Baseball 101
August 18, 2011 3:09 PM   Subscribe

Help me (simply) explain the game of baseball to a group of Europeans here for a conference (11 countries represented).

We're taking approximately 60 Europeans to a baseball game tomorrow night and are already beginning to get questions about how the game is played. It turns out that explaining it is more difficult than I initially imagined. The good news is that most of our guests speak English or German, so I could get away with providing them with a handout in one or the other language.

I thought that I'd be able to find a simple .pdf to print and share. Alas, no luck!

Do you know of a simple downloadable (preferably free) source of this information that I can share with our guests on the way to the game?
posted by meindee to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (6 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Googling "Idiots Guide to Baseball" and 'Girlfriends Guide to Baseball" delivers some promising looking results.
posted by COD at 3:24 PM on August 18, 2011


I think Wikipedia's Baseball rules article is good. You could probably just copy and paste the General Structure section under Gameplay for a solid basic overview of the game, plus a copy of the diagram of a baseball field.
posted by MegoSteve at 3:28 PM on August 18, 2011


When I lived in England, a lot of my friends seemed to equate baseball to rounders.
posted by AlliKat75 at 3:32 PM on August 18, 2011


The most basic explanation is surely that the pitcher throws the ball and the batter tries to hit it. If he does, he tries to make it around all three bases. If the ball hits the base before he does, or he's tagged with the ball, he's out.

And yes, I know it isn't as simple as that. Except it sort of is, really.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:08 PM on August 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


You have your hands full I imagine, try explaining this. I thought I had a grasp on baseball but I have no idea what's going on.
posted by unliteral at 6:20 PM on August 18, 2011


Best answer: This does not really exist, because baseball is complicated. Stupidly so. So I wrote you one.


The defense holds the ball. There are nine players to a side, and each player must play defense and offense. In the American League, the weakest offensive player (the pitcher) is allowed an offensive substitute (the designated hitter). Once a player leaves the game, he may not reenter.

The game has nine innings. Each team has a chance to play offenses in each inning. The visiting team's chance is first, because it is hospitable and because it preserves the chance for them to stage an amazing comeback in the ninth inning if they are losing. If they are winning after the first half of the ninth inning, they will charitably forgo their chance on offense so as not to pile on, and also it will be fairly late at night by that time and they would all like to go out to dinner.

Unlike in cricket, the batters do not bat around to end the inning. Each team is assigned three outs per inning. Once the outs are used, the offensive team's inning ends and the sides switch. Outs are valuable.

The goal of the offense is to have as many players run around the bases and touch home plate again as possible. The offense starts in the batter's box. The pitcher (the most important defensive player) throws the ball towards the batter. He must give the batter a reasonable chance to hit the ball. It is only polite. Bad throws (balls) count against him. Good throws (strikes) count against the batter. A pitcher is allowed more balls than the batter is strikes. Three strikes accumulate to an out. This seems unfair. We must balance these forces. Therefore, the batter is allowed to hit the good throws as badly as he likes as many times as he likes without making an out. We call this "fouling off."

If the batter hits the ball well, it will stay in the field of play and land somewhere. If it lands on the ground, the batter can try to run to the first base. If it lands on the ground very far away from first base, the batter might run to second or third base. As Darling Bri notes, if the defense returns the ball to first base before the batter reaches it, he has made an out. If any member of the defense catches the ball anywhere in the field of play, the batter has made an out.

The batter must clear the base for the batter behind him. If the ball reaches any base (second, third, or home) before the batter, the batter has made an out. If the batter advances all the way to home plate without making an out, he has scored a run. Runs win ballgames.

The infield fly rule, lefty-lefty match-ups, intentional walks, balks, sacrifice bunts, and pickle are left as an exercise for the reader.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 6:36 PM on August 18, 2011 [7 favorites]


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