Explaining Balls & Strikes in Baseball

Video Transcript

"In this clip, it's pretty simple, balls and strikes, going to talk about it. How does a man, how does a player get to first base? And who's trying to prevent him from getting to first base? And that would be the pitcher. That is the guy who stands in the middle of the diamond, on the mound with a little rubber slash that you actually, that's where he had, at your feet, as your pitching, that's the guy who's throwing the ball to home plate. And the objective for the pitcher is to get three strikes before the batter makes, connects with the ball, and that is called a strike out. And the anti-objective if you want to call it that, or the opposite of the objective would be to walk somebody, which is four balls. Now, a ball and a strike, it may be somewhat hard to see from the stands. But there's a box basically, that's not physical there but an umpire behind home plate will be judging where that ball crosses the plate. Now if it's too high or too low, that's going to be a ball. But usually what an umpire judges on is between the knees and the letters on the jersey. And that usually is where your, the box is, it's what they call the box. And also in terms of the width of the plate, that is the strike zone. And the pitchers objective is to get it within that strike zone in a way that the player can not hit it. A lot of times, or in a way that they won't be able to hit it hard, pitchers can struggle with command and you will see a lot of walks in the game, and there's times when you'll see a lot of strike outs in the game. But again the objective is just to get it within the box, letters high, down to the knees, up down from the plate, and to get three of those is a strike out. Four, and four outside that zone is a walk. With a walk, the player automatically gets first base and let's say four walks happen in a row, that means the guy would advance from first, second, third, and then they would come home and score a run. So again, strikes, three of them you need for an out, walk, four of them you need to get to first base."