Hey collegiettes! With the World Series right around the corner, HCXU has your lesson in Baseball 101.
Baseball is typically a slower paced sport that consists of nine innings, a top of the inning and a bottom, which both include three outs each. The team that scores the most runs wins (a run is scored when one the players advances around the three bases, counter clock wise, and returns to home plate where they began).
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization that consists of 30 teams that are spilt into the American and National Leagues.
(Fun fact: The first professional team founded here in Cincinnati!)
During the regular season each team typically plays 162 games beginning on the first Sunday of April, also known as Opening Day, and ends on the first Sunday of October. This breaks down to about 27 games per month!
At the end of the regular season, 10 teams then enter the playoffs. There are six division champions (the teams with the best regular season records) and four wild cards (teams with the next best records in leagues but aren’t division champs).
The wild card game is a one-game playoff between the two wild-card teams in each of the leagues. The two winners then enter the American and National League Division Series (best of 5 games) along with the other six division champs.
The four winners from that go out to the American and National League Championship Series (best of 7 games).
Finally the last to winners meet for the World Series. This year it’s between Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets. The series is best of 7 (first to win 4 games). The two teams could possibly play up to 7 games in just 9 days! That’s a lot of baseball after having played at least 180 games by this point. The game schedule will start with two in Kanas City (Tuesday, Wednesday), three in New York City (Friday, Saturday, Sunday). Then, if need, back to Kansas for the final two games (Tuesday, Wednesday).
This home field advantage is determined at the MLB All-Star game. Whichever team wins gains home field advantage for the World Series. This past year the All-Star game was played in Cincinnati, and the American League won giving the Royals home field advantage.
This is the Mets first World Series appearance since 2000. The Royals are looking to win the title after losing the World Series last year to the Giants.
Check out the games all week long on Fox!