A guide to baseball

[WorkingForTheEnemy]

Here's a brief guide to the sport of baseball. Some of its my own stuff and somes copy and pasted. The idea is to help people understand the sport a little more and maybe creating more interest. In this guide I hope to explain: The basic concept and rules of the game Terminology and Lingo Explaination of statistics Key betting aspects

[WorkingForTheEnemy]

Re: A guide to baseball Baseball is a game between two teams of nine players plus subs. The objective of each team is to win by scoring more runs than the opponent. A regulation game consists of nine innings, unless extended because of a tie score, or shortened (1) because the home team needs none of its half of the ninth inning or only a fraction of it, or (2) because the umpire calls the game. If the score is tied after nine completed innings play shall continue until (1) the visiting team has scored more total runs than the home team at the end of a completed inning, or (2) the home team scores the winning run in an uncompleted inning. NOTE: The away team always bats first. HOW A TEAM SCORES. (a) One run shall be scored each time a runner legally advances to and touches first, second, third and home base before three men are put out to end the inning.EXCEPTION: A run is not scored if the runner advances to home base during a play in which the third out is made. A homerun is scored when a batter hits the ball within the foullines and over the boundary wall. When this occurs the hitter plus all runners on base get to return to homeplate. This means upto 4 runs can be scored off a homerun. Each player of the offensive team shall bat in the order that his name appears in his team's batting order. The first batter in each inning after the first inning shall be the player whose name follows that of the last player who legally completed his time at bat in the preceding inning. The aim for the batter is to put the ball in play and become a runner. A batter has 3 strikes to put the ball in play. An strike is recorded when (a) the batter swings and misses any pitch (b) the batter fails to hit a pitch in the strikezone © the ball is hit but falls foul.( this only applies to the 1st 2 strikes. A 3rd strike cant be given for a foul) A foul ball is a ball hit that falls behind the foul line before hitting the ground. A batter can also be put out by (a) he hits the ball and it's caught by a fielder before hitting the ground. (b) he is tagged with the ball by a fielder whilst running to a base. © the base he's running to has been tagged and he doesnt have the option of returning to his previous base. A pitcher has unlimited pitches to get out the batter. Each pitch will result in either(a) a strike (b) a ball © a foul (d) the ball being put into play (e) the batter being caught. A pitcher has 4 balls per hitter. A ball is given whenever the ball is pitched outside the strikezone and not swung at by the batter. The strikezone is the width of homeplate and runs from the knees upto the chest of the batter. If a pitcher gives away 4 balls to a batter , the batter is awarded a walk and gets a free passage to 1st base. Any runners occupying bases that prevent this also get a free walk to the next base until each base oonly has one runner on it. A walk is also awarded if a pitch hits the batter.