This turned out to be a lot longer than I expected, but I think it is complete. There are a few trivialities that I omitted, but none of them are important. Baseball is played between two teams of nine players. The teams take turns on offense and defense. All the defensive players are on the field at once; the offensive players take the field one at a time, in turn. The most important part of the field is home plate, which is a white rubber pentagon seventeen inches wide. The point of the pentagon is at the corner of a ninety-foot square. The other three corners of the square, in counterclockwise order from home plate, are called first base, second base, and third base. Three canvas bags twelve inches square mark the three bases. The lines from home plate to first and third bases are prolonged infinitely and are called the `foul lines'. The quarter of the universe between the foul lines is `fair territory'; the other three-quarters of the universe is `foul territory'. The area in the vicinity of the square formed by the bases is called the `infield'; fair territory outside the infield is the `outfield'. At the outer edge of the outfield is a fence, usually 350 to 400 feet from home plate. In the middle of the square is a low mound called the `pitcher's mound'. There is a rubber plate, six inches wide and two feet long, on the mound, exactly sixty feet six inches from the point of home plate. This is the pitcher's rubber. The defending team has a catcher, who squats behind home plate, and a pitcher, who stands on the mound. They also have three outfielders, who stand in the outfield, and four infielders, who hang around at the edge of the infield. The pitcher tries to throw the ball over the plate to the catcher. He must keep one foot in contact with the rubber during the entire pitch, so he cannot take more than one step forward in delivering the ball. Nevertheless, he throws the ball about ninety miles an hour. Next to the plate stands the offensive team's representative, the batter. As the ball passes by him over the plate, he tries to hit it with his bat. If he hits the ball, he becomes a runner and must run to first base. After touching first base, he may run to second base, third base, and back to home plate. When he touches home plate again after rounding the infield, his team scores a run. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins. If one of the fielders tags the runner with the ball, the runner is put out. He must leave the field immediately. But the runner is safe from being put out when he is touching one of the bases. Since it's very unlikely that he will be able to circle all three bases and return to home plate before the fielders retrieve the batted ball and tag him with it, he will usually stop at one of the bases. A new offensive player then becomes batter. The runner on base may run at almost any time, but in practice the defense almost always has possession of the ball, and if he tries to run to the next base, they will tag him out before he gets to the next base. The most usual exception is when the batter has just batted the ball into the outfield. Another exception is when the catcher fails to catch the pitched ball and it goes rolling away somewhere; this is called a `wild pitch' or a `passed ball'. The runners all run like crazy when this happens and usually advance to the next base. Major-league catchers get paid a lot of money, so it doesn't happen too often. After three offensive players are put out, the offesnive and defensive teams switch places. The team that was the offensive team takes the field, and the fielders go sit in a dugout and come out to bat one at a time. After each team has had one turn in the field, the `inning' is over. The home team always takes the field first, in the `top half' of each inning. The home team comes to bat in the bottom half of each inning. This is so that if they are behind in the last inning they can rally in the bottom half of the inning and win the game at the last moment. It would be no good at all if the visiting team could do that, and in baseball the home team always gets the last chance to score. That is one of the good points of baseball. The game is nine innings long. The team with the most runs at the end of nine innings wins. If the home team is ahead after eight and a half innings, the game ends immediately because it would be boring to have them come to bat in the bottom of the ninth inning when they are already ahead. If the game is tied after nine innings, it continues until one team is ahead at the end of a complete inning. It's very rare, but not unheard-of, for games to last twenty innings. Games of ten to twelve innings are common. The pitcher is required to pitch the ball so that it passes over home plate between the batter's knees and his armpits. If he does this, and the batter doesn't swing, the batter is charged with a `strike'. If the batter swings at the ball and misses he is also charged with a strike. On the third strike he is declared out just as if he had been tagged with the ball. Is the pitch is not over the plate, or is above the armpits or below the knees, or if it bounces on the way to the plate, and the batter doesn't swing, he is awarded a `ball'. On the fourth ball the batter may advance to first base without liability to be put out. This is called a `walk' or a `base on balls'. At most one runner may be on each base, so if there is already a runner on first base when the batter walks, the runner is forced to advance to second base, and soforth. It is unusual, but not rare, for a run to score this way, because the batter has walked with all three bases full. If the pitcher hits the batter with a pitched ball, the batter may advance to first base as if he has been given a walk. A pitcher who hits two batters is likely to be ejected from the game by the umpire. The last batter to be killed by a pitched ball was Ray Chapman in 1920. In the 1950's Tony Conigliaro was seriously injured when he was hit in the head with a pitch; since then batters have been required to wear helmets. If the batter hits the ball into foul territory, he is not allowed to run to first base. He is charged with a strike, unless he has two strikes already. You can't strike out on a foul hit. Balls batted out of the field over the fence in fair territory are home runs. The batter and all the runners advance to home plate without liability to be put out, and score one run each for their team. Another way to put out a batter is to catch the batted ball `on the fly', which means to catch it before it touches the ground. A fly ball can be caught in fair or foul territory. On a caught fly ball, the runners are *not* allowed to advance. They must return to their bases immediately. Once they've done this, however, they are free to run again, and if the ball was caught in the far outfield, they might make it to the next base before the fielders can get the ball back into the infield. This is called a `sacrifice fly'. Sometimes a runner is on third base and a fly ball is hit almost to the fence. The fielder is obviously going to catch it on the fly, so the runner on third base returns early, and then watches carefully and runs as soon as the ball is caught and scores a run because the fielders can't get the ball to home plate in time to tag him out. Another common situation is that the runner will take a lead off his base, moving fifteen feet or so towards the next base. He is liable to be put out if someone tags him with the ball, but the defenders are busy pitching and they know they can't get the ball to where he is before he gets back to the base, so they don't bother; they just let him take his head start. The batter hits a line drive, which is a batted ball that goes in a nearly horizontal line, and the runner runs toward the next base. If the line drive ball bounced on the ground before being caught by a fielder, all the runners would be safe. But then the runner gets a surprise and a fielder catches the ball on the fly. The batter is out, and the runners are required to return to their bases. If the fielder can get the ball back to the base before the runner gets there, the runner is out also. The batter and the runner are both put out on one play, so this is called `double play'. A runner can also be put out by a `force play'. A runner is forced to advance when another runner is running towards the base he is on. For example, if there is a runner on first base and the batter hits the ball, the batter is now running to first base. The runner already on first base is forced to vacate because no base may be occupied by two runners at once. He must run to second base. A runner who is forced to advance need not be tagged with the ball to be put out. Instead, the fielder need only tag the _base_ to put out the approaching runner. This is much easier than tagging the runner himself. Here's an example: O2 is a runner on first base. The batter, O1, hits the ball towards second base. O1 starts running to first base. O2 starts running to second base. A fielder, F2, near second base picks up the ball and touches second base while holding the ball. This is a force play on O2, who is put out. F2 throws the ball to another fielder, F1, near first base. F1 touches first base before O1 arrives. This is a force play on O1 who is also put out. (The batter is always considered to be forced to advance because he is not allowed to return to home plate.) Two outs are recorded one one play, so this is also a double play. Here's a more interesting example. It starts as before: O2 is on first base and O1 is batting. F2 is near second base and F1 is near first base. O1 hits the ball towards F1 this time. F1 picks up the ball. What does he do? He could touch first base, putting out O1 immediately on the force. But this would remove the force on O2, because without O1 behind him O2 is allowed to return to first base and is not forced to advance. With no force, the only way to put out O2 would be to touch him with the ball, which is difficult---runners slide into second base feet first with their spikes out. So instead of putting out O1 immediately, F1 throws the ball to F2, who forces out O2 and throws back to F1 to force out O1. This works because O1 usually takes a fairly long time to get to first base---it takes him some time to get up to speed after leaving home plate. Each team is allowed to substitute any player at any time, but no player, once removed from the game, can return. It is very common for pitchers to pitch in the first six or seven innings and then be removed in favor of a relief pitcher or a succession of relief pitchers. Pitchers don't usually hit well, so it is common for a pitcher to be removed when his team is at bat, in favor of a `pinch hitter' who hits for him just in that one inning, and who is replaced with a relief pitcher when it is his team's turn to pitch again. The batting order is set at the beginning of the game and may not be changed. The players always bat in order, and when the ninth player has batted, the first takes his turn again. If one player is substituted for another, the substituted player takes the turn of the player he replaced. The pitcher almost always bats ninth because he is the worst hitter. The team manager has a roster of twenty-five players from which he is allowed to make substitutions. This usually includes eleven pitchers, two or three catchers, four or five outfielders, six or seven infielders, and a utility player or two. The three outfielders are called the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. The left and right fielders are usually good hitters, but center field is much more of a defensive position. The center fielder has more territory to cover than the other two outfielders, and also has to back up the other two. So he must be very fast and agile, and have a strong arm to throw balls in to the infield, so he usually doesn't hit as well as the other two outfielders. The four infielders are the first, second, and third basemen, and the shortstop. The first, second, and third basemen usually play near the three bases, and the shortstop usually plays between second and third base. Most batters are right-handed, and tend to hit the ball to the left part of the field, so you need a shortstop to fill in the gap between second and third bases. The shortstop must be versatile. He also plays short left field, and also covers second and third bases when the second or third basemen are away on other business. He frequently retrieves ground balls hit to the left side of the infield and throws quickly to second base to start double plays. After the pitcher, he is usually the poorest hitter on the team. For similar reasons, the second baseman is also usually a relatively poor hitter. The team's stongest hitter is often the first baseman. The first baseman's job consists mostly of standing with his foot on first base, waiting to receive the batted balls that the other infielders throw to him so that he can force out the batter-runner. The third baseman's primary requirement is a very strong right arm so that he can throw the ball all the way across the infield to the first baseman. There are no left-handed third basemen. There are two major leagues, the National and the American. Until a couple of years ago teams in one league never played teams in the other until the World Series, in which the champions of the two leagues played against each other. Lately teams play some games against the other league. In the American League, they have a `designated hitter' who bats instead of the pitcher. Baseball fans like to have boring arguments about whether this is a good thing or not. The best baseball player ever was Babe Ruth. Everyone knows this, even people who are trying to prove some point or other by claiming that someone else was better. Ruth played in the late 1910's and 1920's. At first he was an excellent pitcher and played for the Boston Red Sox, but they sold him to the New York Yankees and have been pissing and moaning about it ever since. The Yankees discovered that Ruth could hit even better than he could pitch and moved him to right field. Ruth discovered that he could hit thirty home runs in one year, which was completely unheard-of at the time. Nobody had thought of trying to hit home runs, and they hadn't realized yet that it was an effective way to win. The following year Ruth hit fifty-nine home runs and baseball has not been the same since. Players to watch now: Alex Rodriguez of the Seattle Mariners may very well turn out to be the best shortstop in history. Greg Maddux of the Atlanta Braves is one of the best right-handed pitchers of the century. Cal Ripken, a great shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles, recently broke the record for the greatest number of consecutive games played. Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals and Samy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs both just broke the 38-year-old record for most home runs in one season; Sosa is leading the major leagues in home runs again this year.