
by the
Negro American League.
The
first elections to the Baseball Hall
of Fame took place in 1936. In 1939,
Little League Baseball was founded in
Pennsylvania. By the late 1940s, it was the organizing body for
children's
baseball leagues across the United States.
With America's entry into World War II, many professional players
had left to serve in the armed forces. A large number of minor
league teams disbanded as a result and the major league game seemed
under threat as well.
Chicago Cubs
owner
Philip K. Wrigley led the formation of a new
professional league with women players to help keep the game in the
public eye; the
All-American
Girls Professional Baseball League existed from 1943 to 1954.
The inaugural
College World
Series was held in 1947, and the
Babe Ruth League youth program was founded.
This program soon became another important organizing body for
children's baseball. The first crack in the unwritten agreement
barring blacks from white-controlled professional ball occurred the
previous year:
Jackie Robinson was
signed by the National League's
Brooklyn Dodgers—where Branch Rickey had
become general manager—and began playing for their minor league
team in Montreal. In 1947, Robinson broke the major leagues' color
barrier when he debuted with the Dodgers.
Larry Doby debuted with the American League's
Cleveland Indians the same year.
Latin American players, largely
overlooked before, also started entering the majors in greater
numbers. In 1951, two Chicago White Sox, Venezuelan-born
Chico Carrasquel and Cuban-born (and black)
Minnie Miñoso, became the first
Hispanic
All-Stars.
Facing competition as varied as television and
football, baseball attendance at all
levels declined; while the majors rebounded by the mid-1950s, the
minor leagues were gutted and hundreds of semipro and amateur teams
dissolved.
Integration proceeded
slowly: by 1953, only six of the sixteen major league teams had a
black player on the roster. That year, the
Major League Baseball
Players Association was founded. It was the first professional
baseball union to survive more than briefly, but it remained
largely ineffective for years.
No major league team had been located west of
St.
Louis until 1958, when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York
Giants relocated to Los Angeles
and San Francisco,
respectively. The majors' final all-white bastion, the
Boston Red Sox, added a black player
in 1959. With the integration of the majors drying up the available
pool of players, the last Negro league folded the following year.
In 1961, the American League reached the West Coast with the
Los Angeles Angels
expansion team, and the major league
season was extended from 154 games to 162. This coincidentally
helped
Roger Maris break Babe Ruth's
long-standing single-season home run record, one of the most
celebrated marks in baseball. Along with the Angels, three other
new franchises were launched during 1961–62; with this, the first
major league expansion in sixty years, each league now had ten
teams.
Attendance records and the age of steroids
The players' union became bolder under the leadership of former
United Steelworkers chief
economist and negotiator
Marvin
Miller, who was elected executive director in 1966. On the
playing field, major league pitchers were becoming increasingly
dominant again. After the 1968 season, in an effort to restore
balance, the
strike zone was reduced and
the height of the
pitcher's mound was lowered.
The following year, both the National and American leagues added
two more expansion teams; the leagues were reorganized into two
divisions each, and a post-season playoff system leading to the
World Series was instituted. Also in 1969,
Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals made the
first serious legal challenge to the reserve clause. The major
leagues'
first general
players' strike took place in 1972. In another effort to add
more offense to the game, the American League adopted the
designated hitter rule the following year.
In 1975, the union's power—and players' salaries—began to increase
greatly when the reserve clause was
effectively struck down, leading to the
free agency system. In 1977, two more
expansion teams joined the American League. Significant work
stoppages occurred again in
1981 and
1994, the latter forcing
the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in ninety
years. Attendance had been growing steadily since the mid-1970s and
in 1994, before the stoppage, the majors were setting their
all-time record for per-game attendance.
The addition of two more expansion teams after the 1993 season had
facilitated another restructuring of the major leagues, this time
into three divisions each. Offensive production—the number of home
runs in particular—had surged that year, and again in the
abbreviated 1994 season. After play resumed in 1995, this trend
continued and non-division-winning
wild card teams became a permanent
fixture of the post-season. Regular-season
interleague play was introduced in 1997 and
the second-highest attendance mark for a full season was set. The
next year,
Mark McGwire and
Sammy Sosa both
surpassed Maris's decades-old single season home run record and
two more expansion franchises were added. In 2000, the National and
American leagues were dissolved as legal entities. While their
identities were maintained for scheduling purposes (and the
designated hitter distinction), the regulations and other
functions—such as player discipline and umpire supervision—they had
administered separately were consolidated under the rubric of
Major League Baseball
(MLB).
In 2001,
Barry Bonds established the
current record of 73 home runs in a single season. There had long
been suspicions that the dramatic increase in power hitting was
fueled in large part by
the abuse of illegal steroids
(as well as by the dilution of pitching talent due to expansion),
but the issue only began attracting significant media attention in
2002 and there was no penalty for the use of performance-enhancing
drugs before 2004. In 2007, Bonds became MLB's all-time home run
leader, surpassing
Hank Aaron, as total
major league and minor league attendance both reached all-time
highs. Even though McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds—as well as many other
players, including storied pitcher
Roger
Clemens—have been implicated in the
steroid
abuse scandal, their feats and those of other sluggers had
become the major leagues' defining attraction. In contrast to the
professional game's resurgence in popularity after the 1994
interruption, Little League enrollment was in decline: after
peaking in 1996, it dropped 1 percent a year over the following
decade.
Baseball around the world
Baseball, widely known as America's pastime, is well-established in
several other countries as well.
The history of baseball in Canada has remained
closely linked with that of the sport in the United States.
As early as 1877, a professional league, the International
Association, featured teams from both countries. While baseball is
widely played in Canada, and many minor league teams have been
based in the country, the American major leagues did not include a
Canadian club until 1969, when the
Montreal Expos joined the National League as
an expansion team. In 1977, the expansion
Toronto Blue Jays joined the American
League. The Blue Jays won the World Series in 1992 and 1993, the
first and still the only club from outside the United States to do
so. After the 2004 season, Major League Baseball relocated the
Expos to Washington, D.C., where the team is now known as the
Nationals.
The first
formal baseball league outside of the United States and Canada was
founded in 1878 in Cuba, which
maintains a rich baseball tradition and whose national team has
been one of the world's strongest since international play began in
the late 1930s. (All organized baseball in the country has
officially been amateur since the Cuban
Revolution.) The Dominican Republic held its first islandwide championship tournament
in 1912. Professional baseball tournaments and
leagues began to form in other countries between the world wars,
including the Netherlands (formed in 1922), Australia (1934), Japan (1936),
Mexico (1937), and
Puerto Rico (1938). The
Japanese major leagues—the
Central League and
Pacific League—have long been considered the
highest quality professional circuits outside of the United States.
Japan has a professional minor league system as well, though it is
much smaller than the American version—each team has only one farm
club in contrast to MLB teams' four or five.
After
World War II, professional leagues were founded in many Latin American nations, most prominently
Venezuela (1946) and the Dominican Republic (1955).
Since the early 1970s, the annual
Caribbean Series has matched the
championship clubs from the four leading Latin American winter
leagues: the
Dominican Winter
League,
Mexican
Pacific League,
Puerto Rican
Professional Baseball League, and
Venezuelan Professional
Baseball League.
In Asia, South Korea (1982), Taiwan (1990), and
China (2003) all have professional leagues.
Many European countries have professional leagues as well, the most
successful, other than the
Dutch
league, being the
Italian
league founded in 1948. Compared to those in Asia and Latin
America, the various European leagues and the one in Australia
historically have had no more than niche appeal. In 2004, Australia
won a surprise silver medal at the
Olympic Games. The
Israel Baseball League, launched in
2007, folded after one season. The Confédération Européene de
Baseball (European Baseball Confederation), founded in 1953,
organizes a number of competitions between clubs from different
countries, as well as national squads. Other competitions between
national teams, such as the
Baseball
World Cup and the
Olympic baseball tournament,
have been administered by the
International Baseball
Federation (IBAF) since its formation in 1938. As of 2009, the
IBAF has 117 member countries.
Women's
baseball is played on an organized amateur basis in many of the
countries where it is a leading men's sport. Since 2004, the IBAF
has sanctioned the
Women's
Baseball World Cup, featuring national teams.
After
being admitted to the Olympics as a medal
sport beginning with the 1992
Games, baseball was dropped from the 2012 Summer Olympic Games at the
2005 International Olympic
Committee meeting. It
remained part of the
2008
Games. The elimination of baseball, along with softball, from
the 2012 Olympic program enabled the IOC to consider adding two
different sports, but none received the votes required for
inclusion. While the sport's lack of a following in much of the
world was a factor, more important was Major League Baseball's
reluctance to have a break during the Games to allow its players to
participate, as the
National
Hockey League now does during the
Winter Olympic Games. Such a break is
more difficult for MLB to accommodate because it would force the
playoffs deeper into cold weather. Seeking reinstatement for the
2016 Summer Olympics, the IBAF
proposed an abbreviated competition designed to facilitate the
participation of top players, but the effort failed. Major League
Baseball initiated the
World
Baseball Classic, scheduled to precede the major league season,
partly as a replacement, high-profile international tournament. The
inaugural Classic, held
in March 2006, was the first tournament involving national teams to
feature a significant number of MLB participants.
Rules and gameplay
A game is played between two teams, each composed of nine players,
that take turns playing offense (
batting or hitting) and defense (fielding
or pitching). A pair of turns, one at bat and one in the field, by
each team constitutes an
inning;
there are nine innings in a game. One team—customarily the visiting
team—bats in the top, or first half, of every inning; the other
team—customarily the home team—bats in the bottom, or second half,
of every inning. The goal of a game is to score more points
(
runs) than the other team. The
players on the team at bat attempt to score runs by circling, or
completing a tour of, the four bases set at the corners of the
square-shaped
baseball diamond. A
player bats at
home plate and must
proceed
counterclockwise to first
base, second base, third base, and back home in order to score a
run. The team in the field attempts both to prevent runs from
scoring and to record
outs, which
remove opposing players from offensive action until their turn in
their team's
batting order
comes up again. When three outs are recorded, the teams switch
roles for the next half-inning. If the score of the game is tied
after nine innings,
extra innings are
played to resolve the contest. Children's games are often scheduled
for fewer than nine innings.
The game is played on a field whose primary boundaries, the foul
lines, extend forward from home plate at 45-degree angles. The
90-degree area within the foul lines is referred to as fair
territory; the 270-degree area outside them is foul territory. The
part of the field enclosed by the bases and several yards beyond
them is the
infield; the area farther beyond
the infield is the
outfield. In the middle
of the infield is a raised pitcher's mound, with a rectangular
rubber plate (the rubber) at its center. The outer boundary of the
outfield is typically demarcated by a raised fence, which may be of
any material and height (many amateur games are played on fields
without a fence). Fair territory between home plate and the
outfield boundary is baseball's field of play, though significant
events can take place in foul territory, as well.
There are three basic tools of baseball: the
ball, the
bat,
and the
glove or mitt:
- The baseball is about the size of an adult's fist, around 9
inches (23 centimeters) in circumference. It has a rubber or cork
center, wound in yarn and covered in white cowhide, with red
stitching.
- The bat is a hitting tool, traditionally made of a single,
solid piece of wood; other materials are now commonly used for
nonprofessional games. It is a hard round stick, about 2.5 inches
(6.4 centimeters) in diameter at the hitting end, tapering to a
narrower handle and culminating in a knob. Bats used by adults are
typically around 34 inches (86 centimeters) long, and not longer
than 42 inches (106 centimeters).
- The glove or mitt is a fielding tool, made of padded leather
with webbing between the fingers. As an aid in catching and holding
onto the ball, it takes various shapes to meet the specific needs
of different fielding positions.
Protective helmets are also standard equipment for all
batters.
At the beginning of each half-inning, the nine players on the
fielding team arrange themselves around the field. One of them, the
pitcher, stands on the pitcher's mound; the
pitcher begins the pitching delivery with one foot on the rubber,
pushing off it to gain velocity when throwing toward home plate.
Another player, the
catcher, squats on the
far side of home plate, facing the pitcher. The rest of the team
faces home plate, typically arranged as four infielders—who set up
along or within a few yards outside the imaginary lines between
first, second, and third base—and three outfielders. In the
standard arrangement, there is a
first baseman positioned several steps
to the left of first base, a
second
baseman to the right of second base, a
shortstop to the left of second base, and a
third baseman to the right of third
base. The basic outfield positions are
left
fielder,
center fielder, and
right fielder. A neutral
umpire sets up behind the catcher.
Awaiting a pitch: batter, catcher, and
umpire
Gameplay starts with a batter standing at home plate, holding a
bat. The batter waits for the pitcher to throw a pitch (the ball)
toward home plate, and attempts to hit the ball with the bat. The
catcher catches pitches that the batter does not hit—as a result of
either electing not to swing or failing to connect—and returns them
to the pitcher. A batter who hits the ball into the field of play
must drop the bat and begin running toward first base, at which
point the player is referred to as a
runner (or, until the
play is over, a
batter-runner). A batter-runner who
reaches first base without being
put out (see
below) is said to be
safe and is now on base. A
batter-runner may choose to remain at first base or attempt to
advance to second base or even beyond—however far the player
believes can be reached safely. A player who reaches base despite
proper play by the fielders has recorded a
hit. A player who reaches first base safely
on a hit is credited with a
single. If a player makes it to second
base safely as a direct result of a hit, it is a
double; third base, a
triple. If the ball is hit in the air
within the foul lines over the entire outfield (and outfield fence,
if there is one), it is a
home run: the
batter and any runners on base may all freely circle the bases,
each scoring a run. This is the most desirable result for the
batter. A player who reaches base due to a fielding mistake is not
credited with a hit—instead, the responsible fielder is charged
with an
error.
Any runners already on base may attempt to advance on batted balls
that land, or contact the ground, in fair territory, before or
after the ball lands; a runner on first base
must attempt
to advance if a ball lands in play. If a ball hit into play rolls
foul before passing through the infield, it becomes
dead and any runners must return to the
base they were at when the play began. If the ball is hit in the
air and caught before it lands, the batter has
flied out and any runners on base may attempt to
advance only if they
tag up or touch the base
they were at when the play began, as or after the ball is caught.
Runners may also attempt to advance to the next base while the
pitcher is in the process of delivering the ball to home plate—a
successful effort is a
stolen
base.
A pitch that is not hit into the field of play is called either a
strike or a ball. A batter against whom three strikes are recorded
strikes out. A batter against whom four
balls are recorded is awarded a
base on
balls or walk, a free advance to first base. (A batter may also
freely advance to first base if any part of the batter's body or
uniform is struck by a pitch before the batter either swings at it
or it contacts the ground.) Crucial to determining balls and
strikes is the umpire's judgment as to whether a pitch has passed
through the
strike zone, a conceptual
area above home plate extending from the midpoint between the
batter's shoulders and belt down to the hollow of the knee.
A strike is called when one of the following happens:
- The batter lets a well-pitched ball (one within the strike
zone) go through to the catcher.
- The batter swings at any ball (even one outside the strike
zone) and misses.
- The batter hits a foul ball—one that
either initially lands in foul territory or initially lands within
the diamond but moves into foul territory before passing first or
third base. If there are already two strikes on the batter, a foul
ball is not counted as a third strike; thus, a foul ball cannot
result in the immediate strikeout of the batter. (There is an
exception to this exception: a two-strike foul bunt is recorded as a third strike.)
A ball is called when the pitcher throws a pitch that is outside
the strike zone, provided the batter has not swung at it.
While the team at bat is trying to score runs, the team in the
field is attempting to record outs. Among the various ways a member
of the batting team may be put out, five are most common:
- The strikeout: as described above,
recorded against a batter who makes three strikes before putting
the ball into play or being awarded a free advance to first
base.
- The flyout: as described above, recorded
against a batter who hits a ball in the air that is caught by a
fielder, whether in fair territory or foul territory, before it
lands, whether or not the batter has run.
- The ground out: recorded against a
batter (in this case, batter-runner) who hits a ball that lands in
fair territory which, before the batter-runner can reach first
base, is retrieved by a fielder who touches first base while
holding the ball or relays it to another fielder who touches first
base while holding the ball.
- The force out: recorded against a
runner who is required to attempt to advance—either because the
runner is on first base and a batted ball lands in fair territory,
or because the runner immediately behind on the basepath is thus
required to attempt to advance—but fails to reach the next base
before a fielder touches the base while holding the ball. The
ground out is technically a special case of the force out.
- The tag out: recorded against a runner
who is touched by a fielder with the ball or a glove holding the
ball, while the runner is not touching a base.
It is possible to record two outs in the course of the same play—a
double play; even three—a
triple play—is possible, though this is very
rare. Players put out or retired must leave the field, returning to
their team's
dugout or bench. A
runner may be stranded on base when a third out is recorded against
another player on the team. Stranded runners do not benefit the
team in its next turn at bat—every half-inning begins with the
bases empty of runners.
An individual player's turn batting or
plate appearance is complete when the
player reaches base (or hits a home run), makes an out, or hits a
ball that results in the team's third out, even if it is recorded
against a teammate. On rare occasions, a batter may be at the plate
when, without the batter's hitting the ball, a third out is
recorded against a teammate—for instance, a runner getting
caught stealing (tagged out attempting to
steal a base). A batter with this sort of incomplete plate
appearance starts off the team's next turn batting; any balls or
strikes recorded against the batter the previous inning are erased.
A runner may circle the bases only once per plate appearance and
thus can score at most a single run per batting turn. Once a player
has completed a plate appearance, that player may not bat again
until the eight other members of his team have all taken their turn
at bat. The batting order is set before the game begins, and may
not be altered except for substitutions. Once a player has been
removed for a substitute, that player may not reenter the game.
Children's games often have more liberal substitution rules.
If the
designated hitter (DH) rule
is in effect, each team has a tenth player whose sole
responsibility is to bat (and run). The DH takes the place of
another player—almost invariably the pitcher—in the batting order,
but does not field. Thus, even with the DH, each team still has a
batting order of nine players and a fielding arrangement of nine
players.
Personnel
Player rosters
Roster, or squad, sizes differ between different leagues and
different levels of organized play. Major League Baseball teams
maintain twenty-five-player active rosters. A typical
twenty-five-man roster in a league without the DH rule, such as
MLB's National League, features:
- eight position players—catcher,
four infielders, three outfielders—who play on a regular basis
- five starting pitchers who
constitute the team's pitching rotation or starting rotation
- six relief pitchers, including
one specialist closer, who
constitute the team's bullpen (named for the
off-field area where pitchers warm up)
- one backup, or substitute, catcher
- two backup infielders
- two backup outfielders
- one specialist pinch hitter, or a
second backup catcher, or a seventh reliever
Other personnel
The
manager, or head coach of a
team, oversees the team's major strategic decisions, such as
establishing the starting rotation, setting the lineup, or batting
order, before each game, and making substitutions during games—in
particular, bringing in relief pitchers. Managers are typically
assisted by two or more
coaches;
they may have specialized responsibilities, such as working with
players on hitting, fielding, pitching, or strength and
conditioning. At most levels of organized play, two coaches are
stationed on the field when the team is at bat: the first base
coach and third base coach, occupying designated coaches' boxes
just outside the foul lines, assist in the direction of baserunners
when the ball is in play, and relay tactical signals from the
manager to batters and runners during pauses in play. In contrast
to many other team sports, baseball managers and coaches generally
wear their team's uniforms; coaches must be in uniform in order to
be allowed on the playing field during a game.
Any baseball game involves one or more
umpires, who make rulings on the outcome
of each play. At a minimum, one umpire will stand behind the
catcher, to have a good view of the strike zone, and call balls and
strikes. Additional umpires may be stationed near the other bases,
thus making it easier to judge plays such as attempted force outs
and tag outs. In Major League Baseball, four umpires are used for
each game, one near each base. In the playoffs, six umpires are
used: one at each base and two in the outfield along the foul
lines.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Batting and baserunning tactics
A batter squares to bunt, moving his hands up the barrel of the bat
to increase his control and deaden the ball on impact.
Several basic offensive tactics come into play with a runner on
first base, including the fundamental choice of whether to attempt
a steal of second base. The
hit
and run is sometimes employed with a skillful
contact hitter: the runner takes off with the
pitch drawing the shortstop or second baseman over to second base,
creating a gap in the infield for the batter to poke the ball
through. The
sacrifice bunt calls for
the batter to focus on making contact with the ball so that it
rolls a short distance into the infield, allowing the runner to
advance into
scoring position even
at the expense of the batter being thrown out at first—a batter who
succeeds is credited with a sacrifice. (A batter, particularly one
who is a fast runner, may also attempt to
bunt for a hit.) A sacrifice bunt employed
with a runner on third base, aimed at bringing that runner home, is
known as a
squeeze play.
With a runner on third and fewer than two outs, a batter may
instead concentrate on hitting a fly ball that, even if it is
caught, will be deep enough to allow the runner to tag up and
score—a successful batter in this case gets credit for a
sacrifice fly. The manager will sometimes
signal a batter who is
ahead in the
count (i.e., has more balls than strikes) to
take, or not swing at,
the next pitch.
Distinctive elements
Baseball has certain attributes that set it apart from the other
popular team sports in the countries where it is has a following,
games such as
American and
Canadian football,
basketball,
ice hockey,
and
soccer. All of these sports
use a clock; in all of them, gameplay is less individual and more
collective; and in none of them is the variation between playing
fields nearly as substantial or important. The
comparison between
cricket and baseball demonstrates that many of baseball's
distinctive elements are shared in various ways with its cousin
sport.
No clock to kill
In clock-limited sports, games often end with a team that holds the
lead
killing the clock rather than
competing aggressively against the opposing team. In contrast,
baseball has no clock; a team cannot win without getting the last
batter out and rallies are not constrained by time. At almost any
turn in any baseball game, the most advantageous strategy is some
form of aggressive strategy. In contrast, again, the clock comes
into play even in the case of multi-day
Test and
first-class cricket: the possibility of
a draw often encourages a team that is batting last and well behind
to bat defensively, giving up any faint chance at a win to avoid a
loss. Baseball offers no such reward for conservative
batting.
While nine innings has been the standard since the beginning of
professional baseball, the duration of the average major league
game has increased steadily through the years. At the turn of the
twentieth century, games typically took an hour and a half to play.
In the 1920s, they averaged just less than two hours, which
eventually ballooned to 2:38 in 1960. By 1997, the average American
League game lasted 2:57 (National League games were about 10
minutes shorter—pitchers at the plate making for quicker outs than
designated hitters). In 2004, Major League Baseball declared that
its goal was an average game of merely 2:45. The lengthening of
games is attributed to longer breaks between half-innings for
television commercials, increased offense, more pitching changes,
and a slower pace of play with pitchers taking more time between
each delivery, and batters stepping out of the box more frequently.
Other leagues have experienced similar issues; in 2008,
Nippon Professional Baseball
took steps aimed at shortening games by 12 minutes from the
preceding decade's average of 3:18.
Individual focus
For a team sport, baseball places individual players under unusual
scrutiny and pressure. In 1915, a baseball instructional manual
pointed out that every single pitch, of which there are often more
than two hundred in a game, involves an individual, one-on-one
contest: "the pitcher and the batter in a battle of wits".
Contrasting the game with both football and basketball, scholar
Michael Mandelbaum argues that "baseball is the one closest in
evolutionary descent to the older individual sports". Pitcher,
batter, and fielder all act essentially independent of each other.
While coaching staffs can signal pitcher or batter to pursue
certain tactics, the execution of the play itself is a series of
solitary acts. If the batter hits a line drive, the outfielder is
solely responsible for deciding to try to catch it or play it on
the bounce and for succeeding or failing. The statistical precision
of baseball is both facilitated by this isolation and reinforces
it. As described by Mandelbaum,
It is impossible to isolate and objectively assess the
contribution each [football] team member makes to the outcome of
the play.... [E]very basketball player is interacting with all of
his teammates all the time. In baseball, by contrast, every player
is more or less on his own.... Baseball is therefore a realm of
complete transparency and total responsibility. A baseball player
lives in a glass house, and in a stark moral universe....
Everything that every player does is accounted for and everything
accounted for is either good or bad, right or wrong.
Cricket is more similar to baseball than many other team sports in
this regard: while the individual focus in cricket is mitigated by
the importance of the
batting
partnership and the practicalities of tandem running, it is
enhanced by the fact that a batsman may occupy the
wicket for an hour or much more. There is no
statistical equivalent in cricket for the fielding error and thus
less emphasis on personal responsibility in this area of
play.
Uniqueness of each baseball park
Unlike those of most sports, baseball playing fields can vary
significantly in size and shape. While the dimensions of the
infield are specifically regulated, the only constraint on outfield
size and shape for professional teams following the rules of Major
League and Minor League Baseball is that fields built or remodeled
since June 1, 1958, must have a minimum distance of from home plate
to the fences in left and right field and to center. Major league
teams often skirt even this rule.
For example, at Minute Maid
Park, which became the home of the Houston Astros in 2000, the Crawford Boxes in left field are only from
home plate. There are no rules at all that address the
height of fences or other structures at the edge of the outfield.
The most
famously idiosyncratic outfield boundary is the left-field wall at
Boston's Fenway
Park, in use since 1912: the Green Monster is from home plate down the line
and tall.
Similarly, there are no regulations at all concerning the
dimensions of foul territory. Thus a foul fly ball may be entirely
out of play in a park with little space between the foul lines and
the stands, but a flyout in a park with more expansive foul ground.
A fence in foul territory that is close to the outfield line will
tend to direct balls that strike it back toward the fielders, while
one that is farther away may actually prompt more collisions, as
outfielders run full speed to field balls deep in the corner; these
variations can make the difference between a double and a triple or
inside-the-park home run.
The surface of the field is also unregulated. While the diagram in
the
Rules and gameplay section above shows a traditional
field surfacing arrangement (and the one used by virtually all MLB
teams with naturally surfaced fields), teams are free to decide
what areas will be grassed or bare. Some fields—including several
in MLB—use an artificial surface, such as
AstroTurf. Surface variations can have a
significant effect on how ground balls behave and are fielded as
well as on baserunning. Similarly, the presence of a roof (seven
major league teams play in stadiums with permanent or retractable
roofs) can greatly affect how fly balls are played. While football
and soccer players deal with similar variations of field surface
and stadium covering, the size and shape of their fields are much
more standardized; the area out-of-bounds on a football or soccer
field does not affect gameplay the way foul territory in baseball
does, so variations in that regard are largely insignificant.
These physical variations create a distinctive set of playing
conditions at each ballpark. Other local factors, such as altitude
and climate, can also significantly affect gameplay. A given
stadium may acquire a reputation as a pitcher's park or a hitter's
park, if one or the other discipline notably benefits from its
unique mix of elements.
The most exceptional park in this regard is
Coors
Field, home of the Colorado
Rockies. Its high altitude— above sea level—is
responsible for giving it the strongest hitter's park effect in the
major leagues.
Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago
Cubs, is known for its fickle disposition: a hitter's park when
the strong winds off Lake Michigan are blowing out, it becomes more of a pitcher's
park when they are blowing in. The absence of a standardized
field affects not only how particular games play out, but the
nature of team rosters and players' statistical records. For
example, hitting a fly ball into right field might result in a easy
catch on the
warning track at one
park, and a home run at another. A team that plays in a park with a
relatively short right field, such as the New York Yankees, will
tend to stock its roster with left-handed
pull hitters, who can best exploit it. On the
individual level, a player who spends most of his career with a
team that plays in a hitter's park will gain an advantage in
batting statistics over time—even more so if his talents are
especially suited to the park.
Statistics
Organized baseball lends itself to
statistics to a greater degree than many other
sports. Each play is discrete and has a relatively small number of
possible outcomes.
In the late nineteenth century, a former
cricket player, English-born Henry Chadwick of Brooklyn,
New York, was responsible for the "development of the
box score, tabular standings,
the annual baseball guide, the batting
average, and most of the common statistics and tables used to
describe baseball." The statistical record is so central to
the game's "historical essence" that Chadwick came to be known as
Father Baseball. In the 1920s, American newspapers began devoting
more and more attention to baseball statistics, initiating what
journalist and historian Alan Schwarz describes as a "tectonic
shift in sports, as intrigue that once focused mostly on teams
began to go to individual players and their statistics
lines."
The Official Baseball Rules administered by Major League Baseball
require the
official scorer to
categorize each baseball play unambiguously. The rules provide
detailed criteria to promote consistency. The
score report is the official basis for
both the box score of the game and the relevant statistical
records. General managers, managers, and
baseball scouts use statistics to evaluate
players and make strategic decisions.
Certain traditional statistics are familiar to most baseball fans.
The basic batting statistics include:
- At bats: plate appearances, excluding
walks and hit by pitches—where the batter's ability is not fully
tested—and sacrifices and sacrifice flies—where the batter
intentionally makes an out in order to advance one or more
baserunners
- Hits: times reached base because of a batted, fair ball without
fielding error or fielder's
choice
- Runs: times circling the bases and reaching home safely
- Runs batted in (RBIs): number of
runners who scored due to a batter's action (including the batter,
in the case of a home run), except when batter grounded into double
play or reached on an error
- Home runs: hits on which the batter successfully touched all
four bases, without the contribution of a fielding error
- Batting average: hits divided by at bats—the traditional
measure of batting ability
The basic baserunning statistics include:
- Stolen bases: times advancing to the next base entirely due to
the runner's own efforts, generally while the pitcher is preparing
to deliver or delivering the ball
- Caught stealing: times tagged out while attempting to steal a
base
The basic pitching statistics include:
- Wins: games where pitcher was
pitching while his team took a lead that it never relinquished,
going on to win
- Losses: games where pitcher was
pitching while the opposing team took a lead that it never
relinquished, going on to win
- Saves: games where the pitcher
enters a game led by the pitcher's team, finishes the game without
surrendering the lead, is not the winning pitcher, and either (a)
the lead was three runs or less when the pitcher entered the game;
(b) the potential tying run was on base, at bat, or on deck; or (c) the pitcher
pitched three or more innings
- Innings pitched: outs recorded
while pitching divided by three
- Strikeouts: times pitching three strikes to a batter
- Winning percentage: wins
divided by decisions (wins plus losses)
- Earned run average (ERA):
runs allowed, excluding those resulting from fielding errors, per
nine innings pitched
The basic fielding statistics include:
- Putouts: times the fielder catches a fly
ball, tags or forces out a runner, or otherwise directly effects an
out
- Assists: times a putout by
another fielder was recorded following the fielder touching the
ball
- Errors: times the fielder fails to make a play that should have
been made with common effort, and the batting team benefits as a
result
- Total chances: putouts plus
assists plus errors
- Fielding average: successful
chances (putouts plus assists) divided by total chances
Among the many other statistics that are kept are those
collectively known as
situational statistics. For example,
statistics can indicate which specific pitchers a certain batter
performs best against. If a given situation statistically favors a
certain batter, the manager of the fielding team may be more likely
to change pitchers or have the pitcher
intentionally walk the batter in
order to face one who is less likely to succeed.
Sabermetrics
Sabermetrics refers to the
field of baseball statistical study and the development of new
statistics and analytical tools. The term is also used to refer
directly to new statistics themselves. The term was coined around
1980 by one of the field's leading proponents,
Bill James, and derives from the
Society for American
Baseball Research (SABR).
The growing popularity of sabermetrics since the early 1980s has
brought more attention to two batting statistics that
sabermetricians argue are much better gauges of a batter's skill
than batting average:
- On-base percentage measures a
batter's ability to get on base. It is calculated by taking the sum
of the batter's successes in getting on base (hits plus walks plus
hit by pitches) and dividing that by the batter's total plate
appearances (at bats plus walks plus hit by pitches plus sacrifice
flies), except for sacrifice bunts.
- Slugging percentage measures
a batter's ability to hit for power. It is calculated by taking the
batter's total bases (one per each
single, two per double, three per triple, and four per home run)
and dividing that by the batter's at bats.
Some of the new statistics devised by sabermetricians have gained
wide use:
- On-base plus slugging
(OPS) measures a batter's overall ability. It is calculated by
adding the batter's on-base percentage and slugging
percentage.
- Walks plus hits
per inning pitched (WHIP) measures a pitcher's ability at
preventing hitters from reaching base. It is calculated exactly as
its name suggests.
Popularity and cultural impact
Writing in 1919, philosopher
Morris
Raphael Cohen described baseball as America's national
religion. In the words of sports columnist
Jayson Stark, baseball has long been "a unique
paragon of American culture"—a status he sees as devastated by the
steroid abuse scandal. Baseball has an important place in other
national cultures as well: Scholar Peter Bjarkman describes "how
deeply the sport is ingrained in the history and culture of a
nation such as Cuba, [and] how thoroughly it was radically reshaped
and nativized in Japan."
Since the early 1980s, the Dominican
Republic, in particular the city of San Pedro de
Macorís, has been the major leagues' primary source of
foreign talent. Both the local winter league and major
league ball are closely followed in Puerto Rico; major league
Hall-of-Famer
Roberto Clemente
remains one of the greatest national heroes in the island's
history.
In the Western Hemisphere, baseball is also
one of the leading sports in Canada, Colombia, Mexico, the Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, and
Venezuela. In Asia, it is among the most popular sports in
South Korea and Taiwan.
The major league game in the United States was originally targeted
toward a middle-class, white-collar audience: relative to other
spectator pastimes, the National League's set ticket price of 50
cents in 1876 was high, while the location of playing fields
outside the inner city and the workweek daytime scheduling of games
were also obstacles to a blue-collar audience. A century later, the
situation was very different. With the rise in popularity of other
team sports with much higher average ticket prices—football,
basketball, and hockey—professional baseball had become among the
most blue-collar-oriented of leading American spectator
sports.
In recent years, baseball's position compared to football in the
United States has moved in contradictory directions. In 2008, Major
League Baseball set a revenue record of $6.5 billion, matching
the NFL's revenue for the first time in decades. On the other hand,
the percentage of American sports fans polled who named baseball as
their favorite sport was 16%, compared to pro football at 31%; in
1985, the respective figures were pro football 24%, baseball 23%.
Because there are so many more major league baseball games played,
there is no comparison in overall attendance. In 2008, total
attendance at major league games was the second-highest in history:
78.6 million, 0.7% off the record set the previous year. Attendance
at games held under the
Minor
League Baseball umbrella also set a record in 2007, with 42.8
million; this figure does not include attendance at games of the
several independent minor leagues.
In Japan, where baseball is inarguably the leading spectator team
sport, combined revenue for the twelve teams in
Nippon Professional Baseball
(NPB), the body that oversees both the Central and Pacific leagues,
was estimated at $1 billion in 2007. Total NPB attendance for
the year was approximately 20 million. While in the preceding two
decades, MLB attendance grew by 50 percent and revenue nearly
tripled, the comparable NPB figures were stagnant. There are
concerns that MLB's growing interest in acquiring star Japanese
players will hurt the game in their home country. In Cuba, where
baseball is by every reckoning the national sport, the national
team overshadows the city and provincial teams that play in the
top-level domestic leagues. Revenue figures are not released for
the country's amateur system; similarly, according to one official
pronouncement, the sport's governing authority "has never taken
into account attendance...because its greatest interest has always
been the development of athletes".
As of 2007, Little League Baseball oversees more than 7,000
children's baseball leagues with more than 2.2 million
participants—2.1 million in the United States and 123,000 in other
countries. Babe Ruth League teams have over 1 million participants.
According to the president of the International Baseball
Federation, between 300,000 and 500,000 women and girls play
baseball around the world, including Little League and the
introductory game of
Tee Ball.
A varsity baseball team is an established part of
physical education departments at most
high schools and colleges in the United States. In 2008, nearly
half a million high schoolers and over 35,000 collegians played on
their schools' baseball teams. The number of Americans
participating in baseball has declined since the late 1980s,
falling well behind the number of soccer participants. By early in
the 20th century, intercollegiate baseball was Japan's leading
sport. Today,
high school
baseball in particular is immensely popular there. The final
rounds of the two annual tournaments—the
National
High School Baseball Invitational Tournament in the spring, and
the even more important
National High School
Baseball Championship in the summer—are broadcast around the
country.
The tournaments are known, respectively, as
Spring Koshien and Summer Koshien after the 55,000-capacity stadium where they are played. In Cuba, baseball is
a mandatory part of the state system of physical education, which
begins at age six. Talented children as young as seven are sent to
special district schools for more intensive training—the first step
on a ladder whose acme is the national baseball team.
Baseball in popular culture
Baseball has had a broad impact on popular culture, both in the
United States and elsewhere. Dozens of
English-language
idioms have been derived from baseball; in particular, the game
is the source of a number of widely used
sexual euphemisms.
The first networked
radio broadcasts in North America were of the 1922 World Series: famed sportswriter
Grantland Rice announced play-by-play from New York City's Polo Grounds on WJZ–Newark, New
Jersey, which was connected by wire to WGY–Schenectady,
New York, and WBZ–Springfield,
Massachusetts. The
baseball
cap has become a ubiquitous fashion item not only in the United
States and Japan, but also in countries where the sport itself is
not particularly popular, such as the United Kingdom.
Baseball has inspired many works of art and entertainment. One of
the first major examples,
Ernest
Thayer's poem "
Casey at the
Bat", appeared in 1888. A wry description of the failure of a
star player in what would now be called a "clutch situation", the
poem became the source of
vaudeville and
other staged performances, audio recordings, film adaptations, and
an opera, as well as a host of sequels and parodies in various
media. There have been many
baseball movies, including the
Academy Award–winning
The Pride of the Yankees
(1942) and the Oscar nominees
The
Natural (1984) and
Field of
Dreams (1989). The
American Film Institute's selection
of the ten best sports movies includes
The Pride of the
Yankees at number 3 and
Bull
Durham (1988) at number 5. Baseball has provided thematic
material for hits on both stage—the
Adler–
Ross musical
Damn Yankees—and record—
George J. Gaskin's "Slide, Kelly, Slide",
Simon and Garfunkel's "
Mrs. Robinson", and
John Fogerty's
Centerfield. The baseball-founded comedic
sketch "
Who's on First", introduced
by
Abbot and Costello in 1938,
quickly became famous. Six decades later,
Time named it the best comedy routine
of the twentieth century.
The game's rich literary tradition includes the short fiction of
Ring Lardner and novels such as
Bernard Malamud's
The Natural (the source for the movie),
Robert Coover's
The
Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry
Waugh, Prop., and
W.
P. Kinsella's
Shoeless Joe (the source for
Field of Dreams). Baseball's literary canon also includes
the beat reportage of
Damon Runyon; the
columns of Grantland Rice,
Red
Smith,
Dick Young, and
Peter Gammons; and the essays of
Roger Angell. Among the celebrated
nonfiction books in the field are
Lawrence S. Ritter's
The Glory of Their Times,
Roger Kahn's
The Boys of Summer, and
Michael Lewis's
Moneyball. The 1970 publication of major
league pitcher
Jim Bouton's tell-all
chronicle
Ball Four is considered
a turning point in the reporting of professional sports.
Baseball has also inspired the creation of new cultural forms.
Baseball cards were introduced in the
late nineteenth century as
trade cards; a
typical example would feature an image of a baseball player on one
side and advertising for a business on the other. In the early
1900s they were produced widely as promotional items by tobacco and
confectionary companies. The 1930s saw the popularization of the
modern style of baseball card, with a player photograph accompanied
on the rear by statistics and biographical data. Baseball
cards—many of which are now prized collectibles—are the source of
the much broader
trading card industry,
involving similar products for different sports and
non-sports-related fields. Modern
fantasy
sports began in 1980 with the invention of
Rotisserie League
Baseball by New York writer
Daniel
Okrent and several friends. Participants in a Rotisserie league
draft notional teams from the list of active Major League Baseball
players and play out an entire imaginary season with game outcomes
based on the players' latest real-world statistics.
Rotisserie-style play quickly became a phenomenon. Now known more
generically as
fantasy baseball, it
has inspired similar games based on an array of different sports.
The field boomed with increasing Internet access and new fantasy
sports–related websites; by 2008, 29.9 million people in the United
States and Canada were playing fantasy sports, spending
$800 million on the hobby. The burgeoning popularity of
fantasy baseball is also credited with the increasing attention
paid to sabermetrics—first among fans, only later among baseball
professionals.
See also
- Related sports
Notes
- Block (2005), pp. 106–108.
- Block (2005), pp. 71–72, 75, 89, 147–149, 150, 160, et
seq.
- Block (2005), pp. 86, 87, 111–113, 118–121, 135–138, 144, 160;
Rader (2008), p. 7.
- Block (2005), pp. 139, 140, 151, 164, 178, 179, et seq.; See
Wikisource edition of A Little Pretty
Pocket-Book.
- Block (2005), pp. 58, 160, 300, 307, 310;
- Block (2005), pp. 67–75, 181; Gutsmuths quoted: p. 86.
- Block (2005), pp. 4–5, 11–15, 25, 33, 59–61, et. seq.
- Sullivan (1997), pp. 9–11.
- Block (2005), pp. xiv–xix, 15–18, 32–38, 42–47, et seq.; Rader
(2008), pp. 7, 93–94.
- Sullivan (1997), p. 292.
- Block (2005), p. 84; Koppett (2004), p. 2; Rader (2008), p. 8;
Sullivan (1997), p. 10.
- Sullivan (1997), pp. 32, 80, 95.
- Tygiel (2000), pp. 8–14; Rader (2008), pp. 71–72.
- Rader (2008), pp. 9, 10.
- Tygiel (2000), p. 6.
- Rader (2008), p. 27; Sullivan (1997), pp. 68, 69.
- Sullivan (1997), pp. 43, 73.
- Sullivan (1997), p. 83–87.
- Sullivan (1997), pp. 83, 130, 243.
- Zoss (2004), p. 136.
- Zoss (2004), p. 102.
- Sullivan (1997), p. 115.
- Rader (2008), p. 71.
- Heaphy, Leslie, "Women Playing Hardball", in Baseball and
Philosophy: Thinking Outside the Batter's Box, ed. Eric
Bronson (Open Court, 2004), pp. 246–256: p. 247.
- Sullivan (1997), pp. 243–246.
- Sullivan (1997), p. 13.
- Rader (2008), p. 110; Zimbalist (2006), p. 22. See
- Sullivan (1997), pp. 13–16.
- Sullivan (1997), pp. 141–150; Sullivan (1998), pp. 8–10.
- Koppett (2004), p. 99.
- Burk (2001), pp. 56, 100, 102, 103, 113, 143, 147, 170, et
seq.; Powers (2003), pp. 17–21, 27, 83, 121, 122, 160–164, 177;
Rader (2008), pp. 60–71.
- Powers (2003), pp. 39, 47, 48.
- Burgos (2007), pp. 117, 118.
- Sullivan (1997), p. 214.
- Zoss (2004), p. 90.
- Zoss (2004), p. 192.
- Burk (2001), pp. 34–37.
- Burgos (2007), p. 158.
- Burgos (2007), pp. 180, 191.
- Powers (2003), p. 111.
- Rader (2008), p. 3; Bjarkman (2005), p. xxxvii.
- Simmons, Rob, "The Demand for Spectator Sports", in
Handbook on the Economics of Sport, ed. Wladimir Andreff
and Stefan Szymanski (Edward Elgar, 2006), pp. 77–89.
- Powers (2003), p. 170.
- Burgos (2007), p. 215.
- Heaphy (2003), pp. 121, 218–224.
- Koppett (2004), pp. 307, 308; Sullivan (2002), pp. 163,
164.
- Powers (2003), pp. 170, 172–175.
- Powers (2003), pp. 156–168, 175, 176.
- Sullivan (2002), p. 239.
- Powers (2003), pp. 178, 180, 245.
- Powers (2003), pp. 184–187, 191, 192, 280–282.
- Koppett (2004), pp. 376, 511.
- Rader (2008), pp. 249, 250.
- Koppett (2004), p. 481.
- Koppett (2004), p. 489.
- Rader (2008), pp. 254, 271; Zimbalist (2007), pp. 195,
196.
- Powers (2003), pp. 292–293; Rader (2008), pp. 254, 271,
275–277.
- Bjarkman (2004), p. 73; Burk (2001), p. 58.
- Bjarkman (2004), pp. xxiv.
- Bjarkman (2004), pp. 356, 123, 137, xxiv, 11, 233; Gmelch
(2006), p. 296.
- McNeil (2000), p. 113.
- Bjarkman (2004), pp. xxiv, xxv; Burgos (2007), p. 46.
- Bjarkman (2004), pp. 362, 368; Gmelch (2006), pp. 100, 75,
59.
- Bjarkman (2004), pp. xv.
- Thurston (2000), p. 15;
- Porterfield (2007), p. 23;
- Thurston (2000), pp. 21, 30, 31;
- Porterfield (2007), pp. 16–18, 25, 34, 35;
- Thurston (2000), p. 100;
- Porterfield (2007), p. 19; Thurston (2000), p. 153;
- See, e.g.,
- Walfoort, Cleon, "Most 'Signs' Given by Coaches Are Merely
Camouflage", Baseball Digest, December 1960–January 1961,
pp. 47–49.
- "The Fans Speak Out" [Baseball Digest staff],
Baseball Digest, August 1999, pp. 9–10;
- Zoss (2004), p. 293;
- See, e.g., Davis, Hank, Small-town Heroes: Images of Minor
League Baseball (Univ. of Iowa Press, 1997), p. 186.
- Stallings and Bennett (2003), p. 192.
- Stallings and Bennett (2003), pp. 126–132.
- Stallings and Bennett (2003), p. 45.
- Stallings and Bennett (2003), pp. 5, 46–47.
- Stallings and Bennett (2003), pp. 42–43, 47–48.
- Stallings and Bennett (2003), p. 186.
- Mount, Nicholas James, "Team Sports", in Encyclopedia of
Time, ed. Samuel L. Macey (Taylor & Francis, 1994), pp.
588–590: p. 590.
- Eastaway, Rob, What Is a Googly?: The Mysteries of Cricket
Explained (Anova, 2005), p. 134.
- Clarke and Dawson (1915), p. 48.
- Mandelbaum (2005), p. 55.
- Mandelbaum (2005), pp. 55–57.
- Morton, Richard, "Baseball in England", Badminton
Magazine, August 1896, pp. 157–158: "The scoring is one of the
most interesting features in this new importation from America
[baseball]. Every detail of play is recorded, and a man's mistakes
are tabulated as well as his successes.... A line in a cricket
score may read, 'Lockwood, caught Stoddart,
bowled J. T. Hearne; 30.'... [T]here is so much that is
left out! There is no mention of the fact that O'Brien missed
Lockwood before he had scored, and that somebody else failed to
take a chance when his score was ten. These are items that go to
make cricket history; but there is no record of them in the
analysis.... The man who catches a ball is thought worthy of
mention, but the man who muffs one does not suffer by
publicity."
- Powers (2003), p. 85.
- Powers (2003), p. 219.
- Puhalla, Krans, and Goatley (2003), p. 198;
- Puhalla, Krans, and Goatley (2003), p. 207.
- Keri (2007), pp. 295–301.
- See also Powers (2003), p. 85.
- Tygiel (2000), p. 16.
- Schwarz (2004), p. 50.
- See, e.g., Albert, Jim, and Jay Bennett, "Situational Effects",
ch. 4 in Curve Ball: Baseball, Statistics, and the Role of
Chance in the Game, 2d ed. (Springer, 2003), pp. 71–110.
- Gray, Scott, The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete
Outsider Changed Baseball (Doubleday, 2006), p. ix.
- Guzzo (2007), pp. 20–21, 67; Schwarz (2004), p. 233; Lewis
(2003), p. 127.
- Guzzo (2007), pp. 22, 67, 140; Schwarz (2004), p. 233.
- Guzzo (2007), pp. 140–141.
- Cohen, Morris Raphael, "Baseball as a National Religion"
(1919), in Cohen, The Faith of a Liberal (Transaction,
1993 [1946]), pp. 334–336: p. 334.
- Bjarkman (2004), p. xix.
- Bjarkman (2004), pp. 159–165.
- Bjarkman (2004), p. 487.
- Riess (1991), pp. 69–71.
- Riess (1991), pp. 247–248.
- González Echevarría (2001), pp. 76, 133, 278–279, 352.
- González Echevarría (2001), p. 366.
- Bjarkman (2004), p. xxiv; Gmelch (2006), pp. 23, 53.
- Rudel (2008), pp. 145–146.
- Zoss (2004), pp. 373–374.
- Zoss (2004), pp. 16–25.
- Zoss (2004), pp. 27–31.
- Lewis (2003), pp. 86–88.
Sources
Further reading
- Bradbury, J.C. The Baseball Economist: The Real Game
Exposed (Dutton, 2007). ISBN 0525949933
- Dickson, Paul. The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 3d ed.
(W. W. Norton, 2009). ISBN 0393066819
- Elliott, Bob. The Northern Game: Baseball the Canadian
Way (Sport Classic, 2005). ISBN 1894963407
- Euchner, Charles. The Last Nine Innings: Inside the Real
Game Fans Never See (Sourcebooks, 2007). ISBN 1402205791
- Fitts, Robert K. Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral
History of the Game (Southern Illinois University Press,
2005). ISBN 0809326299
- Gillette, Gary, and Pete Palmer (eds.). The ESPN Baseball
Encyclopedia, 5th ed. (Sterling, 2008). ISBN 1402760515
- James, Bill. The New Bill James
Historical Baseball Abstract, rev. ed. (Simon and
Schuster, 2003). ISBN 0743227220
- James, Bill. The Bill James Handbook 2009 (ACTA,
2008). ISBN 0879463678
- Peterson, Robert. Only the Ball was White: A History of
Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams
(Oxford University Press, 1992 [1970]). ISBN 0195076370
- Reaves, Joseph A. Taking in a Game: A History of Baseball
in Asia (Bison, 2004). ISBN 0803239432
- Ritter, Lawrence S. The Glory of Their Times: The Story of
the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It,
enlarged ed. (Harper, 1992). ISBN 0688112730
- Tango, Tom, Mitchel G. Lichtman, and Andrew E. Dolphin, The
Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball (Potomac, 2007).
ISBN 1597971294
- Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns.
Baseball: An Illustrated History (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996).
ISBN 0679404597
Online
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