Evan Walther
Mrs. Pfaff
ELA
12 April 2018 Baseball
Have you ever wondered, what baseball is, how to play it, and the history of it? Baseball is a fantastic sport that people play around the world, but mostly in America. It originated in a small town called Cooperstown, New York and was initially created by a young man by the name of Abner Doubleday. He was a civil war hero, but there is another story to this fascinating adventure. Most people think that Doubleday didn’t actually invent baseball, he just took the fame for it. What happened, was a former cricket player, A.J Spalding created it but didn’t take credit for it. Instead, he handed the fame over to Doubleday (Staff "Who invented baseball?" 2013 1). Now that you know a little bit of the backstory of baseball let’s dig deeper into how to actually play the game (Patrick Imbach).
Baseball is split into two parts. Outfield and batting. At the start of the game, the two coaches, the umpire, and their desired players both come up near the pitcher's mound, to do the coin toss. The two coaches choose either heads and tails. The umpire flips the coin, places it on hand and flips it over. The winning team gets to decide whether they bat first if they're going to be outfield. Usually you would think batting, obviously because you get those first points on the board. No, you don’t want to bat first and here’s why. When you play baseball, you want to think end game. The last person to hit is the person who was outfield the first inning. Meaning in the final inning if that team, is down points your team has a chance to make them up (Patrick Imbach).
Now that we’ve discussed the start of the game let’s go into the juicy stuff. Since fielding is very important in baseball, we’ll start with the outfield. This might get a little confusing, but the outfield is also split up into two parts, infield and outfield. The outfield consists of the left, right, and middle fielders. Their job is either, to catch fly balls, or to grab any balls that got past the infielders. The infield is a little more exciting and consists of a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd baseman. Their job is to tag the runners, that are trying to score. There is also a shortstop, located in between the second and third baseman. The two main jobs of the infield is the pitcher and catcher. Their job is to get the batters out. The pitcher has a lot of things he or she needs to worry about. The first one is not actually to hit the batter. Another one is to throw straight unless you’re purposely trying to give the batter a free base (Patrick Imbach).
The catcher, on the other hand, has a whole different job that he has to contribute to the team. His job is to either catch the balls that the pitcher throws to him or to throw someone out. What I mean by that is, say a runner from first tries to steal a base, and go to second the catcher will throw the ball all the way to second base, for him to get the runner out. Another job of the catcher is called the uncaught third strike. Not many people know of this, because it rarely happens, especially in the major leagues (Patrick Imbach).
So what happens is a hitter or batter, that misses the third strike, can run only if the catcher drops the ball. The catcher, however, can throw the ball to first base to get the runner out, he has to grab the ball that he dropped. This rule isn’t that effective, because the hitter doesn’t know if the catcher dropped it or caught it, so he or she doesn’t know when to run. The reason they implanted this rule, was to give players an extra chance if they get out ("The Dropped Third Strike: The Life and Times of a Rule" 1) (Patrick Imbach).
The pitcher's job is a lot of work and is probably the most important job in the infield. Pitchers, have to actually throw the ball, near the batter and hope the batter doesn’t hit a ball, that will get him on base. In the pitcher's world, there are balls and strikes, and each one of them has their different job. Next, to the batter, there is a little imaginary box, which the pitcher needs to throw the ball into. If he or she gets it into the box, the umpire will call a strike. Sometimes the pitcher gets a little lazy, or tired and throws it out of the box. This is called a ball. If you get four balls, you get a free base, and the umpire will let you go to first base for free. If you get three strikes, however, the umpire will call you out, and you will go back to your dugout ("Sports" 2018 1-2) (Patrick Imbach).
Now that I’ve talked a little bit about the infield and the outfield, the other part of baseball, that you need to know is batting. Unlike the outfield, this part isn’t split into two parts; there’s only one thing you need to know, how to hit a ball. In batting, there are strikes and balls, like I explained in the pitcher's job. However when you’re batting you have to have great hand-eye coordination, and you have to be able to see the ball coming right for you, and actually hit it. When batting you’re always looking for something called a home run. In the back near where the outfielders are, there is a fence. It doesn’t happen very often, but when the batter hits it so hard that it goes over the fence, this is called a home run. It’s an automatic point scored for your team (Patrick Imbach).
Another big part of batting is bunting. Bunting is usually used in major leagues and is mostly used for moving people around in bases. For example say there is someone of 3rd base, with two outs. You don’t want to have to risk hitting it and maybe getting an out; you want to take the safe approach, and bunt. Bunting is simple and is easy. Instead of taking a huge swing, which is used for getting a hit, you want to put your bat in front of the bat. This will bounce the ball off the bat, and move someone from one base to another. You might get out, in this position, but it’s worth it to get an easy rbi (Patrick Imbach).
In conclusion, I’ve taught you everything you could need to know about baseball. Some quick little history, how to actually play the game, the positions of the infield and outfield, and what they actually do, and some hitting strategies. If you’ve ever wanted to play baseball before, consider these, and try it sometime. Baseball is a really easy and straightforward sport, and shouldn’t be criticized by other countries when it should deserve some more respect (Patrick Imbach).
Patrick Imbach (My Coach for a while) 2015 – 2017
Staff, History. “Who Invented Baseball?” History.com, A&E Television Networks, . 4/12/2018
“The Dropped Third Strike: The Life and Times of a Rule.” The Dropped Third Strike: The Life and Times of a Rule | Society for American Baseball Research, sabr.org/research/dropped-third-strike-life-and-times-rule.
“Sports.” Ducksters Educational Site, www.ducksters.com/sports/baseball/strikes_balls_and_strike_zone.php.
“Baseball History Timeline.” Math, www.softschools.com/timelines/baseball_history_timeline/88/.