The end of March signifies the beginning of the baseball season, at both the professional and collegiate levels. Spring Training for MLB has wrapped up and Dollar Dog nights at Medlar Field have made their grand return.
Football games rule the fall semester and Hockey Valley prevailed this winter in the women’s Frozen Four tournament, but now that spring has arrived, it’s finally baseball’s time to shine. For all the girls that get a little lost when it comes to the game’s rules and inner workings, here’s a guide to some of the basic, need-to-know terms and rules.
In the whole game, there are nine innings, meaning each team has nine chances score at-bat and nine chances to stop the opposing team from scoring. Unlike sports like hockey, soccer and football, there is no clock in baseball, and the game is played for as long as it takes to get through all nine innings.
If there is a tie at the end of the ninth inning, the game goes into extra innings until there is a winner at the end of an inning.
Each inning beginnings with the visiting team at-bat and the home team playing in the field, trying to get three batters out. The “top” of the inning refers to the first half of the inning, when the visiting team is batting, while the “bottom” of the inning refers to the second half of the inning, when the home team is batting.
To score a run, the batting team must get a batter around all four bases and back to home plate. However, if three batters get out, either by not making it to the next base on time or getting tagged by a player wielding the ball, the at-bat team’s turn ends and switches places with the other team. Once both teams finish their turn at-bat, the inning ends and a new one begins.
Each play begins when the pitcher throws the ball to the batter, which will result in either a hit, a ball or a strike. The umpire behind home plate calls whether the pitch was a strike or a ball, according to an imgainary rectangle called the strike zone, based on how easy the pitch was to hit.
A strike occurs when either the batter swings and misses or doesn’t swing on a pitch inside the strike zone. A ball occurs when the pitcher throws a pitch outside the strike zone, or the batter either hits the ball out-of-bounds to either the left or right.
The long lines that extend from either side of home plate to the end of the outfield on both the left and right are called the “foul lines”. If the ball is hit out-of-bounds past these lines, it’s called a foul ball and counted as a strike. However, only the first two foul balls can be counted as strikes.
If a player gets three strikes, they’re out, hence the popular saying. If a player gets four balls, they get a “walk,” meaning they get to automatically move to first base. Once a batter is on base, they’re considered a runner, and their goal is to advance through the bases back to home plate and score a run without getting out.
A runner can advance through the bases whenever he can get to the next one without getting out, even in between plays, which is called “stealing” a base. To be on base, a runner must be touching the base with some part of their body for them to be safe.
The team on the field can get a batter out by either strikeout or catching a “fly ball,” meaning the ball is caught in the air after a hit before it touches the ground. The batting team continues to bat until they have three players get out, and then they switch to the field.
As for positions, it can get confusing easily, but it’s fairly simple. At any point, there are always going to be nine players playing the field while the other team is at-bat. These players are the pitcher, catcher, first baseman, second baseman, shortstop, third baseman, left fielder, center fielder and right fielder.
The pitcher is the player that throws the ball to the batter to start every play. The catcher is the player squatting behind home plate, catching all of the pitched balls that are not hit.
In the infield, meaning on the dirt diamond, are all of the basemen and the shortstop. All of the basemen are responsible for protecting their own base and trying to get runners out. The shortstop is like a basemen, but he stands between second and third base and helps any of the other basemen out.
The outfielders, meaning the players standing far away towards the back of the field, are the left fielder, center fielder and right fielder. These players are responsible for chasing hit balls and throwing them back to the infield to get runners out.
In addition, a long-standing tradition and one of my favorite parts of the game, is singing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch, the short period in between the top and bottom of the seventh inning.
While this seems like a lot of information, the best way to learn the sport is to go watch a game. Either on ESPN or in-person at Medlar Field, attending a baseball game is hands-down one of my favorite pasttimes.
Hopefully this guide has helped you understand the game better, and has you ready to go cheer for your favorite team!