THE PUZZLE THAT IS BASEBALL

            It seems that no one really knows how and when baseball came to be. It is often claimed that it was invented by a fellow named Abner Doubleday, but others deny this. Baseball seems to have been “America’s national pastime” from long ago. It has a long and varied, even sometimes dark, history. Sometimes teams seem to have cheated and other times they drank too much, etc. At any rate, baseball seems to be able to hang around as a great source of entertainment for millions of people. But what really interests me are the intricacies of how the game works.                                                         Center Field 

                                   Left Field                                               Right Field

                                                                        Second Base

                                             3rd Base             Pitcher               First Base                                                                                                

                                                                      Home Base     

                                                                         Catcher

     You have these four bases, counting home plate, and lines that run out from home base to the outfields that boundaries of which determine the size of the playing field. The pitcher’s mound sits smack-dab in the middle of the square or diamond surrounded by three bases and home plate. That’s it. Of course, the actual size of any given ballfield is determined by the placing of the fences, or more often than not, by the size of the playing area that the players have available. Vacant lots, parks, or side streets have all served as the “field.”  Those that have fences consider themselves lucky.

     Now, down to the nitty-gritty. The pitcher throws the ball to the catcher, trying to get it past the hitter. If he succeeds, and the ball is within the required space (between the knees and armpits and over the home plate) it is called a “strike”, and if not, it is deemed a “ball”. There is, of course an umpire standing behind the catcher who can see the ball as it comes to the catcher whose job it is to determine whether or not the ball was delivered within the required space, that is, over the plate and in the space between the batter’s knees and armpits. If the batter swings and misses the ball it is called a “strike”, and even if he does not swing but the ball is within the required space it is still a “strike”. As the saying goes: “Three strikes and you’re out”. Today they are experimenting with cameras. If the ball lands anywhere between the lines drawn from home plate down past the first base and third base it is called a “fair ball.” If a defensive player catches the ball before it hits the ground

the batter is “out”. If not, then the batter can run to as many bases as he can before the defense team retrieves the ball and tags him out. If the batter hits the ball over the fence, it is called a “home run” and counts as a score. Each team gets three outs before it has to let the other team get its turn. As you can imagine, there are many different things that can happen when the ball is hit and when the players are running around the bases. Also, runners can “steal” a base when the pitcher is not really looking.  

        Sometimes batters “bunt” the ball on the ground right in front of the home plate and try to run to first base before the catcher can pick the ball up and throw it to the first base player. Sometimes the ball goes past the catcher and if there are players on the bases they can run to the next base, or even further if possible. Things get crazy when the ball is hit or being thrown around the bases. Sometimes the hit ball bounces off the fence and the defensive players have to chase it around. Sometimes a base runner will try to “steal” to the next base when the pitcher is in the act of throwing. If the pitcher throws four “balls”, that is misses the required space when pitching, the batter gets a “walk” and goes to first base. If a pitcher hits the batter with the ball the batter gets to go to first base.           

     From time to time the rules are changed to make the game more interesting or to make it move along faster. These days pitchers only have 15 seconds to throw the ball to the batter. And there are penalties for taking too much time or doing something that interferes with the game. Sometimes too, there are differences of opinion about what just happened and then the Umpires and team managers get together to try to straighten things out. Managers also sometimes argue with the Umpires about their decisions, and this sometimes starts a serious argument. The biggest event is a “grand slam home run” when a batter hits the ball over the fence and the bases are loaded with runners in each base. That counts as four runs.  Oh wait, there’s even a bigger event, “inside the park home run.” In this case, the ball does not go over the fence and the batter runs all the way home.

            Very interesting thing about baseball rules is that they have hardly ever really changed. For instance, after a batter hits two balls foul, which counts as two “strikes”, he can continue to hit foul balls until he gets a hit, a “walk” or strikes out. Sometimes this takes a long time. Most of these rules have been in place in baseball for well over 150 years with almost no changes. One thing that has never changed is that when a player hits a home run, he gets to go around the bases at his own speed and wave at the fans, etc. It’s a tight, slow game with a lot of patterns and traditions, but there is something about its pace and style that still appeals to its fans, which today number in the zillions.