America's National Pass-Time
America's National Pass-Time
When you hear the term baseball what do you think?
I think, an all American sport that was started in the 1800’s. In early baseball it wasn’t very popular but soon caught on. It really started to become popular when the American league and the National league were founded.
Baseball is a fairly easy sport. There are usually nine people on the field at a time. There are three in the outfield and six in the infield. As far as offense is concerned the just try to hit the ball that was thrown at them at about one hundred miles per hour. A good pitcher can throw a variety of different balls, including a knuckle, curve, sinker, slider, and fast. These variety of throwing are used to throw the batter off and make the ball look like its going somewhere that it really isn’t.
But it isn’t only the pitchers job the catcher plays a big role in this process as well. He uses finger signals to tell the pitcher what kind of balls to throw dependent on whet kind of batter is up. The batters in the national league can only use wooden bats and the have to be solid wood. The reason for this is aluminum bats have too much “pop.” This means the ball bounces off the bat so fast the pitcher doesn’t have enough time to get out of the way when the ball is hit at him. Also when a batter hits the ball and it is caught in the air he is out. When and if the batter gets on base he can still get out. The pitcher can throw the ball to the base the runner is at and try to get him out. He can also get out on a force. This is where the ball is hit, fielded and thrown to a bas all before a runner has a chance to get to the base. However, if a runner starts toward a bas and gets there before being thrown out this is called a steal. It is a legal play that just farther advances a runner on his way back to home plate. You don’t have to be a professional to play the sport. There are leagues for all ages all...