Things You'll Need:
- Television
- Time on your hands
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Step 1
Understand that the goal of the game is to score points (runs) by advancing players around three bases and back to home plate. The opposing team tries to prevent runs by getting the offensive team's players "out."
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Step 2
Learn the nine positions on each team. There are five infielders: the pitcher, catcher, first baseman, second baseman, third baseman and shortstop. There are three outfielders: left fielder, center fielder and right fielder. The positions only come into play on defense. Unlike most other team sports, a team cannot score while playing defense.
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Step 3
Learn about pitching. Every play starts with a pitcher throwing the ball towards home plate, where a batter from the opposing team stands with a bat. The pitcher tries to make the batter swing the bat at the ball and miss, also known as a "strike." Another way to get a strike is to throw the ball into the "strike zone," an area directly over home plate between the batter's chest and knees that is deemed hittable, without the batter swinging. A ball that is hit into "foul" territory is also considered a strike. If the pitcher gets three strikes on a batter, the batter is out by way of a "strikeout," except that a foul cannot be considered as a third strike.
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Step 4
Learn about defense. Once the ball is hit, the defense aims to get a batter out by one of three ways: catching a ball that's been hit into the air before it touches the ground, tagging the base runner when he's not on a base or if the base runner is forced to run to a particular base, touching that base while holding the ball.
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Step 5
Learn about offense. The batter aims to get on base by hitting the ball to a space on the field of play ("fair ground") where it cannot be caught before it hits the ground. This is known as a "hit." He can also get on base if the pitcher throws four pitches outside of the strike zone, which are known as "balls," resulting in a "walk." The batter can either swing the bat to hit the ball or simply hold the bat horizontally and let the ball hit it, a tricky maneuver known as a "bunt." If the batter gets a hit that results in him reaching first base, it is a "single," while second base is a "double," third is a "triple," and if the batter is able to reach home on the hit (usually from hitting the ball over the fence in the outfield), it's a "home run."
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Step 6
Learn about base running. There can never be more than one offensive player on base at a time, so when a base runner is on a base that his teammate is running towards, he must run to the next base. Base runners cannot pass one another. Once a runner is on base, he can also "steal" the next base as the pitcher throws to the next player to come to bat.
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Step 7
Learn about errors. If an infielder or an outfielder mishandles a ball and allows a batter to get on base or allows a runner to advance to another base, this is considered an "error." If a pitcher hits a batter with the ball, this isn't an error, but the batter is allowed to go to first base.
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Step 8
Learn about innings. The teams take turns batting, and once each team has come to bat and made three outs, that is considered one "inning." There are nine innings to a baseball game.
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Step 9
Learn how to score. Each time a player crosses home plate, the team get a run. A typical baseball scoreboard shows the number of runs, hits and errors for each team. Thus, "4 9 1" would equate to four runs, nine hits and one error.
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Step 10
Learn about statistics. For batters, key statistics include batting average (the percentage of times that he gets a hit when at bat, expressed in three decimal points, such as .278), number of home runs and number of runs batted in (RBIs, or the number of runs that he directly causes to score as the result of hitting the ball). For pitchers, key statistics include strikeouts, wins (the number of games that the team wins in which he pitched as they took the final lead) and earned run average (the average number of runs per nine innings that the pitcher allows and that aren't due to errors).
