How to Play Baseball

Baseball is a game played between two teams with 9 players each. There are four bases in the field and mostly four umpires supervise the major league games. Each team player needs to hit the ball with a bat to score points. Learn more about how to play the baseball:

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Steps to know the baseball field

1. Know that the baseball field consists of four bases starting anti-clockwise from the starting base. The starting base is called home plate. First, second and third bases have an area of 15 square inches each.

2. Note that the home plate consists of five sides.

3. Understand that the four bases form a ‘Diamond’. The length of the sides of the square forming this Diamond is 90 feet.

4. Remember that the baseball field consists of infield and outfield. The four bases lie in infield. The outfield is between the first and third bases past the four bases. The first and third bases lie on the foul lines which lie in outfield.

Steps to know position of the players

5. Know that the players both from the batting and the pitching team are assigned particular positions. The pitcher stands on the mound, the catcher stands behind the batter, four infielders stand on the edge of the infield and three fielders stand in the outfield.

6. Note that only one person from the batting team is allowed to bat. The batter starts hitting from the home plate. The other players from the batting team stand on the three bases. They are known as base runners until they reach home plate.

Steps to Play Baseball

7. Know that baseball is played in nine innings. In each inning, one team has a turn to bat and the other team pitches. The batting team tries to hit the ball and score runs. On the other hand, the pitching team tries to make the batting team miss the balls and get the players out.

8. Remember that if three players of the batting team are out, the positions of the teams will interchange, the pitching team will start batting and the batting team will start pitching.

9. Know that winner will be the team which after the nine innings makes the maximum runs. If both the teams have same runs after 9 innings, they need to play more innings until one team wins.

10. Know that in the beginning, the pitching is done by the home team and batting by the visiting team.

11. Remember that good pitching is very important. The pitcher should throw the ball towards the home plate carefully. The ball should be close to the batter to hit or the umpire may call it a ‘ball’. The batter can move to the first base if four ‘balls’ are called.

12. Know that the batter should try to hit more balls with his bat to score runs. If he doesn’t hit the ball, it is called ‘Strike’ by the umpire.

13. Note that the ‘catcher’ standing behind the batter aims to catch the balls that are not hit by the batter. The catcher and the pitcher are always in contact through body language.

Steps to make runs

14. Note that to get runs; the batter must try to hit all balls thrown by the pitcher. He must bat and then run to touch all the bases from first to the fourth.

15. Know that the batter must try to get all the other players of his team to home plate. Else, he can run all the bases himself. After a batter runs all previous bases and touches the home plate, his team gets a home run. When the batter secures a home run, the batter and all the other runners can touch all the bases and score runs.

16. Remember that the batter should always try to hit the ball between the foul lines. Doing this will prevent the pitcher from making anyone of the batting team out. However, if the batter hits the ball out of the foul line, the umpire will call it a ‘Foul ball’.

17. Note that the pitcher should try the batter not to hit the ball. Pitchers can also get runners out. If they touch the batter with the ball before he reaches the first base, the batter gets out.

Tips & Warnings

• In the batting team, the players are sent to the home plate in an order called line-up that cannot be changed. However, another person who is not in the line-up can replace a player.
• The number of umpires may be increased to six for some games.
• For practical view, join a local baseball club or a professional trainer.

Who Can Help:

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[baseballgirl102]

on 6/22/2009 This is a great article! Thank you. I have a son who plays baseball for a little over three years now and I am always excited to learn new things. A website that I found particularly helpful was WWW.BIGDOGBATS.COM. They have a great site with a very easy to use sizing chart that has taken my boy through 3 years of playing. Not only is this site easy to use and order from but he even gets a free t-shirt!!  Anyway hope this was helpful