The essay is about the game of baseball

The essay is about the game of baseball. It covers basic rules and terms applied in baseball. Each paragraph of the paper describes a particular issue of a game such a field structure, the process of the game itself, the role of each team-player, and the general goal of the game.

The essay is structured in such a way that gives a comprehensive and consequent picture of what is baseball about.

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This work is a definition essay on a team game baseball. Americans had played bat-and-ball games for decades when, in 1845, Alexander Cartwright of New York devised the rules that created modern baseball. Cartwright’s game quickly became popular with young clerks and urban craftsmen. By 1860, baseball had spread throughout the Northeast, and by 1870 to the rest of the nation. Now, baseball is a game made up of two teams of nine players each on a baseball field.

There are four bases - points which must be touched by a runner in order to score a run. Numbered counter-clockwise, first, second and third bases are cushions, sometimes informally referred to as bags, shaped as 15 in (38 cm) 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 (27.4 m) called the diamond. Home base (plate) is a pentagonal rubber slab known as simply home. The playing field is divided into three main sections:

• The infield, containing the four bases, is for general defensive purposes bounded by the foul lines and within the grass line.
• The outfield is the grassed area beyond the infield grass line between the foul lines, and bounded by a wall or fence.
• Foul territory is the entire area outside the foul lines.

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 (first) half, and the home team bats in the bottom (second) 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 (in a crouched stance) 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" (~ 61 cm x 15 cm) 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. Each team has a different set of signals, though the number 1 is almost universal as a fast ball.

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 (three outs) 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 (via one or more plays), 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 (‘bases loaded’) is called a grand slam.

References

1. “Baseball” Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball Accessed 25 April 2007.
2. “Baseball rulles” Available from www.ncaa.org/library/rules/2003/baseball_rules.pdf Accessed 25 April 2007.

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